20 ordspråk av Donald O'Connor
Donald O'Connor
Doing those costume pictures was wonderful.
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Going up the walls doing somersaults, that trick took a couple of days.
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I can picture things, like a painter would, though I'm not good at painting, either.
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I didn't smoke. I didn't smoke then, and I don't smoke now. We worked every day - that keeps you in pretty good shape. We could go for a long time in one take. You had to be in good shape with Gene Kelly.
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I grew up in vaudeville. All the hoofers used to get together in a drugstore down the street from the theater, or what-have-you, and if they knew a new step they would teach it to you. I learned hoofing steps that way. But going into ballet didn't come until I made those pictures with Kelly.
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I like it live. I think the numbers are live in the movie. If they replaced any, it would have been due to extreme set noise.
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I think you should make more movies, more musicals. I think the public deserves that. I think this country deserves to be able to get out and foster that talent. Give them an opportunity to become stars. I think the whole idea is wonderful.
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I worked with Eddie Cantor, Ed Wynn - one of the greatest comedians and actors that ever lived - and Jimmy Durante. You can't ask for better than that. And it was great format. We had three and a half weeks to work on a show. It was a family-style thing. We used to walk on when someone was doing a handstand, crazy; we'd break them up. And it was great because it was live. They couldn't cut out the mistakes. And that's what audiences love.
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I'm basically a hoofer, a tap dancer. I was always very good from the waist down, moving with the feet... I became what's known as a total dancer, using the entire body in order to express what you want to express in tap dancing and line.
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I'm not a good choreographer: I can't remember what I put down.
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It's so wonderful... if your whole day is rotten, once they start the music, it seems to melt away.
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My brothers and my mother were all dancers, outside of whatever else they did, like acrobatics, high-wire, trapeze. I was born in a circus.
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Pratfalls are always funny. A performer has to answer to himself. If you think something's funny, you've got to go out there and try. It's only by trial and error that you find out.
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Remember, if you do the same act for 20, 30 years it gets a little boring unless you've got something else going for you... And the orchestra really kept you going. They'd laugh at all your jokes, even if they'd been hearing them for the last 30 years.
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They put me in a harness, like a horse, to learn the back somersault. It was weird up there when I put on that harness for the first time. The courage came with practice.
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