What I've Learned, Peter O'Toole
Six years: 1939 to 1945. It was life. One's literacy was newspapers, bombs, Germans. We didn't have a childhood. We had the war.
From both my mother and father I learned endurance. Things were pretty tough. But things could be tougher.
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Everything you hear about the true American spirit -- the matriarchy and the femininity and the toughness -- you find in Kate Hepburn. She was funny as hell and brave and dotty. Kate! I gave my daughter her name.
Years later, in Ireland, daughter Kate, then nine or ten, said, "Daddy, there's an old Gypsy woman at the door!" We had a Gypsy nearby who would pinch our flowers. I went to the door and said, "No, thank you, we don't -- oh, hello, Kate." She had four jackets on. One belonged to Barrymore, one to Spencer Tracy, one to me, and one to Humphrey Bogart. Khaki trousers and boots -- this was her uniform.
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