I know, for me, 'Grease' was one of the first musicals that I can really remember watching as a kid, and I kind of fell in love that that genre.

Most singers have their idols. I remember Elvis Presley when I was a kid. When I was about sixteen, I always said I wanted to do 'Love Me Tender.'

I hated to read. My mother could not get me to read. I'm going through the same thing with my daughter now. I love to read now, but I don't remember reading.

My very beloved and deceased third-grade teacher, Cliff Kehod, was the one that I really remember calling me Ike a lot. It just stuck. It is a dog's name, but I love dogs.

I remember when I was a little boy my father didn't love me; he couldn't. He loved my older brother but he couldn't love me somehow, at least not in a way I could understand it.

I got my love of animals from the Dr. Doolittle books and my love of Africa from the Tarzan novels. I remember my mum taking me to the first Tarzan film, which starred Johnny Weissmuller, and bursting into tears. It wasn't what I had imagined at all.

I remember I was unsure about doing 'Shameless.' I'd never acted in anything so commercial. I read the script in the garden with my mum, Mary. She said it's filthy dirty, but she said these people have love and sex and nothing else. That made me take the role.

I got interested in reading very early, because a story was read to me, by Hans Christian Andersen, which was 'The Little Mermaid,' and I don't know if you remember 'The Little Mermaid,' but it's dreadfully sad. The little mermaid falls in love with this prince, but she cannot marry him because she is a mermaid.

I remember, when I was a teenager, people telling me, 'You know, when you are a mother, you will never feel lonely. You will feel so much love, and you will be fulfilled by this love.' Then I became a mother. And I learnt that is absolutely wrong: you can feel very lonely with your children, even if you love them.

From my foster parents, the Deans, I received the love that was ultimately to strengthen me, even when I had forgotten its source. It was my foster mother, a half-Indian, half-German woman, who taught me to read, though she herself was barely literate. I remember her reading to me every day from 'True Romance' magazine.

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