Top 87 Quotes & Sayings by Van Heflin
Explore popular quotes and sayings by Van Heflin.
Last updated on December 22, 2024.
I try to acquire some new approach with each role in order to build up a varied acting technique.
A doctor or lawyer who has reached the top can stay there or move on to higher prestige positions. But an actor of comparable competence and success and age has little or no control over his career.
Working in Europe has been very good for me - I've become an international favorite.
Acting is a creative business.
I can't stand loafing. It's awfully hard on you.
Too many women without sufficient interest in the home to occupy their time drift into the habit of three-hour lunches with their friends, followed by fashion shows, matinees and shopping sprees.
A contract player has to do what he's told, and play the parts others pick out for him. As far as the studio is concerned he's just part of the stable.
I've been doing a lot of pictures in Europe. So many that producers here don't call me when they have a part for me - they think I'm never here any more.
The stock company, as I knew it is dead. Road companies are few and far between. Still the theater must survive.
I owe a great debt to what we call the amateur theater.
Audiences hardly recognize me from picture to picture.
I've never played the same part twice.
I went on tour in the 1952-53 season for producer Kermit Bloomgarden when he took over 'The Shrike' and sent it on the road.
As an actor, you're not working every day and sometimes not for long periods of time.
Sometimes I wish I had remained in little theater.
I have enough money for myself and my children.
I think it's a disgrace to make actors become pitchmen. You see it on 'The Beverly Hillbillies,' you see it on 'Bonanza.'
I worked with Glen Ford.
I always like to get back to the stage when I find something I want to do.
On matinee days I could never be sure I'd make the curtain for the matinee. I'd put on my makeup in the morning, rush to the studio and do the radio shows,then try to get across town before the curtain went up.
Let's face it. I'm not a personality or the handsome actor type. When you have those God-given assets, you don't have to worry if your acting leaves something to be desired. You can just play yourself on the screen and the public comes flocking to your pictures.
I've never been strong enough to stand out on my own. I've had to develop versatility to make up for my lack of an impressive stage and screen personality.
I'm a character actor, always have been.
Foreign films have helped me because I've become identified with international stars.
You have to be careful of the pictures you make. You should ask, Will it have universal appeal, will it have an appeal at home?
Housework has been reduced to a minimum. Even without servants, there is scarcely enough to do to keep women occupied eight hours a day. Moreover, girls are now trained to handle jobs in high school. They graduate from school and college prepared to take over places in the business world.
If you don't have that indefinable unique personality, you must learn as much as possible about acting in a variety of roles. That's why, at the outset of my career, I decided to learn every facet of my profession.
Believe me, you're shooting dice every time you do a part.
I'm a very practical actor, and having an artistic triumph that's a commercial flop doesn't do you any good, in any phase of show world.
The stage is where I started, and there is a tremendous satisfaction in doing a good play.
It is a terrible thing to become a legend in your own time.
In Hollywood I ask Peter Lawford to help me shop.
Someday, I expect to see a television version of 'Hamlet' and see Hamlet come on during the intermission and hold up his sword and say 'This is made of the same fine steel as such-and-such razor blades.'
When I was in 'Philadelphia Story' I got Joe Cotten to pick out my clothes. He loves clothes and he knows them; never gets the wrong tie and shirt combination.
I'm not clothes-conscious.
Yellow fin or albacore are excellent tasting, or the dolphin fish but I don't mean the mammal variety. They call It mahimahi in Hawaii.
There are always fresh problems for an actor to solve.
I'm not good-looking enough, and I don't have the personality it takes to play myself like the big box-office stars.
My predecessors in this business of acting were fully convinced their work would never be recorded, except in the form of reviews or paintings.
When TV came along some years back I purposely stayed away from drama.
I can sit on a boat or a river bank and problems that seemed insurmountable just don't seem that important anymore.
I spent six years before the mast on all types of merchant ships, and naturally I feel well qualified for seafaring roles.
If I pull in a fish I have no intention of eating, I release him immediately or give it away. If he's swallowed the hook and you know the fish is going to die, rather than leave him to the sharks you should bring him in for the vitamin content. Aquariums welcome fish for feeding the dolphins and whales.
How much better company is offered by the working wife who out of sheer necessity must keep on her toes mentally and physically.
I don't think it's fair to a family to uproot them simply because it's profitable for you to do so.
A lot of Europeans have done this, worked with American stars, and become identified over here.
Being under contract gives you financial and emotional security. But you lose the sense of accomplishment that goes hand in hand with being a free agent.
When I was a very young actor, I made a wise move. I invested in the stock market.
A director in films is closer allied to the writer than anyone else.
I'm absolutely an amoeba. It's my survival value.
I believe all conscientious actors feel the same way - that there is too much hurry-scurry in TV to permit a sufficient amount of rehearsal time.
I'm from the old school of actors who are convinced too much exposure on TV isn't good for a long career.
Nothing creative functions well when fenced in or leaning on a prop. A contract is a fence and a prop.
Most fellows learned something about dressing in college. But my fraternity made me stay in the basement whenever we gave a dance.
I often come across a script I would like to do, but when it comes down to brass tacks I find the producer won't allow enough practice time.
Every film is a comeback, no matter what I did the last time.
I don't want to work too hard any more.
If producers want to lure the few TV holdouts left, all they have to do is give them a good script and a guarantee of enough time to rehearse. They'd be surprised how fast those hard-to-gets would grab at the bait!
Sure, I could retire anytime. I don't need to work for money. But retire to what? Sitting around the pool reading? Or even trout fishing. I love trout fishing, and I go every time I get a chance. But a man with pride in his profession need to work.
The professional's love for the theater is less pure than that of the non-professional's.
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