Happy Birthday Saul Rubinek!

I was raised to be kind. My parents were underdogs. Immigrant Jews. I spoke with an accent. I didn't speak English even - I spoke French and Yiddish mostly. I was picked on.

In the theatre, as anyone knows who's even done amateur theatre all their lives, you immediately find a family there. Because you're under stress, you're trying to create something, you're putting on a show, you find brothers and sisters right away.

My parents taught me the way to deal with being picked on was to be compassionate. I had to defend myself physically, but I had to be compassionate and understand the position of those abusing me. I had to figure it out and then rise above it.

In my 20s, I was a monk. I was obsessed with theatre, not being famous, not with television. I was 20 years on the stage before I set foot in front of a camera.

Well, a bunch of movies paid the bills. But I always had a good time. I mean, I didn't work on a movie that paid the bills any differently than I would've worked on a movie directed by Eastwood. I worked on them all as if they were A-class material. If the dialogue was really bad, I'd ask permission to change it. But I never had contempt.

When I went to England on my own, I became a busker. I played guitar for money in Leicester Square. And the guys who are supposedly blind and crippled, who aren't, got me after I'd collected a lot of money, took my money and threatened to break my arm if I ever came back to their 'kip,' their turf.