Donald O'Connor Quotes

That is the godawful thing about television today. Performers don’t have any place to hit and miss. You’re either in or you’re out; you don’t have a chance to become good at your craft. If you make three pictures in a row and they don’t go over, you’re out of the business.

Going up the walls doing somersaults, that trick took a couple of days.

I’m not a good choreographer: I can’t remember what I put down.

Doing those costume pictures was wonderful.

They put me in a harness, like a horse, to learn the back somersault. It was weird up there when I put on that harness for the first time. The courage came with practice.

I didn’t smoke. I didn’t smoke then, and I don’t smoke now. We worked every day – that keeps you in pretty good shape. We could go for a long time in one take. You had to be in good shape with Gene Kelly.