Kenny Baker Quotes

When my brother and me got into performing in the late '40s and early '50s, it was a sensational opportunity to learn from our elders. Every show we played had a dancer, a comic, a juggler, a singer, an acrobat. I came to appreciate virtuosity in all forms of the business.

We are in the same tent as the clowns and the freaks - that's show business.

When I was a kid, I wanted to be a clown. I didn't want to be an actor, I wanted to join the circus and entertain people.

I was very interested in vaudeville. It was the only sort of discipline that was a five-minute act on stage, which is what I really enjoyed and saw myself doing. And I bought books on it.

You know what my earliest memories are? Going from one burlesque town to another. My father was in burlesque.

I'm in showbusiness. I'm an entertainer.

My mother worked in the old Minsky's troupe, which toured the country in the golden age of burlesque theatre.

When I was starting out in this business, that was the norm. You did it all. You looked around, and entertainers could dance, sing, play the piano, act, make you laugh.

I come from a very vaudevillian family.

My contributions were many: First clown director, with witty sayings and flashily dressed, now called master of ceremonies.

I think I'll be a clown when I get grown.... There ain't one thing in this world I can do about folks except laugh, so I'm gonna join the circus and laugh my head off.

I wanted to be Stan Laurel, then I wanted to be Fred Astaire and then Captain Kangaroo. I actually started out as a radio announcer when I was 17 and never left the business, so that's literally 70 years.

Although I'm predominantly known for game-shows, I do prefer to be known as a performer.

For a long time, I debated about whether I would make movies or join the circus and work as a clown.

To get a job where the only thing you have to do in your career is to make people laugh-well, it's the best job in the world.

I grew up singing since the age of three. Vocally trained since the age of eight. Fascinated by Mary Poppins and all those musical movies and really knew that I wanted to be a performer.

Well, I was sort of a jack-of-all-trades in show business for a long time. I was a singer and a dancer and then I got a job as an actor.

Even though my father was a radio comedian, it wasn't cool to say, at a young age, 'I want to be a comedian.'

I love doing radio, and I love doing stand-up, obviously.

You just don't see the same type of all-purpose entertainers nowadays.

At the age of 15 I began my singing lessons, and once I became a professional performer, I dove into acting.

I've been in show business for 50, no, 60 years. I was approached in school to join a variety act.

I've had 79 to 80 years of show business. I started when I was 5 with a man called Tom Mix. I didn't have time to go to school because I was in silent movies, I was in radio, I was in burlesque, I worked with the circus. I'm all show business!

Actors didn't use to be celebrities. A hundred years ago, they put the theaters next to the brothels.

I was performing from the age of three.