I like most of the Humphrey Bogart movies because they had to act then, and they acted very well. Edward G. Robinson is probably the best actor I’ve ever seen on the movies.

Meaning of the quote

Patrick Macnee, a British actor, says he likes most of the movies starring Humphrey Bogart because the actors had to really act in those movies, and they acted very well. Macnee also thinks that Edward G. Robinson is probably the best actor he has ever seen in movies.

About Patrick Macnee

Patrick Macnee was a British-American actor best known for his role as secret agent John Steed in the television series The Avengers. He had a successful acting career spanning over 50 years, appearing in numerous TV shows and films, and even had a UK Top 10 hit single with his Avengers co-star Honor Blackman.

More about the author

More quotes from Patrick Macnee

They call it The New Avengers but it’s really the old Avengers with new people except for me, looking rather fat and rather old.

Patrick Macnee

English actor (1922-2015)

It doesn’t work that way, you know, because most parts that you think you’d do well, most other people don’t. So they offer you something – The Avengers is a good example… I fitted into that because I came from that sort of background. It’s not even acting.

Patrick Macnee

English actor (1922-2015)

Well, you know, I was through the whole of the Second World War and saw all my friends killed.

Patrick Macnee

English actor (1922-2015)

I went to acting school, but only for nine months. If you’re an actor, you know, don’t really need to learn how to do it.

Patrick Macnee

English actor (1922-2015)

The only danger about websites, you know, is people who remember something you did or said thirty or forty years ago, and bring it up against you, so you’re going for a job and you don’t get it.

Patrick Macnee

English actor (1922-2015)

Until the year 1967, it was a crime, for which you could be put in prison, to make homosexual love to someone in your own house. If they came in and caught you at it, you could be put into prison. This has changed – I’m talking about England, incidentally.

Patrick Macnee

English actor (1922-2015)

I mean, everyone says Citizen Kane. It isn’t that great, anyway. And Orson Welles I knew well, of course. He made other incredible films that no one would let him make, which were much better than Citizen Kane, really.

Patrick Macnee

English actor (1922-2015)

Television has some lovely aspects to it – and some ghastly aspects – but the theater itself was a wonderful invention.

Patrick Macnee

English actor (1922-2015)

These things don’t just come, arrive and settle like a bird picking up a few bits of crumbs. They develop. I think the best word for these things is develop. They develop because of the human beings who just happen to be there at the time.

Patrick Macnee

English actor (1922-2015)

I like most of the Humphrey Bogart movies because they had to act then, and they acted very well. Edward G. Robinson is probably the best actor I’ve ever seen on the movies.

Patrick Macnee

English actor (1922-2015)

I was absolutely delighted that those shows have been preserved.

Patrick Macnee

English actor (1922-2015)

And that’s what happened to that show. It started ordinary, it started really rather bad. As I said, there was a review that said, really, we think the commercials are better than the show. And then it gradually developed.

Patrick Macnee

English actor (1922-2015)

The radio even weren’t allowed to say there was a Holocaust and people were being killed right, left and center in these terrible camps.

Patrick Macnee

English actor (1922-2015)

And in the Second World War, you didn’t just read about it in the newspapers because you weren’t allowed to read it in the newspapers. It was all censored, you know? So nobody knew what we were doing.

Patrick Macnee

English actor (1922-2015)

But I did an awful lot of work in Hollywood, and in New York for that matter.

Patrick Macnee

English actor (1922-2015)

So I find the fascination, the love, the incredible skill and everything to do with acting, writing plays, and doing them, just darling. Lovely. I love actors.

Patrick Macnee

English actor (1922-2015)

Accomplishment is such a patronizing, dangerous word, isn’t it? I haven’t really accomplished anything. The most accomplished thing I’ve done is to have lived this long – 81.

Patrick Macnee

English actor (1922-2015)