Quote:
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Originally Posted by Johnny Stew
I just don't feel I have to tear Stevie down at every opportunity to prove something to myself or to anyone else.
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The whole world is out to "prove something," Johnny, because every artist gets raked over the coals -- many a lot more so than others. You guys need to put Stevie criticism into some sort of context, & come back down to Earth. Stevie hasn't been treated any worse than thousands of other artists:
"If the right situation comes up, he doesn't mind repeating the same joke twenty times in one day." -- George Burns on Groucho Marx
"Miss United Dairies herself." -- David Niven on Jayne Mansfield
"Her nose: that red thin sharp snout -- it reminds you of an anteater." -- Truman Capote on Meryl Streep
"Became totally undirectable." -- Jackie Cooper on Loretta Swit
"He was after a career & adored making money & thought more of himself than anyone else." -- Artur Rubinstein on Vladimir Horowitz
"You can't put this man in a picture. Look at his ears -- like a bat!" -- Irving Thalberg on Clark Gable
"Her face is inscrutable, but I can't vouch for the rest of her." -- Oscar Levant on Zsa Zsa Gabor
"The elephantine capers of an obese mountebank." -- William Inge on G.K. Chesterton
"Everything he writes smells like a billy goat." -- Raymond Chandler on James M. Cain
"Normally a tapeworm keeps you thin, but it kept Callas fat." -- Anthony Burgess on Maria Callas
"You're too little & too fat, but I might give you a job." -- D.W. Griffith on Mary Pickford
"The cruelist thing that has happened to Lincoln since he was shot by Booth was to fall into the hands of Carl Sandburg." -- Edmund Wilson
"As an emotional actor, Welles is without insight, accuracy, power, or grace. In short, without talent." -- Walter Kerr on Orson Welles
"Any year after the invention of sound, film audiences could see her only as a figure of fun, a dumb creature jerking her sawdust heart around in a puppet world." -- Alistair Cooke on Sarah Bernhardt
"A clever, cheap exploiter of everything that comes to his hand, including the talent he began with." -- Stanley Kauffmann on Bernardo Bertolucci
"Taller than I & with even bigger feet." -- Ruth Warrick on Garbo
"Her mental attitude may have been pathetic but it turned her into a great bore." -- Anita Loos on Judy Garland
"Since Godard's films have nothing to say, we could perhaps have ninety minutes of silence instead of each of them." -- John Simon on Jean-Luc Godard
"I can't read Ben Johnson, especially his comedies. To me he appears to move in a wide sea of glue." -- Tennyson
"You have to have the stomach for ugliness to admire Carol Kane." -- John Simon