Quotes About TV

I was blacklisted and overnight my TV appearances dried up. Ed Sullivan called to cancel my appearance and said he'd help me when he could, and a year later he did. Only a few wackos wanted the blacklist. It was a protection racket.

My memories of the whirlwind '90s are a blur of work schedules. I was completing my B. Com. degree in 1991 when I took to modelling and acting in TV serials. A year later, I found my foothold in movies.

I remember, my freshman year of college, sitting in my TV room at the end of my dorm hallway with one other girl watching the premiere of 'Beverly Hills, 90210.' And then, a year later, walking into a room packed with college students watching '90210,' and I thought, 'I wonder what it must be like to be part of a phenomenon like that.'

Before broadcasting for 50-some years, I did TV, played 10 years in the big leagues, won a world championship - and played a big part in that, too, letting the Cardinals inject me with hepatitis. Takes a big man to do that.

My mum didn't really let me watch TV until I was about 5 years old.

Shows like 'All in the Family' and now 'Mom' - there's a tradition of tackling real issues.

I had the traditional print view of TV journalists: Those are pretty people who get paid a lot of money and don't do any work. It turned out I was wrong.

I am very happy that TV is going back to where we belong and what we believe in, the traditions.

Chuck Lorre and everyone else on 'Mom' did such a great job of balancing that line that rides tragedy and comedy. They make you cry, and then they make you crack up about it.

I've had tragedy in my life, but I think that gives me a depth that I can bring to my work. I'd like to see more older women on TV because they can bring that life experience and emotion to a performance.

Crime is interesting. It's huge and fascinating, and it's what my business, TV and film, is largely based on. But the realities are tragic, and in crime drama you rarely see the pain of bereavement or any consequences. It's reduced to a chess game.

I get really nervous when people are like, 'I saw you in a trailer! I saw you on TV!' Genuinely, my cheeks get red.

My father went to work by train every day. It was half an hour's journey each way, and he would read a paperback in four journeys. After supper, we all sat down to read - it was long before TV, remember!

In film, you get to take your time and make it right. In TV, it's all about the schedule. The train is moving and you sometimes just don't have time to make things right, which is painful 'cause you know it could be done better and you just have no choice.

I trained at RADA, then went into the theatre, but TV is like starting at the bottom again. I have just been learning.

But I will say that TV was a great education for me. It allowed me to develop techniques for getting the job done. It's the best training ground since B movies.

I was always a writer - working on campaigns was never a profession for me. It was something I did on the side, really, so the trajectory hasn't been a political operative who likes to dabble in writing and finds himself into stumbling on film and TV - that was always my goal.

At first, 'Family Ties' seemed to just be a wonderful project of its time. These were the Reagan years, the new conservatism. Alex P. Keaton quickly became the Fonzie of the '80s, so it seemed very much a product of its time. But I soon began to realize that it went far beyond that. These great family shows transcend whatever time they are in.

How people watch and the different ways they connect to TV - you're going to see some expansion and radical transformation.

I know that when I watch TV, I want to be transformed and transported, not just by the characters that I grow to love over the hours and seasons of watching but also the world that it plants me into.

Gay TV has been immensely important in transforming American culture in a more gay-positive direction.

People are going to see both of us and think it's an Abbott and Costello kind of thing. It's not an easy switch. It's not an easy transition from TV to film.

We're trying to fix this with the plan we've been floating. Now, the law says the transition ends in 2006 or - and the 'or' is the only part that matters - 85 percent of Americans go buy a digital TV.

Episodic TV is notoriously brutal because just when you think 'I've got this, I know this character' you can pick up the script for series four and you die in the first episode - or your character suddenly transitions from a woman to a man.