Buddha

When Ruth Gordon, at age 72, won the Oscar for her role in Rosemary’s Baby, she opened her acceptance speech by saying, “I can’t tell you how encouraging a thing like this is.” The audience roared with laughter and appreciation. She was 72-years-old and making films for 54 years before she hit the jackpot. 

Sophia Loren gave the performance of her life in the film, The Life Ahead (available on Netflix). She was 86-years-old. She explained her achievement as follows: “There is a fountain of youth: it is your mind, your talents, the creativity you bring to your life and the lives of people you love. When you learn to tap this source, you will truly have defeated age.” In some ways her role in The Life Ahead is more remarkable than her Oscar-winning role in Two Women, when she was 26-years-old.

But winning an Oscar at such an advanced age, when many people are using walkers, retired, and smelling the roses, is incredible.

Here are six examples: Three male actors and three female actors:

Coming Soon, Can’t Wait

Trivia Quiz

Can you name the films where these quotes are from and the actors who spoke them? Never share a foxhole with someone braver than you.

1. “Every man dies; not every man lives.”

2. And our bodies are earth. And our thoughts are clay. And we sleep and eat with death.”

3. “Follow the money”

4. “Michael, we’re bigger than U.S. Steel.”

5. “His eyes made love to me all evening.”

6. “Nature is what we are put into this world to rise above.”

7. The list is an absolute good. The list is life.”

8. “I’ll remember you, honey. You’re the one that got away.”

9. “You aren’t too bright. I like that in a man.”

10. “I wouldn’t give two cents for all your fancy rules, if, behind them, they didn’t have a little bit of plain, ordinary, everyday kindness and a little looking out for the other fella, too.”

Answers next week.