Tag: died today

Died Today (January 25th): Ava Gardner (1922–1990)

I really had very little to contribute, so I played a lot of hatcheck girls, and did mob scenes, extra scenes, dancing scenes, just to have the experience of being on a set. I spent years at that. If the studio wanted a photograph to advertise a film they’d say, ‘Who is it that has a good pair of legs and a good pair of breasts and is pretty and not working?’ And it was always Ava because she was never working.

[on her first screen test] There wasn’t a thing that I could do. I couldn’t act–I was the first to be eliminated in high school plays. I had no training whatsoever. I was just a pretty little girl. But I loved the idea, because I loved movies.

God knows I’ve got so many frailties myself, I ought to be able to understand and forgive them in others. But I don’t.

Died Today (January 23rd): Johnny Carson (1925–2005)

[December 1967, interview in “Playboy” magazine] It’s silly to have as one’s sole object in life just making money, accumulating wealth. I work because I enjoy what I’m doing, and the fact that I make money at it– big money–is a fine-and-dandy side fact. Money gives me just one big thing that’s really important, and that’s the freedom of not having to worry about money. I’m concerned about values–moral, ethical, human values–my own, other people’s, the country’s, the world’s values. Having money now gives me the freedom to worry about the things that really matter.