A biography for Ernest Borgninehasn’t been written yet.
“I wouldn't trade those 10 years for anything. The Navy taught me a lot of things. It molded me as a man, and I made a lot of wonderful friends.”
“The trick is not to become somebody else. You become somebody else when you're in front of a camera or when you're on stage. There are some people who carry it all the time. That, to me, is not acting.”
“I think we all have the urge to be a clown, whether we know it or not.”
“I don't chart out the life histories of the people I play. If I did, I'd be in trouble. I work with my heart and my head, and naturally emotions follow.”
“To this day I clean better than most maids.”
“The Oscar made me a star, and I'm grateful. But I feel had I not won the Oscar I wouldn't have gotten into the messes I did in my personal life.”
“Writers used to make such wonderful pictures without all that swearing, all that cursing. And now it seems that you can't say three words without cursing. And I don't think that's right.”
“I'm what you call a Depression sailor.”
“My mother made me do all the housework as a boy. I still do it, even in hotels.”
“I just want to do more work. Every time I step in front of a camera I feel young again. I really do. It keeps your mind active and it keeps you going.”
“I don't care whether a role is 10 minutes long or two hours. And I don't care whether my name is up there on top, either. Matter of fact, I'd rather have someone else get top billing; then if the picture bombs, he gets the blame, not me.”
“I got a job immediately after leaving high school; I was lucky - three dollars a week and all I could eat, working on a vegetable truck.”
“I've been to a number of places and seen for myself the caliber of people who are in the Navy today - in all the services for that matter. This is an altogether different bunch. These people of today are really bright, young, good people.”
“Everything I do has a moral to it.”
“The Navy has changed a great deal. Not that the officers of my day were bad, because I served under a lot of good officers, believe me. But there were a few bad ones, too.”