“I'm going to tap until I can't: I'll be so old, all I can do is walk out from the wings to stage center. But I'll be there.”
“I can remember feeling very angry, and saying no! I can do it myself! From that point of view it was very emotional for me to get myself to the point to sit in the chair and be 'up'.”
“I grew up in the '50s, a tough time for African Americans. I had friends whose fathers would openly say, 'Just bite your tongu;, don't cause any problems.' My father was not like that. Even in the toughest times racially, if somebody disrespected his family, they were in trouble.”
“I wanted to make a movie, because the whole life of the movies appealed to me. You work hard for three or four months, then you don't work at all for a couple of months.”
“It turned out to be exactly that, but more challenging emotionally. I looked at it in a more physical way, having to act in a chair and move around. But it really was more emotionally challenging.”
“It would be like the films I've seen where wardens would decide to be in a jail cell for a week, to get a sense of what it would be like to be a prisoner.”
“One of the things about working on stage - actually, about working in show business, that is - is that it's such a collaborative effort. I suppose that everything in life is - every endeavor where people are able to be successful.”
“When my brother and me got into performing in the late '40s and early '50s, it was a sensational opportunity to learn from our elders. Every show we played had a dancer, a comic, a juggler, a singer, an acrobat. I came to appreciate virtuosity in all forms of the business.”
“My father has always been my hero.”
“I've had times when I've done what seems like a thousand interviews to promote a film that I'm in. I start to think that I'm the best thing that ever happened to the world, talkin' about myself for cryin' out loud. Then I come home, and my wife needs me to help with dinner and empty the garbage, and the kids need help with their homework.”