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I've been in movies with Meryl Streep, Jack Nicholson - but I was on 'The Simpsons,' and finally, in the eyes of my children, I was a star.

I grew up on Bette Davis movies, and Marlene Dietrich, Marilyn Monroe.

Going back to Georgiana Drew and John Drew, and my great-grandfather Maurice Barrymore, and it was such a sort of circus of odd, interesting people that loved acting.

Since I was seventeen I thought I might be a star. I'd think about all my heroes, Charlie Parker, Jimi Hendrix... I had a romantic feeling about how these people became famous.

I remember vividly seeing 'Tarzan' and Fred Astaire, the Chaplin films, Fred Astaire musicals, MGM, because of my mother. She was just interested in everything and she took me to opera and ballet, and then ballet got me hooked.

I loved all the other movies, and I loved all the other movie stars, but I was very aware of the fact that I didn't look like Marilyn Monroe - although I still wanted to be Marilyn Monroe. Then Josephine Baker popped up, and she wasn't the maid - she was the star of the show. To me, it was mind-blowing.

I was the first movie star to plunge into night-time soap opera.

It was the highlight of my life being in the Mae West show, because I saw and did things I never had before.

I long for the old days of Marilyn Monroe and Audrey Hepburn, stars who had real glamour and mystique. We only knew so much about their lives; the rest was a mystery.

I've had the good fortune of working with some amazing people. I mean, my first Broadway show was with Elizabeth Taylor and Maureen Stapleton. Maureen Stapleton, a legend in the theatre; Elizabeth Taylor, a legend, period.