Judy Holliday Quotes

#1. I had met a young lady who wanted to be in the theater. It was Judy Holliday. She had somehow fallen down the steps of the Village Vanguard, which still exists today.

Adolph Green

#2. I was asked once if I ever got tired of playing bimbos, and I answered that I've never played a bimbo. I've always played smart, manipulative women. Marilyn Monroe and Judy Holliday, who were not stupid, could play stupid really well, but I don't do it well.

Morgan Fairchild

#3. My, I like Judy Holliday! She looks like a Monet model. And she's so - so defenseless. I like defenseless people. They're the best.

Katharine Hepburn

#4. I did one of the 'Amazing Stories.' That was the first time I got to play a character who was a dumb blonde. I actually channeled Judy Holliday.

Cindy Morgan

#5. Nobody can give a good performance unless the authors and composers have written a good part, a fact which is often overlooked.

Judy Holliday

#6. The only actress they didn't test was Garbo. Must have been her accent.

Judy Holliday

#7. Now with all this movie business, everybody's coming around wanting to know everything that's happened since I was four. It's like going to an analyst.

Judy Holliday

#8. We gained a great deal of prestige, but not much money. We liked to work so much we couldn't hide it and the club owners paid us accordingly.

Judy Holliday

#9. People have a hard time making me dress up to look like a classy gal.

Judy Holliday

#10. It meant as much to me as winning the Oscar.

Judy Holliday

#11. If you can handle a nightclub audience successfully, you can handle anything.

Judy Holliday

#12. They weren't interested in entertainment. They were tough. I learned one trick, which was to be quieter than they were until they had to look at you. It took a lot of agressiveness.

Judy Holliday

#13. I thought I was learning about show business. The more painful it was, the more important I thought the experience must be. Hating it, I convinced myself it must be invaluable.

Judy Holliday

#14. Lovers have a right to betray you ... friends don't.

Judy Holliday

#15. I'm trying to eliminate every vestige of my own personality, style, approach and get into somebody else's skin. Sometimes I feel I've accomplished it. But when I don't, I'm nobody at all, having left myself at home.

Judy Holliday

#16. In repose, my face looks as though I had gone through a terrible deal in the last five minutes. I have to disguise the expression and get a glassy-eyed look. That's something I learned from my dog.

Judy Holliday

#17. I hated the whole idea of being an actress. I used to throw up before every performance and cry afterward.

Judy Holliday

#18. He didn't maintain my illusion of myself, he gave me an illusion of myself. Before I met him, I never thought of myself as an actress. Boy, he sidetracked me in a great way!

Judy Holliday

#19. Never do nothing you wouldnt want printed on the front page of The New York Times.

Judy Holliday

#20. Of course I work hard. Why shouldn't I? Who am I to think I should get things the easy way?

Judy Holliday

#21. When they thought of me, they always remembered the vacuous Billie Dawn. It was as simple as that.

Judy Holliday

#22. It's tough when take 1 is technically okay and take 2 has better acting. Out here (Hollywood) they print the first one. That's the one where we all hit the mark on the floor and who cares about the acting.

Judy Holliday

#23. I am not an 'instant' actor ... to really do anything, I've got to try it five or six or a dozen times.

Judy Holliday

#24. I want a part where I can use my own hair, my own voice, and maybe even be literate.

Judy Holliday

#25. I suppose that if I could have quit, I would have, because in those days I never wanted to be an actress, the acting was something to do while I waited for a chance to study writing and directing. But I guess I was just meant to be an actress. Because, here I am.

Judy Holliday

#26. I'm a born and bred New Yorker. I belong here. Everytime I leave it's like losing a leg.

Judy Holliday

#27. We were wavering around like a ship without a sail.

Judy Holliday

#28. I get very nervous whenever I think about it. I've never done a serious play, and I have such awe of the woman - she's really my only idol. It's going to be a big stretch - certain people come out on stage and your face muscles automatically tense and you get ready to smile.

Judy Holliday

#29. I think Billie is the kind of girl who would let her hips swing loose.

Judy Holliday

#30. I've always loved words. I ate up all the books I could get my hands on, and when I couldn't get books, I read candy wrappers and labels on cereal and toothpaste boxes.

Judy Holliday

#31. I am not a member of any organization listed by the Attorney General as subversive. In any instance where I lent my name in the past, it was certainly without knowledge that such an organization was subversive. I have always been essentially and foremost an American.

Judy Holliday

#32. You have to be smart to play a dumb blonde over and over again and keep the audience's attention without extraordinary physical equipment.

Judy Holliday

#33. I was bargaining for time away from Hollywood, and Columbia was bargaining for money. I got what I wanted and they got what they wanted. They knew I was so anxious to do Born Yesterday that I'd have done it for a dollar. They gave me the next best thing.

Judy Holliday

#34. Acting is a very limited form of expression and those who take it seriously are very limited people. I take it seriously.

Judy Holliday

#35. I could talk about him all day. He's one of the most wonderful things that ever happened to me.

Judy Holliday