If you're not invited to the party, throw your own.
I had a mom and a pop who kept telling me that I was wonderful at a very early age. So when someone said to me, "Oh, you're stuck up. Who do you think you are?" I'd say, "I know who I am, and I don't mind being stuck up".
I like to think I opened doors for other women, although that wasn't my original intention.
You have to keep your sanity as well as know how to distance yourself from it while still holding onto the reins tightly. That is a very difficult thing to do, but I'm learning.
In the beginning, I found myself dealing with a show business dictated by male white supremacists and chauvinists. As a black female, I had to learn how to tap dance around the situation. I had to ... find a way to present my point of view without being pushy or aggressive. In the old days, the only women I saw in this business were in makeup, hairdressing, and wardrobe departments. Now I'm surrounded by women executives, writers, directors, producers, and even women stagehands.
In the war against breast cancer, we have the ability to arm ourselves with knowledge and education is a powerful tool. By taking action and doing something positive, fear is replaced with hope.
The lesson that I would hope everyone would learn quite early in their career is don't take it personally. Whatever it is that happens, you're accepted for a role or rejected for a role of whatever, don't take it personally. It's part of the business and the person that is either hiring or firing-that's their business. That's what they are there for and it has nothing to do with how you feel about ... It has to do with someone else's perception of should you do this particular part, so just don't take it personally,. The business is really about rejection, so don't take it personally.
Whenever you're on television, there's a responsibility to look timeless. I worked with the masters of film, fashion and beauty. I took their words into my soul, like a kind of religion that I exhibited to the world to all of our benefit. To this day, it takes a great deal of time to do my makeup the way I feel comfortable. At 82, it's still a part of what I do. I enjoy it.
I suppose our lives need to be more integrated. We have white communities and black communities and white country clubs and black country clubs. It's very important when we integrate ourselves, and it helps us to have a better understanding of the world, to people all over the world and this is the time in history that we have become very aware of how important that is, so I think it's just really-we have to know each other and work together and play together in order to write about each other.
As soon as my mother saw my father, she said, "Oh! I think I'm gonna marry that man." That's the reason I've been married four times, because I think it's that easy ... it really is not.
I hope that there are no persons that would want to think ill of me in any direction or any behavior.
I am a breast cancer survivor. I was intrigued to learn how many people prefer to talk to someone if they are familiar with their face, like an actor or a politician. So, I began traveling around the country and doing speeches.
With any president it is difficult to predict how the world will be effected by his presence in the white house.
I've spent about that amount of time trying to tell the public that there was purpose in... my business, my career and the roller coaster ride... how the people I associated with worked together.
I think if you work in television everyday, and you must be privy to everything happening in television, then do so.
I considered Nat King Cole to be a friend and, in many ways, a mentor. He always had words of profound advice.
I have a line of clothing at J.C. Penney's... and I'm lucky to be affiliated.
