"When I was a little kid, maybe five years old, in the old country, my mother used to say to me, she'd warn me, she'd say, "Don't get too close to people, you'll catch their dreams". Years later, I realized I misunderstood her. "Germs", she said, not "dreams". "You'll catch their germs"... I want you to know something, Tucker. I went into business with you for one reason: to make money. That's all. How was I to know... if I got too close, I'd catch your dreams..."
—Tucker, The Man And His Dream (1988)
"I remember my father telling me, "The eyes of God are on us always". The eyes of God. What a phrase to a young boy. What were God's eyes like? Unimaginably penetrating, intense eyes, I assumed. And I wonder if it was just a coincidence I made my speciality opthamology."
—Crimes And Misdemeanors (1989)
"They were mythic. They had a poetry to them."
"Yes."
"And you know what else? The women... The women preferred the traditional monsters."
"The women, huh?"
"The pure horror, it both repels and attracts them, because in their collective unconscious they have the agony of childbirth. The blood. The blood is horror."
"You know, I never though of that."
"Take my word for it. If you want to make out with a young lady, take her to see Dracula."
—Ed Wood (1994)
And it was for that one that Mr. Landau won his Best Supporting Actor Oscar for an outstanding performance as Bela Lugosi. A long-deserved honor coming during a late career resurgence. Proof that it is never too late, shy of the grave, to make one's mark.
