I wish somebody would just give me a couple of million dollars a year, so that I could do a play based on every little fantasy I have.
There's a real fantasy quotient to my work. Any play that I've written for myself to perform in basically begins with the idea, "Wouldn't it be fun to be, say, Jean Harlow in a pre-code movie?"
I was very briefly under contract to Disney Animation, to develop ideas for animated features. They don't like you to use the word "cartoon" around there.
I don't think I could ever go to Auschwitz, because when we took that tour of MGM, I nearly collapsed outside the Thalberg building.
I'm writing the book to a children's musical. I got a note from the producers saying, "Can't you make it campier?" So now, I'm trying to determine the camp sensibility of the average eight year old.
I always tend to say "no" to everything, but now I've decided to say "yes" to everything. Now, I'm doing all sorts of things that I would've said "no" to before.
It's more interesting to put yourself in the place of Bette Davis than Irene Dunne, I guess.
I had two chances to fail [working for Disney]. The first one, they said was "too juvenile." The second one was,they give you general areas to work in. They said, "Set 'My Fair Lady' in ancient Egypt."I came up with this idea about an Egyptian princess, and I gave her, as a sidekick, a little scarab. I had a telephone meeting with the executive "handling" me, and he said, "I looked over the notes. Very cute. But lose the beetle.Beetles don't talk." Well, how do you answer that? I said, "Excuse me just a moment, I've got a teacup calling me on the other line."
I took many notes, more than usual before I sat down and wrote Act One, Scene One. I had perhaps eighty pages of notes. . . . I was so prepared that the script seemed inevitable. It was almost all there. I could almost collate it from my notes. The story line, the rather tenuous plot we have, seemed to work out itself. It was a very helpful way to write, and it wasn't so scary. I wasn't starting with a completely blank page.
I saw "Follies" again at thirty, and you know, I had this great appreciation for [Stephen] Sondheim's brilliance, his lyrics.
At fifteen, it [ "Follies"] didn't have any kind of resonance with me, this show about regret and middle age.
I grew up with "Follies." I saw it when I was fifteen. It was the original production, and of course, that production will never be equaled.
I stole that from Vito Russo. He said he was a devout believer in Judyism.
I read a lot of those Single Girl in New York books, like "Fear of Flying," where you could sort of put yourself, through transference, into the Jewish Girl in New York situation.
I've always wanted to do something where I aged a lot, went from young girl to dowager.
The story of Judith. But one of the reasons I'm doing it is because the roles I've been writing for myself over the past few years have gotten older and older. And I thought, You know, before it's too late, I want to play a sexy, tough young gal again. And I always wanted to do a Biblical epic. So, I'll play a beautiful young widow who saves her people from the Assyrians.
Joan Rivers is a very wise lady. We're good friends, and I find her very much an inspiration as to how to conduct your life, and how to remain very youthful, with ambitions and dreams. Anyway, she always says that she says "yes" to everything, because you never know which thing will click, or be thrilling.
