Leslie Uggams

“I like to keep my mind sharp, so I do crossword puzzles and games on my iPad.”

“Even after I was twenty-one, people would still come up to me and say 'Aren't you just a child, dear?' Shouldn't you wear high necks with Peter Pan collars?'”

“I do so many things it has a tendency to confuse people. They didn't know where to put me. So they put me nowhere.”

“My career has been a series of breaking through barriers.”

“My first job was with Ethel Waters.”

“I depend on my memory to learn scripts and songs.”

“I remember I was doing a movie with Charlton Heston, and the director said to me, 'Why do you wanna do acting? You know, you sing.' And I said 'Well, why can't I do both?'”

“Black theaters are not given nearly enough attention. We need these theaters to be aware of each other, to help each other.”

“Oh, I love Blind Al. She says exactly what she thinks.”

“You have to know your history.”

“Singing is like breathing to me. It's something I know how to handle. If something doesn't work, I can work it out. Acting is very involved. I'm just frightened of being bad.”

“My parents were not the typical kind of showbiz parents where everything had to be, you know, study, study, study, study, when it came to tap dancing and all like that. I took the lessons, but they allowed me to have a life.”

“I worked with Charlton Heston in 'Skyjacked' and that was an interesting experience, he's such an icon. I remember saying, 'Mr. Heston,' and him saying, 'Don't call me Mr. Heston. Call me Charlton' and I said, 'Okay, but you don't understand, I've watched you on the screen, I don't know if I can do that.'”

“I've loved reading since I was a kid. Sometimes I have two or three books going at the same time.”

“My career has always been like that - somebody will give me a call, and there I go.”

“Ella Fitzgerald was wonderful, absolutely wonderful. I was in and out of her dressing room. There was always a lot of food, because she had relatives that would always bring you something... And I worked with her during the summer, so I would go outside and play hopscotch, and she'd bring her chair and sit out there to watch me.”

“I just love 'Happy.' I have a little grand baby who loves that song. We'll play it and dance around. Pharrell's conveyed a feeling that when you sing this song, it's joyful.”

“We were lower middle class and my parents really wanted me to have an education and have a real job and not just 'this show biz stuff.'”

“After I turned 12, I didn't work for three years.”

“Well, 'Roots' for me was just an incredible experience. And I was so happy to play Kizzy because Kizzy was, even though she was a slave, she was a strong, strong woman.”