on Clint Eastwood] “Off screen Clint is articulate and intelligent, not quiet or laconic like the cowboys and GIs he plays in films.”
[When he was battling prostate cancer]: “The challenge is to live long enough to raise my children.”
[on being offered the role of “Kojak”]: “I’ll do “The Marcus-Nelson Murders”, but I don’t want to do a series. How can I do the one role? I mean, I have to verify my life. My life is a variety, I can’t be stuck with one character. It won’t sell.”
“Even with the crazies I’ve played I’ve tried to give some dimension to their insanity.”
“I was born with a romantic nature and I’ll carry it to my grave.”
“I don’t play that far away from myself because then I think people would say I was acting.”
“Kojak is the kind of guy who couldn’t arrest a hooker, he’d send her home. He operates on instinct and decency, but if you give him any lip he’ll throw you out a window.”
“I made 60 movies before ‘Kojak’ with some of the biggest names in the business, and people would still say, ‘There goes what’s-his-name.”