Lee Grant

"The 1950s and early 60s were emotionally rough for me. In 1950, when I was 23, I was named a Communist by Red Channels, an anti-Communist pamphlet, and was blacklisted by Hollywood from 1952 until the early 1960s."

"I was a bird imitating the birds. And so it was their kind of imaginary world that I was raised in, and it was part delicious and part confusing."

"It was like, one day you were an actress who could do anything, and the very next day, you could not work in film or television again. And that was the temper of the times."

"I think the most important impetus in life, is that it not be boring. The fear of boredom drove me more than any yearning for something I wanted to achieve."

"I don’t use a typewriter or a computer, so everything was written by pen and ink by my little desk. It took me four years to complete it, and as you can see, it wasn’t an easy book to write."

"I knew my career as an actor would change. I wouldn’t get these parts again. I had reached the age where Hollywood begins to humiliate beautiful women. I wasn’t going to do it. Walking up there, I could almost feel myself accepting that change."

"For an actor, you sometimes have to say yes to these type of jobs. Especially when you get older, and are a woman."

"I dont know. Just walk. Just walk. My daughter Dinah just found out that a book she’s written, a novel, is being published. It’s very exiting. Maybe we’ll get to go to some great New York bookstore once everything’s back and see it up their on the shelves. That would be fun to walk to."

"The work she did in the film was very sensitive. There was something in her character that struck a chord with her. I found her fascinating."

"I’m in my 90s and it’s lovely to have any of my films appreciated."

"I had 12 years to make up for. Im a very practical person. I had to support myself, I had to support my daughter, and I had to work. And if the way that I could work was to have the years taken off my age at that time, I was desperate to do it. I had to be able to go from one job to another and be pretty. And I achieved that for a good long time. I made up those 12 years."