In the days when I was the big hero, the money wasn't much. Nobody made anything on television in those days.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
As a philanthropist, I give away a lot of money every year. Yet I thought there was a higher leverage to come in and create movies and TV shows that were actually able to do some good in the world.
Sometimes good television doesn't depend on money, it depends on imagination and good people directing, casting and doing the job with talented people.
When I was young, it wasn't about the money, it wasn't about the fame and fortune, it was about playing football.
The thing that fascinates me is that the way I came to film and television is extinct. Then there were gatekeepers, it was prohibitively expensive to make a film, to be a director you had to be an entrepreneur to raise money.
Well, I was getting a lot of money then, and I wasn't getting any Hollywood films, so I just did those. I'd always do a play in between. Whenever I ran low on funds, I'd always rush off to do a movie somewhere.
Growing up in Hollywood meant there were a lot of film stars' kids at my school - but no conspicuous wealth. It wasn't cool to show off that you had money.
I tend to make low-budget movies but, yeah, I make more money than I ever thought I would make.
In our early period we pretty much survived or perished on our capacity to reach people, and on getting into the pattern of having no money and playing lots of shows.
At that time I was making the largest salary known on television and I didn't want to see it die because those were the years paying off when I wasn't making anything.
There were very, very large sums of money that I made when I was very young - 15 million published works and a great many successful movies don't make nothin'.