Scatman Crothers Quotes

If I could have lived as an actress in any period, it would have been the 1920s - I would have loved to have been part of that speakeasy era.

There are wonderful museums with lots of photographs of 1920's musicals.

There is no way I'd have wanted to live in the Twenties. It was really crap for women.

I went to high school with Al Capone.

'Boardwalk' begins literally on the first day of Prohibition, which I think was a wonderful way to start - to have the story kind of come out of this massive historical phenomenon. And the more I researched the '20s, the more I discovered just how interesting it was.

I looked back on the roaring Twenties, with its jazz, 'Great Gatsby' and the pre-Code films as a party I had somehow managed to miss.

The Prohibition era is so vividly depicted in 'Lawless.' John Hillcoat does a remarkable job of rooting his film in such a tangible reality.

Dancing in speakeasies was a job, and none of us knew for sure who were gangsters. No one told us, so how could we know? My mother used to come and take me home. We thought nothing of walking home together at two in the morning.

There are always decades that interest people. For me, that's the Roaring Twenties.

If you go back, 'The Great Gatsby' would be a portrait of the rich and fortune made by business.

I started with the book 'Boardwalk Empire' and then immersed myself in the history of Atlantic City, World War I, the temperance movement, Prohibition, pop culture. I even read the news and magazines of the period just to soak in it. That was before I even started thinking of the story.

I was always interested in the 1920s and the gangster world, in general.

Bootleggers were romanticized by people like F. Scott Fitzgerald, for example. Gatsby is a bootlegger. And they were not thought of as evil criminals in the newspapers, either. There was a certain amount of affection for them.

I looked back on the roaring Twenties - with its jazz, 'Great Gatsby,' and the pre-Code films - as a party I had somehow managed to miss. After World War Two, I expected something similar, a return to the period after the first war, but when the skirt lengths went down instead of up, I knew we were in big trouble.

A 1920s dress I wore on my 21st birthday... literally disintegrated on me. I had the most wild debauched night. And that disintegrated dress sits in my closet - such a great memory.

Terre Haute. They used to call it 'Terrible Hut' because it was so wide open. Gambling, red light district, speak-easies. I entertained for all the gangsters. Can't name a gangster that didn't come into the place where I worked.

1920 was an auspicious year for a young person to enter the world as an American citizen.

There is nothing in my life where I view myself as a 1920s person.

The Roaring Twenties were the period of that Great American Prosperity which was built on shaky foundations.

I went to an audition for a Harry Belafonte Roaring Twenties special for choreographer Donald McKayle, but I failed.

Going out in Paris was like going out in the '30s dressed like the Andrews Sisters. It was everything I'd seen in books at my grandparents' house, only it was our generation.

I used to love the '20s.

The Twenties have this sort of attitude where you never know what's around the corner.

The '20s are a very interesting period to me.

Though the Jazz Age continued it became less and less an affair of youth. The sequel was like a children's party taken over by the elders.