Harvey Korman quotes

Harvey Korman quotes - Hollywood's great second banana and straight man
Harvey Korman

Harvey Korman quotes – Hollywood’s great second banana and straight man

  • I got canceled in the middle of making the pilot.
  • (on sketch comedy) You asked what is the secret of a really good sketch. And it is a sketch is a small play. It’s got a beginning, and a middle and an end. It should have a plot; it should have the characters, conflict. It is a little play. And in it, will be funny stuff.
  • You have to have a certain persona to be a star, you know, and I don’t have that. I’m a banana.
  • And I’ll tell you somebody else who was a straight man and considers himself a straight man and describes himself as one, Cary Grant.
  • Although in Abbott and Costello, and straight man was first. That’s a very interesting concept.
  • And I went to New York and died; for 10 years I walked those pavements. I can’t think of New York without feeling uncomfortable and feeling like a failure.
  • And it’s tough traveling. You know, the hotels and the airports and all that. That part, eating and getting around to the hotel room and then going on.
  • But there’s a lot of 50’s and a lot of boomers and a lot of kids in their 30’s that grew up with us.
  • Don’t … those writers used to love us. They would write these little plays, and we would take care of the comedy. It really seldom was joke jokes.
  • Funny is when you’re serious.
  • I mean, we had on our show, we had marriages, divorces and other stuff going on. And that was just me.
  • I played Hamlet, I played Chekhov and Ibsen and all the classics.
  • I went to the Goodman School of Drama in Chicago.
  • I wish there was something that … I get all those wonderful letters and wonderful acknowledgments, and I wish I could be more appreciative of what I do. But it’s hard for me.
  • I’m not a star.
  • It’s not so much the club as we kind of make it into, like, theater. It’s kind of like revue, like cabaret. It’s like, you know, doing our show.
  • Then I got out of the service, and I was going to be a Shakespearean actor.
  • They say it’s good but I didn’t know what I was doing until I got into the suit and they put the mustache on me, and somehow, when I got all the drag on, it came out. It was the most amazing thing. I’m truly extraordinary.
  • We were an ensemble, and Carol [Burnett] had the most incredible attitude. I’ve never worked with a star of that magnitude who was willing to give so much away. … on the success of  The Carol Burnett Show
  • It takes a certain type of person to be a television star. I didn’t have whatever that is. I come across as kind of snobbish and maybe a little too bright. … Give me something bizarre to play or put me in a dress and I’m fine.
About tom.raymond 1562 Articles
Professional clown for over 25 years - happily married, with 5 children and 1 grandson