- Who knew at the time? It's the same as my horror films. It's wonderful at this point in my career to realize there are pieces of work that have sustained themselves all this time. I'll run into people who say, "We watch Swamp Thing (1982) once a month!".
- [on her role in The Cannonball Run (1981)]: All the talent I needed was in my breastbone.
- [on the remake The Fog (2005)]: I have not seen it and I have no desire to see it, either.
- I'm realizing that a soap offers so many opportunities for a woman my age. At this stage in my career, the roles that are available tend to be the judge or the doctor or somebody's mother - that's what happens when you're the guest star of the week. But GH reminds me in a way of Carnivale, where we never knew what was coming next and it was always exciting and fascinating. There's a lot of meat on this soap!
- [In describing Bea Arthur as a private lady, in real-life]: She wasn't interested in the notoriety. She wasn't interested in celebrity. She was interested in making people laugh and doing good work.
- [on her role on Maude (1972)]: If the producers needed information in a scene, my character was the one to do it. What I didn't know is that when I said those things, I was usually walking down a flight of stairs and no one was even listening to me. They were just watching my breasts precede me.
- [If her own fans from Maude (1972) were everywhere]: I think General Hospital (1963) is probably reaching new people for me, plus people who grew up watching Maude. I have so many people come up to me when I'm at an autograph signing; I have a picture of Bea and Rue McClanahan from Maude. People say, "Oh, I didn't know you were on The Golden Girls (1985).".
- [on the death of Bea Arthur in 2009]: I loved her dearly, and I think she loved me.
- [on her on- and off-screen chemistry with Bea Arthur, who played Maude Findlay]: She was fantastic. She is fantastic... It was a great experience, all six years. Wonderful people to work with and something to be so incredibly proud of, which I took for granted at the time because I came from stage, so I didn't know television at all. I didn't even know what was on. I didn't know Norman Lear's reputation or anything like that. It took me awhile to realize that I had fallen into such a fantastic work situation. And most of that was because of Bea - because she's such a professional, such a great woman to work with. We had a great time.
- [Of Bea Arthur]: I don't think Bea understood just how loud her voice could be. During intermission, we met in the center aisle, right down by the stage. And she said, "Adrienne, this is the worst piece of shit I've ever seen! I'd leave, but they're all my friends!".
- [from her memoir "There Are Worst Things I Could Do" (2006)]: It's not easy, though, singing upside down in a headstand on a raised platform with your unfettered breasts hitting you in the chin. I'm a short woman with a pretty good body and large breasts - that's not what I think of as sexy.
- [on horror films]: I love doing them -- well, the suspenseful, tense, well-written ones; not the slasher, senseless violence, let's get as much blood on the screen as possible ones -- but I don't enjoy watching them. So I can't speak to what sets The Fog (1980) apart from the other films of that era, but I do think that one of the reasons The Fog (1980) is so successful is that John [John Carpenter] wrote fully realized, quirky characters that the audience cares about and identifies with. People remember Stevie Wayne. They love her voice, they love the lighthouse where she works, and they love her heroism.
- [on how the horror genre has changed over the years]: I sense, from reading scripts for roles I'm offered -- most of which are plotless and illogical and nothing more than an excuse to show blood and gore -- that the artistry that colored the genre twenty or thirty years ago has pretty much succumbed to slashers' knives. It's a different kind of horror, that's for sure.
- [on her real-life relationship with [Bea Arthur], on [Maude (1972)]]: I was doing an interview for this one-woman show that I am doing and the interviewer asked that... she asked "What do people usually ask you," and I said "They always want to know... What it was like working with Bea?" She was fantastic and you know, I realized years later, how much I took it for granted, because it was my first experience on television... I just assumed that everyone was as giving as she was, as professional a she was that everyone who was doing a TV show, showed up, knowing their lines and showed up on time and was willing to say to the writers: "I think this line was funnier if Adie had said it, or Conrad had said it or Bill had said it," I mean, she was just the best, she was the best, very funny, she was not "Maude", when she wasn't saying those lines. I don't know if I say she was quiet, she was a homebody. She had her sons, her dog and her cooking and she wasn't into the celebrity scene and she was a great lady. I loved her dearly, and we had a great cast and they were my family for six years that I loved each of them and all of them and it was the best experience anyone could have had, being introduced to television, like that!
- I never thought of myself as a sex symbol. And again, when you look at my roles, maybe the character was sexy because that's the way she looked. But that wasn't what was being portrayed. I wasn't playing those types of characters.
- [artificial vs natural beauty] Every time I see someone who's mucked up their face with fillers or Botox or surgery, I cringe. Do they really think they look better than they did when they looked real?
- [how the entertainment industry has changed] Ways too numerous to mention. Tabloid journalism leading to careers based on something other than talent. Reality television. The proliferation of cable programming. Businessmen making creative decisions. Some of it good, some not so good, but major changes nonetheless.
- [starring in the nudie 1971 musical play Stag Movie] So when Stag Movie came along, with the opportunity to sing and dance my way through 15 musical numbers, albeit several of them in the nude, I just saw it as my next job. I was more worried about how well I was singing (upside down on a raked stage at one point) than what I wasn't wearing while I was doing it.
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