- It's very different now, but you can see why most actors would avoid homosexual roles . . . After I was in Death in Venice (1971) so many papers in America wrote that I was homosexual. All from one movie! I kept having to say no, no, which makes me sound desperate or prejudiced . . . so I think for me I'm better being far away from all that.
- I was just 16 and [Luchino Visconti] and the team took me to a gay nightclub. Almost all the crew were gay. The waiters at the club made me feel very uncomfortable. They looked at me uncompromisingly as if I was a nice meaty dish. I knew I couldn't react. It would have been social suicide. But it was the first of many such encounters.
- My career is one of the few that started at the absolute top and then worked its way down. That was lonely.
- I didn't choose "Death in Venice". "Death in Venice" chose me.
- I would rather have built my life than be put on this pedestal.
- I don't think it's ethically defensible to let a 16-year-old bear the burden of advertising the damn film. Especially not when you come back to school and you hear, 'Hi there, angel lips.' A guy who's in the middle of his own teenage hormone tempest doesn't want to be called 'beautiful'. When you snap your fingers and you've got 10 chicks running after you, there's no need to learn any social skills for dealing with the opposite sex.
- Their diagnosis is sudden infant death syndrome but my diagnosis is lack of love. I descended into depression, alcohol, self-destruction in all ways imaginable - it was an ego trip. Poor me, me, me.
- I did it more or less to be able to say I'd tried it but it's not really my cup of tea. It wasn't more serious than that.
- I must have been bloody naive because it was sort of like, 'Wow! Everyone's so nice.' I don't think they treated me out of the kindness of their heart ... I felt like [a] wandering trophy.
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