“I would rather play a part for love than money.” — Shannon Day
“Dance? I always danced. Lessons? Never. I don’t know the first thing about the technique of it. Whenever the impulse came upon me to dance, to sing, to act, to draw, I just did those things. Always crudely, for I never had any training, and very little schooling. It seemed there was something that always bothered me, that I had to tell some way and couldn’t say in words, so I sort of danced and sang it out.” — Shannon Day
“It is the general opinion of almost everyone, that once in the Follies, life should be a bed of roses. This is all a big mistake! After leaving Amsterdam Roof I had to work just as hard for what I won as a girl who had no former experience. Being a former Follies girl didn’t mean a thing. I don’t mean by that, that I consider my time with Ziegfeld wasted…not at all. One the contrary the experience and training I received there is a decided asset…but so far as the Follies giving a person a so-called “drag” is concerned…there’s nothing in it.” — Shannon Day
Source: 1927
“It seemed as if fate was against me, pushing me away. I just missed chances – I was out when they called, or too late, or somebody else had a bit more ability than I. When I realized I was slipping here, I went back East, worked in a picture, and then, reading in the papers about the boom out here, came back to Hollywood. No sooner had I arrived than that slump came – and hit me harder, it seemed, than anyone else. For months I couldn’t get even a ‘bit.’ I used to sit and cry. Then I’d wash my eyes with cold water, dab powder on my face and go out somewhere and smile – to let them see it didn’t hurt, so they wouldn’t laugh. They laugh here, do you know? It hurts. They don’t care. You’ve got to put powder and a smile on, so it won’t show. The last thing to go is your pride – then you are done for. But I hung onto that.” — Shannon Day
“It seems that I have been progressing very slowly, and I was almost discouraged to the breaking point when I received this ‘Kongo’ offer. Now, for the first time in years, I feel that I am on the right road; it’s all going just the way I hoped and planned it would go some day. I think that’s always the way when one has an ideal and enough courage to stick to it until things develop the right way, don’t you?….I’m not worried though. I think I must be part fatalist, because I sincerely believe that wheterver is for me, I will get… so there’s no use worrying about it.” — Shannon Day
Source: 1927
“Some day I’m going to put all of my feelings down on paper, feelings that no one but those in the professional world can ever know. No one but they can understand the heartbreaks that are covered by evening wraps, smiles and bows, by the bright lights and glamour of the premiere… but I know it all, and perhaps some day I will be given the power to make those feelings live in print.” — Shannon Day
Source: 1927
