It kills me to lose. If I'm a troublemaker, and I don't think that my temper makes me one, then it's because I can't stand losing. That's the way I am about winning, all I ever wanted to do was finish first.
I had the advantage of reading the book, and when the script was first submitted to me, it was just another gangster story - the east side taking over the west side and all that.
And at home in the United States we found continued and increased persecution, first of leaders of the Communist Party, and then of all honest anti-fascists.
In Russia I felt for the first time like a full human being. No color prejudice like in Mississippi, no color prejudice like in Washington. It was the first time I felt like a human being.