I consciously decided not to be a 'London' actor. Those gangster movies made a lot of East End actors think they were movie stars. And I was very aware that they were going to go out of fashion. ↗
I definitely would like to do something serious. Not like a love story, but serious like maybe a gangster or a mobster. A gang or a mob movie would be great. ↗
How did we suddenly become entranced with gangster culture? I saw it this morning on campus. When did the black community say we should all look like criminals? ↗
George Raft may or may not have gone both ways, but he was very sensitive to what they said about him, and it was one factor why he decided to play all those gangsters in the movies. ↗
Westerns was why I got into the business. I grew up on a small farm in California and all I ever wanted to do was to play gangsters and cowboys in movies. ↗
We were in the heart of the ghetto in Chicago during the Depression, and every block - it was probably the biggest black ghetto in America - every block also is the spawning ground practically for every gangster, black and white, in America too. ↗