Jackie Quotations | Page 3

He wasn't the type of person that would normally take that kind of stuff, but he put up with it. He knew if he did well, the other players would have a chance. If Jackie fell there, we might not be playing in the major leagues even today. He really did he put it all of the Negro League on his shoulders.

He was our Jackie Robinson, ... He wanted to make sure you had a place to live, that you were getting food to eat. Some guys, they only learned enough English to order one thing. He wanted to make sure you had money. If you didn't have money for something, he would give it to you.

There's an image that some of us have of Jackie Onassis, stepping out in the rain, and Maurice Tempelsman is holding her umbrella. We want that man. We want the man to be the concierge and the masseur and the travel booker.

When Jackie got his big contract at CBS and was putting together what turned out to be almost a stock company of players, he remembered Frank and said, 'Get me that kid who played the jail sketch.'

He's way behind where he will be, but he's worked very hard and he's getting better every day. He's nowhere up to the level of conditioning that Channing Frye, David Lee and Jackie Butler and the rest of our young kids are at this time. But I always think that it takes bigger guys longer.

My influences are people like Burgess Meredith, Jackie Gleason, Art Carney. Really good character actors than stars because they do more interesting things. Some of your favorite movies are ones you visit again are due to the great character actors in them.

One of the things I brought upstairs to the long hall that's upstairs in the living quarters is a beautiful French desk that Jackie Kennedy brought into the White House in 1962. And for the president's Treaty Room, which is the office upstairs in the residence, I brought in Grant's furniture, which George really likes.

If I was the Jackie Robinson of golf, I sure didn't do a very good job of it. Jackie was followed by hundreds of great black ballplayers who have transformed their sport... But there are hardly any black kids coming up through the ranks of golf today.

I had never played a real-life character. All the characters that I'd played before were fictitious. So I'd spent all this time creating the affectations and amassing all of the attributes and characteristics and mannerisms, and then Jackie came to the set the first day of filming. I kicked everyone else out of my trailer, and we started to talk. He told me, in his own words, just for him and I, what the whole story was about for him and what that trial meant to him. After that meeting, all of the work that had gone into building the mannerisms and attributes seemed secondary. The most important element was to understand and believe in his cause.

I've got a picture of Jackie in my office, so I think about that every day. I'm just happy to be a part of this day.