I was raised never to carp about things and never to moan, because in vaudeville, which is my background, you just got on with it through all kinds of adversities.
Sometimes opportunities float right past your nose. Work hard, apply yourself, and be ready. When an opportunity comes you can grab it.
I thought it was all a flash in the pan. It wasn’t until Broadway came along that I felt I had really made it.
I am thrilled to be dame. It’s one of those – the fact that you have been honored by your country is what it’s all about, and it just feels good right there.
Our first visit to the Creature Shop is one of the days I will never, ever forget. There was just so much to see and admire and be gobsmacked by.
You can’t bring the arts too soon to kids.
You never start out being a star.
By nature, I really am a fairly bouncy and sunny individual.
I justified working so hard by knowing that I was helping to maintain the roof over our heads.
Actually, what I did, because I couldn’t make sense of it, and I have to have lyrics that make sense, I decided the best way to sing ‘I Have Confidence’ was to go completely nuts with panic and fear.
Who could have imagined that life would have taken such marvelous twists and turns or that I would often be so fortunate to be in the right place at the right time?
All love shifts and changes. I don’t know if you can be wholeheartedly in love all the time.
I come from a long line of below-stairs maids and gardeners. Good ol’ peasant stock. My mother and her sister made a quantum leap out of that life. Then I made another quantum leap.
Singing has never been particularly easy for me.
I did all of my learning on ‘My Fair Lady.’
I grew up knowing only war, so for me, it was the way things were. It wasn’t pleasant by any means.
Let me put it this way: I can sing a hell of an ‘Old Man River,’ way down in the bass.
Because of the Thames I have always loved inland waterways – water in general, water sounds – there’s music in water. Brooks babbling, fountains splashing. Weirs, waterfalls; tumbling, gushing.
My voice needed oiling, and then it took off.
My mum gave me pretty good genes in that department. She had gorgeous skin. That good English complexion. She never seemed to have a blemish that I knew of.
As a rule, my focus is on classical music, but I love jazz. I love everything, actually.
The loveliest roles, for me, have a growth arc – a beginning, a middle, and an end – and I’m always grateful when I can find one of those emotional journeys.
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