Quotes

I don't resent being identified with B science fiction movies at all. Why should I? Even though they were not considered top of the line, for those people that like sci-fi, I guess they were fun. My whole feeling about working as an actor is, if I give anybody any enjoyment, I'm doing my job, and that's what counts.

To me it's much easier to play in something that's real -- a natural situation -- than it is to deal with abstracts and the unknown. It's sort of difficult to make them come to life! I always had the feeling that when people looked at some of these science fiction things we were going to get a big laugh. On a couple of occasions some of the things that were supposed to frighten people really looked rather ludicrous -- funny, rather than scary. I feel it's more natural to deal in something that people understand, rather than something that human beings don't come in contact with.

[in a 1991 interview] Acting is something that I love to do, but it's a part of me that's often dormant. So, when I get an opportunity to go on a film set it's like somebody's pushing a button that has been idle for a long time and right away I'm ready to get going at it. It's fun for me to be able to get back into it because it's a part of my life that I've really enjoyed.

To me the idea of just working is what's fun, I don't give a doggone what kind of part. Walter Huston said it years ago: "I don't care about billing. If the show is good and I'm good in it, people are going to say, 'Who was that?' And if it's not, I don't want 'em to know I was in it!"

Who wants to shake the hand of the first man to put it to America's sweetheart?

[about La fille du Docteur Jekyll (1957)] I did that picture strictly for the bread. I didn't fluff it--but it wasn't my cup of tea. I just didn't believe it.

[about director Jack Arnold] I've always had nothing but great respect for Jack Arnold. I did La Revanche de la créature (1955) for him and then the next year we did Tarantula (1955), and we got along very well. So far as I was concerned, he was a very knowledgeable director and he gave his all trying to make 'em the best that he could.

[on the "floating brain" from Le cerveau de la planète Arous (1957)] I thought it was terrible--just awful! They really could have done a heck of a better than that--it looked like a balloon with a face painted on it. And that's probably what it was, too.

[on working with director Edward L. Cahn] Edward Cahn was Mr. Speed-O; he'd jump up and almost get in the shot before he'd yell, "Cut!".

[about the many "B" sci-fi films he made in the 1950s] I always had the kind of feeling that when people looked at some of these science-fiction things, we were going to get a big laugh.

[about working with director Larry Buchanan] Larry, God bless him, is a nice guy but he was really not a director . . . he didn't even know not to "cross the line", which is one of the simplest things there is in directing . . . The first picture I did for Larry was Zontar: The Thing from Venus (1967). Curse of the Swamp Creature (1968) came next; then we did a war film called Hell Raiders (1969). Of course I never thought those things would ever see the light of day--that was the only reason i did 'em!

A lot of the pictures I made were not released--they escaped.