A Quote by Shirley Ballas

When I married Sammy, my first husband, we were both just so young. But I've had a hugely successful career and I owe a lot of what I learnt in the industry to him, because he was already a top professional, and I was a nobody, really.
Sammy Sosa? Everybody knew who Sammy was, paid attention to Sammy. I had already signed in pro ball when he had the great homer year with Mark McGwire in '98. But I followed it, and I was proud of him because he was my countryman. There are a lot of great ballplayers from the Dominican, and he's one of the best.
My parents, they were both Socialists; they were young - 30, 31. They were both successful career people. They had been teachers, and my dad spoke English.
I married my first boyfriend. We just married too young. No children. So that broke up. There were a few relationships in between, and then I met my husband Adam when I was 37.
For actors, being successful is generally getting a job. If you can work a lot, you're really successful. If you work a lot on projects that are interesting and intelligent and great fun to be part of, then you're hugely successful. And I feel hugely successful. I can't believe that I get to be involved with the projects and the people I work with.
Under Wenger I became the player that I am today because he's the guy that signed me at 16. I owe him a lot and all the time I spent here he made me play so much even when I was really young. Those are things you owe him back.
This industry isn't fair. It doesn't owe anybody a career. It's just about luck, determination, and showing up and being professional. The rest is out of your hands.
Before we had the kids, my husband and I were traveling a lot and working and really enjoying our lives and each other. We both love the theater and books and travel and so we were really having a lot of fun.
I don't think a professional agent or theatre manager would say my career had gone as well as perhaps it should have after that first 'Oliver!' success, but then again I was never really intending to have a career in the professional theatre in the first place.
When I turned professional, what I was really aiming for was to be in the top 100, try to hold the top 100 for ten years, and just be in the show, and have a nice career. It's more than I could have ever hoped for. I worked awfully hard for it, but there are other people who worked just as hard and didn't get the breaks. I recognized that I've been lucky and being able to live this life that I wanted since a young age. I really went after it with everything that I have and somehow it worked out.
Michael Keaton had a great, great career. I do remember when I was a young guy thinking about him, about how he'd had the chance to do it all, so yeah. But, there's nobody where I've said, "Man, I really want that guy's career."
Giving birth to triplets at the age of forty-three is no walk in the park, but I had little choice. I got married at the young age of forty, and both my husband, Shirish, and I were keen to start a family soon.
I knew that this was the movie in which a lot of the cinema version of Burton-esque first started. So, I knew that there were things that were hugely important to him for it, but it didn't really feel that different than working on any other of these projects.
The truth is I've just never had any kind of plan at all for my career, which is probably not a very flattering thing to admit. I don't know that I'd ever planned to be in this situation. I'm still just an idiot, really really stupid. It's not like I'm now a genius because this has happened. I just got hugely lucky.
Sammy was the only one that looked like me, so I naturally gravitated to him. Sammy made it cool to be black at a time when, let's just say it, it wasn't very cool to be black. His name was on the front of the building in lights, and he had to go in the back. But you never saw him sweat.
My husband had a very strong identity and was successful in his life. Thank God for that. There's no way I can control him. I wouldn't stay married to him if I felt I could. I can readily take my business personality into the home. But he forces me to be a partner rather than the boss.
It was extraordinary 'cause I was 17 years old when I first danced with Edward Villella. And we were both young. But I had seen him dance, and he was already a star. So he was just so gentle and wonderful and kind, and we had a great rapport together. He was one of the most exciting dancers of our day.
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