Quotes by Joel Grey - Page 2

When I was eight, I went to the theatre, and I remember looking at the stage afterward and pointing and saying, 'I want to do that.' I don't think that's ever changed.
Joel Grey / Actor
Pointing
Afterwards
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Eight times a week, I got to be a gay man, a remarkable gay man, and every night, that felt as full, as true, as passionate, and as authentic as I ever felt in my life.
Joel Grey / Actor
Every Night
Remarkable
Authentic
Life Man Gay
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When you are in a good theatre show, it is a wonderful and very fulfilling experience, entertaining a large audience and their showing their appreciation for your efforts.
Joel Grey / Actor
Appreciation
Smile
Effort
Theatre
Wonderful
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I never thought I would sing or dance - ever, ever, ever. My idea was to be Laurence Olivier or Peter Lorre or some great classical actor. I thought I'd be a character actor.
Joel Grey / Actor
Dance
Character
Peter
Actor
Classical
Laurence
Sing
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I love that moment just before the curtain goes up, whether I'm sitting in the audience or standing backstage. It's full of expectation. It's a thrill that's unequaled anywhere.
Joel Grey / Actor
Audience
Sitting
Standing
Thrill
Anywhere
Backstage
Full
Curtain
Expectation
Goes
Moment
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The subject matter of the show, 'Cabaret,' was more than risky. And the emcee I would be playing didn't have a single line of dialogue. Still, it was full of possibilities, and it was mine.
Joel Grey / Actor
Cabaret
Dialogue
Emcee
Matter
Single
Subject Matter
Show
Full
Line
Mine
Possibilities
Risky
Subject
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My dad would take me downtown, and I'd stand backstage and watch him in the vaudeville pit band. I was 6 or 7. He was a musician, a band leader, a wonderful clarinetist and saxophone player.
Joel Grey / Actor
Downtown
Saxophone
Vaudeville
Backstage
Pit
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When my father came out on stage wearing a big cowboy hat and a shirt lettered 'Bar Mitzvah Ranch' to sing 'Home on the Range' in Yiddish, it was his way of saying, 'I want to be an American.'
Joel Grey / Actor
Bar Mitzvah
Cowboy
Cowboy Hat
Mitzvah
Range
Yiddish
Bar
Hat
His Way
Ranch
Shirt
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Being at the Play House, the only way I could see my life was that I would be an actor in a company, doing a lead role one week, a small part the next. That's what I thought I was going to be.
Joel Grey / Actor
Life My Life Way
Lead Role
Small Part
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My mother named me after her favorite actor, Joel McCrea, and dressed and presented me as her avatar. I'm sure she wanted to be a performer, but when that was impossible, I was her next best shot.
Joel Grey / Actor
Avatar
Named
Dressed
Performer
Presented
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Acting always affects every part of your life because it's such a solitary, lonely, and thrilling circumstance that you're taking on someone else's character and that responsibility. It's exhausting.
Joel Grey / Actor
Exhausting
Lonely
Solitary
Thrilling
Life Always Character
Affects
Life Character Always
Circumstance
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I never think about my age very much. I've always lived my life the same way, full of excitement and anticipation of wonderful things and the knowledge that some not-so-wonderful things come with it.
Joel Grey / Actor
Anticipation
Excitement
Wonderful Things
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There's a lot going on in the world that's very disturbing: rewriting the Holocaust; pseudo-historians rewriting history itself. And we're dealing with a terrorist mentality that involves whole nations.
Joel Grey / Actor
Disturbing
Holocaust
Mentality
Nations
Rewriting
Terrorist
Dealing
Involves
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There are problems in doing television that have been plaguing me for years. I really like to have a lot of time, to rehearse and make things as good as they can be, but television often doesn't allow for that.
Joel Grey / Actor
Time Good Me
Rehearse
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I came to realize, along with being attracted to girls, I had similar feelings for boys. All the people close to me have known for years who I am. Yet it took time to embrace that other part of who I always was.
Joel Grey / Actor
Girl
Boys
Who I Am
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My father was Mickey Katz, who worked with Spike Jones and then went on to improvise some successful Yiddish parodies, some of which I perform. My favorite was 'Geshray of the Vilde Kotchke,' his version of 'Cry of the Wild Goose.'
Joel Grey / Actor
Cry
Mickey
Yiddish
Version
Perform
Wild
Goose
Improvise
Spike
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I don't like to bad-mouth other shows, but I was very disturbed after seeing 'Starlight Express.' It had very little to do with musical comedy as I know it. It had to do with sound and spectacle and records and technology and amplification.
Joel Grey / Actor
Technology
Amplification
Comedy
Disturbed
Musical
Records
Seeing
Sound
Express
Musical Comedy
Spectacle
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My daughter, Jennifer Grey, was in 'Dirty Dancing,' which was shot in the Catskill Mountains, where the great old Jewish entertainers used to appear. It was the first time she'd been to the Borscht Belt, and I don't think she's been back since.
Joel Grey / Actor
Entertainers
Grey
Jennifer
Time Great First Time
Appear
Belt
Mountains
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I was already in my early twenties, but I looked much younger because I was fresh-faced and, well, short. So I did songs such as 'Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah' and jokes such as describing current events as 'ancient history.' Boy, did the audience roar at that one.
Joel Grey / Actor
Ancient
Current Events
Describing
Twenties
Current
Roar
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I loved being in the theater. It was a place of enormous excitement and happiness and safety and respect and dignity. It was a place where, if you did your job, you weren't a kid - you were a full person worthy of respect from all the adults in the company.
Joel Grey / Actor
Dignity
Enormous
Excitement
Safety
Worthy
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My dad was a really funny, really talented guy who had a great success in a limited audience. But from him, I learned that he always felt the audience was entitled to 150 per cent. If he was performing at an event, he'd keep playing until the last person had finished dancing.
Joel Grey / Actor
Entitled
Finished
Great Success
Cent
Talented
Event
Per
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I think there is a lot of loss in being a professional child actor. All of a sudden, you start to want to be an adult at the age of 8 or 9. I never did kid stuff, so to speak, so I was in many ways ostracized by the other kids. But I did get this other life, so it was a trade-off.
Joel Grey / Actor
Loss
Life Age Start
Child Actor
Other Kids
Sudden
Trade-Off
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Looking back now, I can see that my dad was a real fighter. A lot of people thought, 'Why don't you keep the Jewish stuff quiet?' They were anti-Semitic Jews. People who were afraid. People who came here and made it and anglicized themselves and didn't want to associate with their past.
Joel Grey / Actor
Dad
Anti Semitic
Looking Back
Quiet
Stuff
Jewish
Afraid
Associate
Came
Jews
Themselves
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I saw Lee J. Cobb in 'Death of a Salesman' when I was about 15, and I couldn't get up from my seat in the theater; I was so... I was weeping, and I was upset. And I find that people are still like that in a similar circumstance in a theater today, where they just can't get up. It's too heartbreaking.
Joel Grey / Actor
Heartbreaking
Salesman
Upset
Weeping
Seat
Circumstance
Lee
Similar
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I had begun my professional career when I was 9 years old at the Cleveland Play House, and it was a very specific, real theater sort of like, you know, in England and the Berliner Ensemble - very devoted people. And I thought the theater was the greatest place I had ever been, and that's what I wanted to do.
Joel Grey / Actor
Cleveland
Devoted
Ensemble
Professional Career
People Real Know
Begun
People Know Real
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After my bar mitzvah, I started to assimilate, to really not pay attention to my roots. The anti-Semitic experiences of my youth had been very painful. You try to put all that in the past and become a person of the world. I think that's the right thing to do. But it's not right to leave out who you really are. That's a tragedy.
Joel Grey / Actor
Anti Semitic
Bar Mitzvah
Mitzvah
Pay Attention
Right Thing
Roots
Tragedy
Assimilate
Bar
The Right Thing
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Joel Grey Quotes - Page 2

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