My father was a middle manager at an oil company, but I never knew anything about his work. Whatever business acumen I have just got gleaned over the years.

I always wore the highest heels possible, because the other women on the show were tall.

I found through my fan mail that women... really wanted a role model.

I kept bugging them about making it more upscale, because I felt Abby, through her cleverness and business sense, was a character who would move up. And that's what she did.

I thought it was very important that femininity wasn't lost.

I was always cutting dialogue out when we were rehearsing, and when I produced movies, too. I felt that people don't say things in life - they act, they do things. I always wanted my characters doing, rather than saying what they were doing - which was redundant.

I was brought up Catholic, and my family is still very religious.

I'm back to doing everything I used to, loving life as ever.

If there is anything I would do differently in my life, it is that I would study business more. I'm trying to teach my daughter Chloe at an early age about investing and money so she's not afraid of it.

You really have to love the work. You can't look for stardom. That's a by-product.

One of my favorite movies is The Little Foxes.

I always wanted to know what lens they were on, how close they were. I didn't do it with a plan in mind, but I would instinctively gear what I was doing toward what lenses they were using.

The lighting is so important. One thing that makes me nuts about the lighting now is that they spend an enormous amount of time lighting the set, the background. But the most important thing in the scene is the actor.

There were episodes where I would wear seven or eight outfits. It took a lot of time to get those together. What the character wears is very essential to how I create the character.

You know, when they called me about the role, I thought Knots Landing was a show about a houseboat with Andy Griffith!