William Devane

“Joey, my older brother, had his own TV show in the '50s, along with Cathy Callahan.”

“There's a certain possessiveness of writers sometimes.”

“The business is built on slowing or even stopping the aging process.”

“The same issue is happening on a show like Everybody Loves Raymond now, which is in its eighth year and struggling to come up with good stories. It'll be interesting to see how they do. The bottom line is, it starts with the writers and ends with the writers.”

“I didn't care about that because I'm not a diplomatic person to begin with. I just went along with things and did what I wanted to do because I knew they had to shoot their 12 pages a day. And when they realized that I didn't alter the text they really didn't mind what I did.”

“And I have to credit David Jacobs with the opportunities he gave me. He was totally into sharing the creation of characters. David put together a show that told the story of people over many years' time and that was greatly enjoyable. Though nowadays that is frowned upon.”

“I try to watch only real things, which basically amounts to C-Span for me. I like real people in real situations. I learn from that.”

“David was the kind of guy who was totally supportive of the actors and instructed the writing staff to trust the actor's instincts, since after all, it's the actors playing the character.”

“I live out in the desert, in farm country. I'm around a lot of farmers, guys with packing houses, that sort of thing. Half the time, these guys are in their pajamas or in their slippers. It's their place.”

“Ultimately the Emmys are a popularity contest.”