“If I have any philosophy it is to mind my own business as well as I can and keep order in my affairs. I try to remember, too, that at least once in his life each of us can be of vital assistance, perhaps, to someone who knocks at his door.” — Ronald Colman
Source: Helen Ludlam (1930)
Photo: Cynara (1932)
Tea time on the set of Romola (1924) with sisters Dorothy and Lillian Gish and director Henry King.
Vilma Banky and Ronald Colman on the cover of Cinefilo Magazine in 1925. It promoted their film The Dark Angel.
“I suppose that I would be called an atheist, since have no particular creed, or at least I follow none. But I do believe in God, so I am not exactly an atheist, am I? At least, I believe in a God-force. It seems to manifest itself in various constructive ways. For instance, light seems to me to have something God-like about it. So does wisdom, joy, truth, and life. These impersonal forces seem to me to be omnipotent. I can’t quite reconcile with the misfortunes that afflict people, however. I think I am just lucky for what success I may have. I know a lot of people who work just as hard as I do, are better looking than I am, and much more deserving of success all the way around than I am. Yet they have continual hard luck and disappointment.” — Ronald Colman
“People often think they want a thing when actually it is something quite different they want. This subconscious confusion of thought may be the stumbling block. After all, it is what we think about any condition in life that makes it good or bad, pleasant or unpleasant, isn’t it? It hasn’t actually anything to do with what the thing is.” — Ronald Colman
“What I do after I leave the studio seems to me to be my own business, unless I break the peace or become a public nuisance.” — Ronald Colman. Here he is with William Powell and Richard Barthelmess at Catalina Island in the 1920s.
Two postcard images from the movie The Rescue (1929), co-starring Lili Damita.
“When people ask me to reveal the secret to my subtle screen charm and individual technique, I break down and tell them all: ‘When I look to the right,’ I say, ‘that’s surprise. When I look to the left, that’s fear. When I look down, that’s sorrow. And when I look up, that’s love.'” — Ronald Colman‘s admission to Kay Francis while shooting Raffles (1930).
Source: Lynn Kear and John Rossman’s book, Kay Francis
“A man usually falls in love with a woman who asks the kind of questions he is able to answer.” — Ronald Colman
Ronald Colman and Helen Hayes star in Arrowsmith (1931), based on an award winning Sinclair Lewis novel. The film was directed by John Ford.
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A caricature from the Ambassador Hotel’s Field & Turf Club.
“What I think on certain subjects cannot possibly interest other people, I feel. The desire to know what an actor or actress likes or dislikes, does or does not is prompted, not from real interest, I feel sure, but by idle curiosity alone, and I can’t see the advantage in gratifying it.” — Ronald Colman
“Acting is an illusion and the actor should, to my way of thinking, be an illusion, too.” — Ronald Colman
Photo: A Tale of Two Cities (1937)
“I have no small talk. I am not a brilliant dinner companion by any means. For instance, if I attend a formal dinner – those two people one on either side of you that you don’t know – I find myself painfully silent unless I find that we have interests in common. I only feel at home with people I know well and who like the things I like. Then I talk on and on. Sometimes the next morning I think to myself, ‘I talked my fool head off last night!’ But I have no talent for ‘making an impression.’ I do not dislike people but I am not a good mixer. And I have long ago given up the hope that I ever shall be.” — Ronald Colman
“When a man has been in pictures as long as I have there isn’t very much the public doesn’t know about him. After all, when a story has been told what is there to add to it? Once having read that Ronald Colman is an Englishman, smokes a pipe, likes solitude, likes to read, likes tennis, wears white flannels in summer, they can’t be interested in hearing it again. Repeated stories are wearying and the subject if them becomes wearisome, too. As long as I am in pictures I think a little publicity is very good, necessary even, but too much is the worst thing that can happen to an actor.” — Ronald Colman
