Quote of the month - June 2011

One thing I personally found disappointing in 'The Kennedy's' was that they neglected to mention that Jack Kennedy and Gene Tierney (one of my fav. actresses) were very nearly engaged, however both families disapproved of the match based on religious grounds. (Doesn't that just seem totally absurd in today's world - a mere 60 years later?!!!) I thought it would be quite timely to share some photographs and quotes from one of the worlds most beautiful, sensitive, intelligent and unfortunately, mentally traumatised women of Hollywood in the 1940's, considering the recent screening of 'The Kennedy's' on ABC.

 When I met Jack Kennedy, he was a serious young man with a dream. He was not a womanizer, not as I understood the term.

Gene Tierney

I admire anyone who rids himself of an addiction.

Gene Tierney

I approached everything, my job, my family, my romances, with intensity.

Gene Tierney

Eccentric behavior is not routinely noticed around a movie set.

Gene Tierney

I was fine when it came to cheering up others, not so fine with myself.

Gene Tierney

I hole up now and then and do nothing for days but read.

Gene Tierney

 

About my career I was serious and earnest, sometimes impatient.

Gene Tierney

As an actress, I was trained to show emotion I did not feel, or no emotion at all.

Gene Tierney

Cars, furs, and gems were not my weaknesses.

Gene Tierney

Chaplin was notoriously strict with his sons and rarely gave them spending money.

Gene Tierney

Children don't understand about people loving each other and then suddenly not.

Gene Tierney

Day after day, I spent long afternoons in the talent pool, being told how to walk, how to talk, how to sit.

Gene Tierney

Everyone should see Hollywood once, I think, through the eyes of a teenage girl who has just passed a screen test.

Gene Tierney

Fonda and Gary Cooper had the best sense of timing of all the actors I knew.

Gene Tierney

For years it never occurred to me to question the judgment of those in charge at the studio.

Gene Tierney

Hollywood can be hard on women, but it did not cause my problems.

Gene Tierney

Houses are one of my passions. I probably should have been an interior decorator.

Gene Tierney

I always tried to play my hunches.

Gene Tierney

I am not the kind of woman who excuses her mistakes while reminding us of what used to be.

Gene Tierney

I ask myself: Would I have been any worse off if I had stayed home or lived on a farm instead of shock treatments and medication?

Gene Tierney

I dated dozens of young men, had fun with all, made commitments to none.

Gene Tierney

I do not recall spending long hours in front of a mirror loving my reflection.

Gene Tierney

I existed in a world that never is - the prison of the mind.

Gene Tierney

I followed the same diet for 20 years, eliminating starches, living on salads, lean meat, and small portions.

Gene Tierney

I had been offered a Hollywood contract before my 18th birthday. It gave me the spark I needed.

Gene Tierney

I had known Cole Porter in Hollywood and New York, spent many a warm hour at his home, and met the talented and original people who were drawn to him.

Gene Tierney

I had no romantic interest in Gable. I considered him an older man.

Gene Tierney

I have a role now that I think becomes me. I am a grandmother.

Gene Tierney

I knew I could not cope with the future unless I was able to rediscover the past.

Gene Tierney

I loved to eat. For all of Hollywood's rewards, I was hungry for most of those 20 years.

Gene Tierney

I needed to be accepted, not humored. I intended to act.

Gene Tierney

I remember the 1940s as a time when we were united in a way known only to that generation. We belonged to a common cause-the war.

Gene Tierney

I simply did not want my face to be my talent.

Gene Tierney

I used to annoy my father by telling him how much I felt luck was with me.

Gene Tierney

I used up every cent I earned as an actress.

Gene Tierney

I was fortunate enough to work under directors who were, most of them, brilliant, emotional men.

Gene Tierney

I was going to live on my salary or go down swinging.

Gene Tierney

I was not cut out to be a rebel.

Gene Tierney

I was plunged into what was known as the debutante social whirl. This was one of the ways fathers justified their own hard work and sacrifices.

Gene Tierney

I'm not sure I can explain the nature of Jack Kennedy's charm, but he took life just as it came.

Gene Tierney

In later years, I craved foods that were almost always fattening.

Gene Tierney

In my early days in Hollywood I tried to be economical. I designed my own clothes, much to my mother's distress.

Gene Tierney

In the months leading up to World War II, there was a tendency among many Americans to talk absently about the trouble in Europe. Nothing that happened an ocean away seemed very threatening.

Gene Tierney

It is difficult to write about any form of mental disease, especially your own, without sounding as if you were examining a bug under glass.

Gene Tierney

It was the fashion of the time, still is, to feel that all actors are neurotic, or they would not be actors.

Gene Tierney

Jealousy is, I think, the worst of all faults because it makes a victim of both parties.

Gene Tierney

Life is a little like a message in a bottle, to be carried by the winds and the tides.

Gene Tierney

 Men are wonderful. I adore them. They always give you the benefit of the doubt.

Gene Tierney

My departure from Hollywood was described as a walk-out. No one understood that I was cracking up.

Gene Tierney

My mother would not talk to me for weeks, would not stay under my roof for as long as I was married to Oleg.

Gene Tierney

Rehearsals and screening rooms are often unreliable because they can't provide the chemistry between an audience and what appears on the stage or screen.

Gene Tierney

Some women feel the best cure for a broken heart is a new beau.

Gene Tierney

The Hollywood structure was monopolistic, run by four or five big studios.

Gene Tierney

The Howard Hughes I knew began to change after his plane crash in 1941.

Gene Tierney

The main cause of my difficulties stemmed from the tragedy of my daughter's unsound birth and my inability to face my feelings.

Gene Tierney

The word actress has always seemed less a job description to me than a title.

Gene Tierney

There were days that I worked all the time, without a layoff, or a rest, finishing one picture and reporting for another sometimes on the same day.

Gene Tierney

Those who become mentally ill often have a history of chronic pain.

Gene Tierney

Throughout my career, I was to be cast as a frontier girl, an aristocrat, an Arabian, a Eurasian, a Polynesian, and a Chinese.

Gene Tierney

Trying to make order out of my life was like trying to pick up a jellyfish.

Gene Tierney

Unlike the stage, I never found it helpful to be good in a bad movie.

Gene Tierney

We cannot calculate the numbers of people who left, fled or were fished out of Europe just ahead of the Holocaust.

Gene Tierney

Wealth, beauty, and fame are transient. When those are gone, little is left except the need to be useful.

Gene Tierney

What a different world it was when I first sailed for Europe in 1930, with my mother, sister, and brother to spend six months abroad.

Gene Tierney

When my mood was high, I seemed normal, even buoyant. I felt smarter. I had secrets. I could see God in a light bulb.

Gene Tierney

When you have spent an important part of your life playing Let's Pretend, it's often easy to see symbolism where none exists.

Gene Tierney