- [To writer Virginia Van Upp] Every man I have ever known has fallen in love with Gilda and awakened with me.
- I haven't had everything from life. I've had too much.
- [when asked what had held up her dress in Gilda (1946)] Two things.
- I never really thought of myself as a sex goddess; I felt I was more a comedian who could dance.
- [1974, when asked what she thought when she looks at herself after waking up in the morning] Darling, I don't wake up 'til the afternoon.
- What surprises me in life are not the marriages that fail, but the marriages that succeed.
- I think all women have a certain elegance about them which is destroyed when they take off their clothes.
- The fun of acting is to become someone else.
- Basically, I am a good, gentle person, but I'm attracted to mean personalities.
- No one can be Gilda 24 hours a day.
- We are all tied to our destiny and there is no way we can liberate ourselves.
- After all, a girl is . . . well, a girl. It's nice to be told you're successful at it.
- Increasingly, stars are recruited from the ranks of professional models, with the result that today's starlets are better dressed and better groomed than ever before, though it is doubtful if they are better actresses.
- [early in her career about husband Eddie Judson] I owe everything to Ed. I could never have made the grade in Hollywood without him. I was just too backward. My whole career was his idea.
- [on why she divorced Orson Welles] I can't take his genius any more.
- I wanted to study singing, but Harry Cohn kept saying, "Who needs it?" and the studio wouldn't pay for it. They had me so intimidated that I couldn't have done it anyway. They always said, "Oh, no, we can't let you do it. There's no time for that; it has to be done right now!" I was under contract, and that was it.
- I rode on horseback, though I was terrified of them. That was when I was doing westerns. They were something else again. And I did them because that was work, that was my job. So I don't start from the top.
- I was certainly a well-trained dancer. I'm a good actress: I have depth. I have feeling. But they don't care. All they want is the image.
- Who wouldn't prefer having breakfast in bed to getting up at the crack of dawn and having a cup of coffee in a studio makeup department?
- I was never sick during The Lady from Shanghai (1947). Poor Orsie [Orson Welles] was the one who was sick; Harry Cohn made him sick.
- I couldn't get used to the New York weather. On one occasion I was laid up for a week because I caught a severe cold rushing from the dance studio, still soaked with perspiration, back to the hotel for voice lessons.
- I didn't like dancing very much, but I didn't have the courage to tell my father, so I began taking the lessons. Rehearse, rehearse, rehearse. That was my girlhood.
- Orson Welles was trying something new with me on The Lady from Shanghai (1947) but Harry Cohn wanted The Image--The Image he was going to make me until I was 90.
- All the action in the screenplay for Separate Tables (1958) took place in a seaside hotel in England, which was a mecca for tourists in the summer and a haven for the desperate and lonely in the winter.
- [on her marriage to Edward Judson] I married him for love; he married me for an investment. My husband was always finding fault with me. He was extremely jealous and quarrelsome. I never had any fun. I was never permitted to make any decisions. From the first he told me I couldn't do anything for myself. My personality crawled deeper and deeper into a shell.
- Sensitive, shy-- of course I was. The fun of acting is to become someone else.
- I've always been so bored with the empty stuff I've had to play. But I've always been happiest when I've had a definite character slant to a role.
- [on her marriage to James Hill] He would come in the door, go straight to his room and wouldn't even talk to me all night. He said I was not a nice woman in too loud a voice.
- [on her divorce from Dick Haymes] I stood by him as long as he was in trouble, but I can't take it any more.
- I've had a lot of unhappiness in my life--and a lot of happiness. Who doesn't? Maybe I've learned enough to be able to guide my daughters.
- When I look back on my marriages, or the breakups, sure I know the pain I went through, but that's part of life and it has its own value.
- Old age--that's when a woman takes vitamins A through G, and still looks like H.
- Whatever you write about me, don't make it sad.
- I like having my picture taken and being a glamorous person. Sometimes when I find myself getting impatient, I just remember the times I cried my eyes out because nobody wanted to take my picture at the Trocadero.
- I guess the only jewels of my life were the pictures I made with Fred Astaire.
- When you're in love, you are living, you matter.
- Every actor. every director, everybody needs an Oscar. You have to have that little statue in Hollywood or else you are nothing.
- From the time I was three and a half . . . as soon as I could stand on my own feet, I was given dance lessons.
- I always thought that if I ever got good reviews I'd be happy. It's so empty. It's never what I wanted, ever. All I wanted was just what everyone else wants--to be loved.
- Just because I was married to Aly Khan, people think I'm rich. Well, I'm not. I never got a dime from Aly or from any of my husbands.
- Dancing in Tijuana when I was 13--that was my "summer camp". How else do you think I could keep up with Fred Astaire when I was 19?
- Movies were much better in the days I was doing them.
- Old age - that's when a woman takes Vitamins A through G, and still looks like H.
- From the time I was 12 I was dancing for bread and butter, but in my heart I was always an actress.
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