Paris Singer had vastly more to do with shaping my character than Mother had; although Mother made innumerable sacrifices for me, and Paris Singer made none. I wanted to be like him.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
My mother was against me being an actress - until I introduced her to Frank Sinatra.
My mom and I were super tight. I think she really wanted me to be an artist, you know? She used to like to tell people she wanted to be Beethoven's mother. That was her thing. She wanted to be the mother of this person.
More than anything else, my mother wanted to be an actress - a famous actress - which in the 1950s was all about being young, sexy, and available. She was all that, and more. She had big blue eyes, alabaster skin, a heart-shaped face, a beautiful figure. She was just a knockout.
I didn't want to do anything my mother wanted me to do so surely I wasn't going to sing for her.
My mother wanted me off her hands. She was a working woman. She designed clothes, and she was a celebrity collector. It's my mother's ambition to be a celebrity.
My mother, I suppose, is still a main figure in my life because her life was so sad and unfair, and she so brave, but also because she was determined to make me into the Sunday-school-recitation little girl I was, from the age of seven or so, fighting not to be.
Mother was so good that I was defeated even before I started to be an actress. I thought I could never make it unless I spent years in the Actors Studios, went on the blacklist and lived in New York, as she did.
My mother was loved by so many people, famous and not so famous.
I wanted the focus to be on my ability as a singer and as an entertainer - not on my private life.
I would much rather be a better mother or better human being than I would be a singer. Fortunately for me singing makes me a living.