Ellen Burstyn: Alice Hyatt
Photos
Quotes
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Chicken : My name is Holliman. Chicken Holliman.
Alice : Glad to meet you.
Chicken : Well, now, would you mind turning around for me?
Alice : Turn around for you? Why?
Chicken : I want to look at you!
Alice : Well, look at my face. I don't sing with my ass.
[leaves]
Chicken : Lenny, what's with this broad?
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[last lines]
Tommy : [final lines] You really love David, don't you?
Alice : Yep, I do.
Tommy : Yeah, I like him too, I just hate his taste in music. He always said you could fight with somebody and still like him.
Alice : Hey, now you're using your old noggin! Thanks pal!
[hugs and kisses]
Alice : My boy!
Tommy : Mom, mom, I can't breathe!
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Alice : I'm waiting on tables.
Tommy : Huh?
Alice : I'm a waitress, that's what.
Tommy : Is it a nice place, anyway?
Alice : Hell, yes! Mel and Ruby's cafe? Are you kidding?
Tommy : It doesn't sound so bad.
Alice : There's just Mel there. Ruby's been dead for 14 years. The place killed her. It'll probably kill me, too.
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Alice : [while driving Tommy home from the police station] Ya look like you've been embalmed.
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Alice : [after Tommy was being a smart aleck] If you open your mouth, once more, I swear to God, I'm gonna nail it shut.
Tommy : [Opens his mouth]
Alice : I'm warning you, Tommy. I'm gonna throw you out, and you're gonna walk the last mile home.
[Tommy makes faces at his mother]
Alice : Get out!
[Kicks Tommy out of the car, and Alice drives away]
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Alice : Mott the Hoople AGAIN?
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Store Clerk : You're sure laying the money out for meat. Company coming?
Alice : No, my husband hates me and I'm trying to get him to chase me around the bedroom.
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Bea : I sure couldn't live without some kind of man around the house.
Alice : Oh, I could!
Bea : And neither could you.
Alice : Oh, yes, I could!
Bea : No, you couldn't.
Alice : Oh, yes, I could!
Bea : Oh, no you couldn't.
Alice : Easy. I could be just as happy if I never saw one again, ever. Of course, I don't know, it might be different if I ever, you know, if I met a man like Robert Redford. I mean, that could be different.
Bea : I'll bet it's different.
Alice : You know, he wouldn't be the kind of man that would roll over and go to sleep as soon as he's finished. And he'd be very gentle.
Bea : Listen, I wonder what kind of build he's got on him.
Alice : Did you ever see his feet?
Bea : Feet?
Alice : I heard one time that's supposed to be an indication.
[phone rings]
Alice : Excuse me.
Bea : [Thinks intently] Oh, I saw a picture. They're huge!
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Alice : I saw the "Waitress Wanted" sign. I said, "Why not?" So I took this job.
Flo : Well, let me give you a hint. Honey, unbutton that top button.
Alice : Really?
Flo : Yeah. If you bend over, you get more tips when you're working.
Alice : You're kidding me
Flo : I'm not kidding. I got $50 last week.
Alice : Really?
Flo : Yeah.
Alice : Like that?
Flo : Yeah. Honey, forget what I said. You do that and I'm never going to get a tip again.
[laughs]
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David : Your brother taught you to kiss?
Alice : I don't mean he demonstrated. He told me that the worst thing that can happen is if a boy feels like he's put his lips in a bowl of wet oatmeal.
David : At least he said "lips."
Alice : So the most important thing to remember before you kiss is to wipe your mouth real good and keep your lips together so he doesn't kiss your teeth. So, we went to see "The Postman Always Rings Twice." And there was this big close-up of - what's her name? Lana Turner and John Garfield, right? And they're just coming together. Big dramatic moment. At last, they're going to kiss. The music's playing. It's very dramatic. And just as they come together, they both open their mouths. And I thought, "My God, don't they know how to kiss? What's wrong with them?" And I turned and looked at my brother to see what he was going to say. He just sat there. He didn't move, he was just looking at screen. He didn't say anything for three weeks. And then all of a sudden one day, he says: "Well, Al, I've been thinking."
David : Al?
Alice : Yes, he always called me Al. "l think maybe you're supposed to part your lips a little bit when you kiss."
David : God bless him.
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Alice : We decided we wanted to go into show business from the movies.
David : Why did you leave?
Alice : I got married and Donald wanted to live in his hometown. I wanted to go on singing. He said, "No wife of mine is going to sing in a saloon." I said, "Yes, master." I kind of liked that.
David : You liked it?
Alice : It was like, you know, my idea of a man: strong and dominating.
[laughs]
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Alice : [after singing "Where or When"] It ain't Peggy Lee.
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Alice : I'm out there, spending too much money on clothes... trying to look like maybe I'm under 30 so somebody will hire me... and you're sitting in here, whining like an idiot. I will get a job, all right?
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Alice : Did you make that up?
Flo : No. No, no. I heard it all my life. I heard it first from my Daddy.
Alice : You're kidding me.
Flo : No, he's got some terrific sayings. He lives out on a farm, my Daddy, and he always says his name's P.P. He always says, "Don't call me P.P. 'cause I'm all urine."
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Alice : You know what I'll do when my ship comes in? I'm going to get me one of those fancy negligees and a pair of gold high-heeled slippers, with the fur pompons on them, or whatever you call them. And then I'm going to shave my legs, like all those ladies on television do.
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Tommy : The joke is *where* the dog grabs him.
Alice : Where?
Tommy : On the nuts! That's the punch line of the joke.
Alice : The dog grabs the gorilla by the nuts is the punch line?
Tommy : No, no. That's a major part of the story. You have to know that to get the punchline. Now, do you know what nuts are?
Alice : Balls.
Tommy : Right!
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Alice : Just because you have good manners doesn't mean I suddenly turn into Dale Evans!
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Alice : Socorro sucks!
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Alice : [singing] When you're awake the things you think, Come from the dreams you dream, Thought has wings, and lots of things, Are seldom what they seem, Sometimes you think you've lived before, All that you live today, Things you do come back to you, As though they knew the way, Oh the tricks your mind can play, It seems we stood and talked like this, before, We've looked at each other in the same way then, But I can't remember where or when...
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Alice : Is there anything in particular you'd like to hear? Anything special?
Jacobs : Do you know: "What's the use of getting married? It's only a waste of time, I'd rather sit upon a shelf, One makes two when you're talking to yourself, Never let a girl be master for the sake of a cuddle and a kiss, You may have lots of things you never had before, What you never had you'll never miss -"
Alice : I don't know that.
Jacobs : "So what's the use of getting married?"
Alice : I don't know that song.
Jacobs : So what'd you ask me for?
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Alice : I AM a singer.
