I was born a character person. I was always eccentric, never a conventional beauty. I grew up in the Depression, the youngest of four kids. I wanted to make people laugh, because making my family laugh helped us forget our concerns. And I found that I could do it.

There's no question that theater has changed through the years. The one thing that bothers me is that so many of today's young actors come from television and have not been taught theater technique. They don't realize when they're upstaging you. It's not done out of meanness or trickery. They just think there's a camera over their shoulder that is filming the other actor. But I don't complain about it. I just look out front and deliver the lines.