This Is Francis X. Bushman (2021)

Francis X. Bushman: Self

Quotes 

• Francis X. Bushman : [remembrances of Chaplin]  We all lined up at noontime, you know, and Charlie, he would have his drink, you know, but he always moved around, we noticed. So that he never, in all the time that he was there, bought a round of drinks!

• Francis X. Bushman : I received these hundreds of thousands of, oh, the most passionate love letters! You know, and filled with of course many, many scores of pictures of nudes, showing their, you know, their blandishments and all that sort of thing.

• Francis X. Bushman : Gloria Swanson really was one of our extra girls out there. And nobody used her much because she was kind of small and had a little piquant nose and she was *very* young. And the first thing you know, Wally Beery, the big wolf of the place, has her... And *has* to marry, see?

• Francis X. Bushman : So I bust in the door, speak to everybody and Louie won't look up. And he owes me $17,000 back money, you know. And I said look, the old so-and-so-and-so-and-so owes me $17,000. Ashamed to to look at me! See? And he comes up with the most godawful flow of profanity and everybody runs! Now, here I am alone with him, see? The point was that what he was telling me was that I would never work again as an actor. I couldn't 'hire a hall', you know that old expression? Vaudeville, stage, screen, nothing! I'd never work again. And then he's scream and go on and finally he ends up by saying, "I'm Louis B. Mayer and who the hell are you?" And I said, "I'm Francis X. Bushman and I try to be gentleman." I thought he was acting like something out of the gutter! I didn't know he was that kind of a man at all, see?

• Francis X. Bushman : [talking about his Metro Pictures signing bonus]  They'd given me $50,000. My God, right away I ordered me a Marmon car, made to order, and I buy me a couple horses and all. You get what I mean? I just spent it right away!

• Francis X. Bushman : Along comes, Al Capone! He drives up to the curb and asks me if I want a lift. And I said yes, I have to - five blocks away is the whatchamacallem and my lawyer's just gone for his car at that garage. So, he said, I'll drive you there, you know. And I got in and I said I'm Francis X. Bushman, you know, introducing myself. "Francis X. Bushman?" Well, I never had a fan in my life so impressed. And all the way form there, all he told me about was how he admired me, the pictures that he had seen of me, and what he thought of me. And he was a great guy!

• Francis X. Bushman : [remembrances of 'Ben-Hur']  Of course I did all my own racing. I've never been - had a stunt - you know, I never had a double in any stunt that I ever did. But, when I was racing, all I was doing was holding my horses back but leaning forward and making the appearance that I was lashing the horses, but I never hit them. I avoided that, see? So that Ramon with his arabs could beat me. Get the point? That's how good my big blacks were. They were taller, they had long legs, stretched out, and God they were wild.