“I will have one of the cleanest obituaries of any actress. I never did cheesecake like Ann Sheridan or Betty Grable. I just used my hair.”

-Veronica Lake (via reelclassics)

“I have a gift for enraging people, but if I ever bore you, it’ll be with a knife.”

-Louise Brooks (via TCM)

“Tact in audacity is knowing how far you can go without going too far.”

-Jean Cocteau

Elsa Lanchester on the set of Bride of Frankenstein (1935, dir. James Whale) (photo by Universal Studios/Getty Images)

“The swans in Regents Park in London inspired me in my performance. They’re really very nasty creatures, always hissing at you. So I used the memory of that hiss. The soundmen ran some of my hisses and screams backwards to add to the strangeness. I spent so much time screaming that I lost my voice and couldn’t speak for days.”

Pam Grier in Foxy Brown (1974, dir. Jack Hill)

As for “blaxploitation” - the genre under which her movies Coffy and Foxy Brown were known - is that a term she’s happy with today?

“I have no issues with the word, but you have to ask, who do they mean is being exploited? Is it because these movies were the first ones to show black people kicking white butt? Is that black exploitation? Or is it when a female steps into action chases - now it’s blaxploitation? We ran for months in movie theatres, keeping the mainstream [white] films out. They needed to get rid of us — and I know this, I used to hear the distributors talk about it. So how do you get rid of us? Create dissent. Say that it’s exploitative. Make people feel bad about it.” 

(via)

Jean Seberg in Breathless (1960, dir. Jean-Luc Godard)