I had a call to the University of Miami where I'd run a revival in 1950.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
That was the big thing when I was growing up, singing on the radio. The extent of my dream was to sing on the radio station in Memphis. Even when I got out of the Air Force in 1954, I came right back to Memphis and started knocking on doors at the radio station.
I was a total jock growing up. I went to super-dorky basketball clinics and was handpicked to play on a state team called the Texas Heat.
After graduating in the summer of 1980, I knew I wanted my life to count.
I never expected to go to Juilliard. When they came recruiting in Miami, I auditioned. I got a scholarship.
I was homecoming queen. I was star of my basketball team.
When I was in high school in the '50s you were supposed to be an Elvis Presley, a James Dean, a Marlon Brando or a Kingston Trio type in a button-down shirt headed for the fraternities at Stanford or Cal.
I went to James Monroe High School, a big school in the East Bronx. My first promotion was the first alumni reunion dance. I got all the names and addresses out of the yearbook. It came off very well.
In 1958, I was shooting a movie in Florida, and I decided to go to Havana, Cuba, to see what it was like.
I was president of the schools in junior high and high school, got a scholarship to New York University, played a little basketball, and was a celebrity.
Then I went off to Southern Methodist University in Dallas. They had a really wonderful theatre department.