Val Holley > Quotes

“The papers of Jerry Fairbanks Studios lie uncatalogued in the basement of the UCLA research library.”
― Val Holley, James Dean: The Biography

“Although Indianapolis had a bigger automobile industry than Detroit at the end of the nineteenth century, Detroit would soon steal its thunder by welcoming Eastern Europeans and southern blacks as auto plant workers — a step Indianapolis prohibited through commercial zoning restrictions.”
― Val Holley, James Dean: The Biography

“He could sing in more different keys during the course of one song than anybody I’ve ever heard,”
― Val Holley, James Dean: The Biography

“There was no trick or stunt that he couldn’t accomplish with the greatest of ease; we had balancing stunts and all that jazz — nothing he couldn’t do. He had absolute unerring control over his body.”
― Val Holley, James Dean: The Biography

“Dean’s agent, Isabel Draesemer, says, “Jimmy came to me and asked whether marrying Beverly Wills |the young woman he was dating then] or moving in with Rogers Brackett would be better for his career.”
― Val Holley, James Dean: The Biography

“Most sources agree that Dean’s best work came under rarefied, idealized conditions, not under a barrage of criticism such as Strasberg’s.”
― Val Holley, James Dean: The Biography

“Issues of the Fairmount News from the early 1920s are replete with accounts of surprise appearances by hooded Klan representatives at local church services”
― Val Holley, James Dean: The Biography

“The unspoken word we control. Once spoken, it controls us.”
― Val Holley, James Dean: The Biography

“You are acting, not being.” Strasberg explained, “I stress the difference between the actor who thinks acting is an imitation of life, and the actor who feels acting is living”
― Val Holley, James Dean: The Biography

“the advantages of bachelorhood: being able to get into bed from either side.”
― Val Holley, James Dean: The Biography

“he would have been the first to scoff at the notion of labeling himself anything other than an explorer. His words to me were, ‘If you aren’t willing to take the risks, then you can’t make the discoveries.”
― Val Holley, James Dean: The Biography

“Once he pulled a girl’s bra strap and let it snap in Raymond Elliott’s study hall, which was “just about the most daring thing you could think of to do”
― Val Holley, James Dean: The Biography

“If you think the movie moguls are worried about the possible disastrous effects of TV, you ought to hold the head of a radio exec for a while,”
― Val Holley, James Dean: The Biography

“As Dean saw it, the issue was talent, but his confidence in himself was never contagious.”
― Val Holley, James Dean: The Biography

“Dean and Leach represented Fairmount in an hourlong debate against Marion High that was broadcast on local radio. They argued the affirmative side of the proposition, “The election of United States presidents should be by the direct vote of the people.”
― Val Holley, James Dean: The Biography

“but get this straight: Absolutely nobody in the world gives a flying fuck. You want to be an actor? Fine. But never, ever bitch about it.’ Advice I’ve heeded to this day.”
― Val Holley, James Dean: The Biography