Donald O'Brien (actor)

“In all these years of recuperaion, I over-used one half of my body. So, when I did a short sprint on the beach, I just fell and couldn't get back on my feet again. In the bad time following I was helped by my two wonderful brothers, who got me into a hospital and assisted me in many ways, God bless them. As it turned out, the hip bones of the side of my body which had been overly stressed were severely damaged, and so I had a very hard time after that.”

“I always preferred those movies I would have a large role in. If I had to choose between a small movie with a big role and a big movie with a small role, I'd take the one with more screen time. It's not very satisfying for an actor to get work and then ending up on the cutting room floor.”

“This midget, whose name was Domenico, once introduced me to a good-looking man who was something like his butler. One year later, the poor little man was found on a dumpheap outside of Rome. The young man had killed him, just a block away from this bar we're sitting in right now! Truth sometimes is stranger than fiction...”

“(Sean Connery) was the most conceited actor I've ever worked with! He is rich, successful and handsome...good Lord, why does he act that way? He doesn't want anybody near him! If there was anything or anybody that might have taken the eyes of the spectator off of him, he just went to the director and complained, as if he didn't already have enough screen time! Murray Abraham was so different, such a nice man...And there was one brilliant German or Austrian actor on this movie who looked like Falstaff, big, fat guy, a marvellous presence. Helmut Qualtinger was his name. He was terrific!”

“I remember that they had this wonderful effect for my demise [on 2020: Texas Gladiators], with my skull being cracked open by an axe. They had photos of this stunning effect made, but then decided to change it because they thought it was just too much.”

“I slipped out in the bathroom of a Parisian hotel and hit my head. I was in coma for about three days, and when I woke up, one half of my body was paralyzed.”

“That movie (Zombi Holocaust) was also shot in Croce Verde. Not exactly on the same spot as the Emanuelle movie, but very near. I particularly remember the lovely leading actress, Alessandra delli Colli, the wife of one the greatest Italian cameramen, Tonino delli Colli. There was also this great Japanese guy, who used to have real snakes curl up on his belly! He was incredible.”

“I was supposed to wear this really great costume [on Il Brigante], beautiful white flannel trousers, a captain's cap, it looked marvellous, but right before shooting they had it changed and they told me to wear my own stuff instead. I felt rotten because it looked so cheap.”

“This was a wonderful role. I played a Sicilian baron. They had incredible locations, for instance this majestic castle, I couldn't believe how beautiful it was! We also shot a scene in Hadrian's Villa, in a place called Sanctuario di Ercole. I had a great costume - the costume designers also worked on Visconti's GATTOPARDO. It's a mystery to me why they wouldn't let the film out. It's terrible for an actor: You think you have a big break, then the film just rots on the shelf! Also, the director was a very likeable person, very calm on the set. A wonderful movie.”

“The leading lady of this film (Yeti) happened to be Antonella Interlenghi, the daughter of Antonella Lualdi. The girl very obviously inherited her mother's beauty, but she had the silliest pseudonym I've ever heard. She called herself "Phoenix Grant". I mean, what kind of a name is this? It's just as if I called myself, say, Hyde Park Corner Montgomery. Or Hamburg Rommel, how about that?”

“A guy once told me, I didn't know you went to South America. I said, I've never been to South America. But I saw you in a film (EMANUELLE GLI ULTIMI CANNIBALI), with snakes and every damn thing...That was Croce Verde.”

“(Laura Gemser) was a very quiet woman, très réservé, but not in a snobbish way. She was very, very lovely. I worked together with her again, on Aristide Massaccesi's RITORNO DALLA MORTE, a Frankenstein movie made in 1992. She worked as a costume designer. This was another instance where I said something wrong: I told her how terrible it was that Tinti was dead, him being such a nice man...She had to rush out of the room because she was overwhelmed by her feelings for Gabriele.”

“I can't remember how they did this effect [on 1977's Mannaja), but it looked awful! One of the girls said to me that I was made of steel because Maurizio dragged me through the rain with the rope around my neck. That was tough indeed. Poor Maurizio died some time after that in a tennis accident.”

“(Luciano Rossi) was strange, albeit in a very friendly way. I remember an incident, when the two of us were going downtown, and he suddenly had to stop at the post office. He wrote out a big cheque for a society for the prevention of cruelty against animals. And the day before he had declined an offer to get a bigger suite at the hotel because he didn't like the thought of spending so much money for himself. That's a very nice twist in the story, I think.”

“[O'Brien's heroes are] William Butler Yeats, Michael Collins, André Malraux, Maurice Ravel, Giorgio Di Cirico, Laurence Olivier and Max Schmeling. And of course the great Douglas Baader, the war pilot who had no legs. When he was captured by the Germans, they allowed the British to parachute his steel legs. And he escaped! So, I don't care about The Merry Wives of Windsor, but talk to me about Douglas Baader!”

“[GIOCHI EROTICI DI UNA FAMIGLIA PERBENE] was one of these sex flicks where the cameraman always measures the distance between the camera and your crotch, which makes for a very strange working atmosphere.”

“[Camilla Fulci] was about 15 or so at the time. I tried to remind her of her riding along the set [of 1975's Four of the Apocalypse). She looked very strange, when I said that. A stuntman led me away and showed me that the lower half of the poor girl's body was paralyzed because of a riding accident, just like that of Christopher Reeves! She was such a lovely girl. It made me feel very bad that I had said that."”

“(Lucio Fulci) was a great director. Many terrible things happened to him in his life. He was rather unlucky. I have always enjoyed working with him greatly, as he was a truly original human being with a great love for cinema.”

“(Raimund Harmstorf) was an incredibly good-looking guy. He used to be a Decathlon athlete, I think. These people have the best physiques because they have to do everything, run, jump, throw weights.”

“(John Steiner) was a good actor, but we didn't get along well. I am Irish, he is British, maybe that's why...”