About Robert Osborne: Robert Jolin Osborne is an American actor and film historian best known as the primary host for Turner Classic Movies (TCM). Prior to TCM, Osborne had been a host on The Movie Channel.
My folks were busy. My dad was a teacher, and it was during the Second World War, and my mother was working. So I got my stories from films and books. I read a lot, and I love to read to this day.
One movie I think is just terrific is 'Bernie,' with Jack Black and Shirley MacLaine. That was a great surprise to me - so witty, so entertaining, a true story, and I'm not a great Jack Black fan, but he's great in it. I think it's a gem.
I liked 'The Help,' and I love Viola Davis. But I didn't think that film was a great film; I thought that was a very uneven film. I thought the Southern women were so caricatured that it was kind of like 'Harper Valley PTA' or something like that.
I always felt that Bette Davis was one of the great screen actresses who never really got her due - she won two Oscars, but the last was in 1938, and that was really before all the great work that she did.
'The Hollywood Reporter' was always in. You always got great tables. You always got great seats at screenings. You always got treated well if you were at the paper.
I'm very enthusiastic about the Academy Awards because if there were no Oscars, we wouldn't have as many good movies as we do have.
There comes a time when even icons, if they choose to do so, should be allowed to enjoy life out of the spotlight.
When a movie opened - if you lived in New York, you would see it at Radio City Music Hall where it would play a couple of weeks, and then you moved on to the next movie. Now you can see it the rest of your life - it's going to be on Netflix and DVD.
There's an excellent movie we have on TCM called 'It Happened on Fifth Avenue,' which was originally going to be directed by Frank Capra... but just before he was going to start working on it, he came across this story called 'The Greatest Gift.' And...
I used to write stories a lot because you had to fill your hours some other way than watching television. So my imagination was vivid, and I used to write a lot of stories. I wrote a novel, which I still have, which is so awful.
I think there's something about traveling in airplanes all the time that's not the healthiest thing in the world for you.
I went to California at a perfect time... when many of those people that I had admired so much in films were not working that much. They had free time on their hands to talk to... me, and they liked me because I knew so much about them.
You see a Clint Eastwood movie, and you might not know if it's from Universal or Warner Bros. or another studio. He has affiliations with so many studios now, but there was a time when you'd just look at a movie and think, 'Oh, that's a Warner Bros. ...
For a lot of filmmakers, their first goal is to be successful and make some money. But once people start doing that, the real goal is then to win an Academy Award. Because when they do, they know that their obit is going to start out, 'Academy Award ...
I did love 'The Artist.' I've seen it four times, and every time I see it, it gets better and better.
I love to be able to meet people who are successful, and I love them not because they're successful, but usually people who are successful have qualities that make them interesting to be around.
My love of movies started when I was 7 years old, living in a small town, going to the movies all the time, and finding the people in the movies more interesting than the people in my small town. Also, at that time, it wasn't that easy to find out ab...
If I didn't have my little schedule book, I wouldn't get out of bed in the morning.
I think that no matter whether you're Quentin Tarantino or any other kind of a rebel, or whatever, everyone who makes movies still wants to win an Academy Award, because it's like the Pulitzer Prize or the Congressional Medal of Honor.
As a kid growing up in a small town in Washington State, my only exposure to New York City was through movies. The town with its towering skyscrapers, fascinating people and teeming energy absolutely captivated me.
Seeing New York in the movies is what made me want to live in Manhattan one day. I eventually got my wish, and the city has never disappointed me.
