At MGM, you knew you were going to be working next year; you knew you were going to get paid. But I was too ambitious musically to settle for it. And I wanted to gamble with whatever talent I might have had.
From the time you were signed at MGM you just felt you were in God's hands.
Most of the contract people at MGM stayed and stayed and stayed. Why? Because the studio looked after them. Warner Brothers wouldn't - they were always spanking somebody or selling them down the river.
I did a lot of hokey movies when I was starting out at MGM. Good and bad, mostly bad.
I'm from Chicago, my family started a chain of movie theaters in Chicago that were around for 70 years and then one of them became the head of Paramount and the other was the head of production at MGM and we all came out of Chicago.
The big one I missed out on was 'Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.' MGM wanted me for it, and Warner Bros. wouldn't give me permission to do it.
We gave the show away and in return, we received a certain number of minutes per hour for the three-hour show that we could sell to Madison Avenue. One of the first sponsors was MGM Records.
Who needs MGM? Who needs any of these places?
Under no circumstances would it be right for me to go with MGM. Irene shares my opinion.
We're talking to New Line. They've got a couple projects they're interested in me doing and I'm having meetings at MGM. There's a lot of available projects.
