Limelight (1952)

Claire Bloom: Thereza 'Terry' Ambrose

Photos 

Quotes 

• Terry : If all else fails, there's always that little home in the country.

  Calvero : This is my home, here.

  Terry : I thought you hated the theater.

  Calvero : I do. I also hate the sight of blood, but it's in my veins.

• Terry : Worms can't smile!

  Calvero : Oh, how would you know, have you ever appealed to their sense of humour?

  Terry : Of course not.

  Calvero : Well then!

• Terry : What is there to fight for?

  Calvero : Ah, you see, you admit it. What is there to fight for? Everything! Life itself, isn't that enough? To be lived, suffered, enjoyed! What is there to fight for? Life is a beautiful, magnificent thing, even to a jellyfish. Huh, what is there to fight for? Besides, you - you have your art, your dancing!

  Terry : I can't dance without legs!

  Calvero : I know a man without arms who can play a scherzo on a violin and does it all with his toes. The trouble is you won't fight! You've given in, continually dwelling on sickness and death. But - there's something just as inevitable as death, and that's life. Life, life, life! Think of the power that's in the universe, moving the earth, growing the trees. That's the same power within you if you only have courage and the will to use it!

• Terry : I'm sorry.

  Calvero : You should be. A young girl like you wanting to throw your life away. Heh! When you are my age you want to hang onto it.

• Calvero : We'll have to get you well! It isn't the ideal spot for convalescing, but you're welcome to it. That is, if you can put up with being Mrs. Calvero. Of course, in name only!

  Terry : Won't it inconvenience you?

  Calvero : Not at all! I've had five wives already, one more or less makes no difference to me. Moreover, I've arrived at the age where a platonic friendship can be sustained on the highest moral plane.

• Terry : What a sad business, being funny.

  Calvero : Very sad if they won't laugh. But it's a thrill when they do. To look out there and see them all laughing, to hear that roar go up, waves of laughter coming at you.

• Calvero : How do I look?

  Terry : [can see he was drinking]  Funny.

  Calvero : I know what you're thinking, my health and all that. But there's a creamy white light going on and off inside.

  Terry : Is it really worth it?

  Calvero : Not that I care for success, but I don't want another failure.

• Calvero : The same Terry.

  Terry : Am I?

  Calvero : A little more grown-up, that's all.

  Terry : I don't want to grow up.

  Calvero : None of us do.

• Terry : Why didn't you let me die?

  Calvero : Are you in pain? That's all that matters. The rest is fantasy. Billions of years it's taken to evolve human consciousness and you want to wipe it out. Wipe out the miracle of all existence. More important than anything in the whole universe! What can the stars do? Nothing! But sit on their axis! And the sun, shooting flames 280,000 miles high. So what? Wasting all its natural resources. Can the sun think? Is it conscious? No, but you are!

  [notices Terry has fallen asleep] 

  Calvero : Pardon me, my mistake.

• Calvero : At this stage of the game life gets to be a habit.

  Terry : A hopeless one.

  Calvero : Then live without hope. Live for the moment. There are still - there are still - there are still wonderful moments.

• Calvero : I want to forget the public.

  Terry : Never. You love them too much.

  Calvero : I'm not so sure. Maybe I love them, but I don't admire them.

  Terry : I think you do.

  Calvero : As individuals, yes. There's greatness in everyone. But as a crowd, they're like a monster without a head that never knows which way it's going to turn. It can be prodded in any direction.

• Terry : I'd despise myself if I thought that.

  Calvero : That's the trouble, you do. That's the trouble with the world. We all despise ourselves.

• Calvero : We're just having a little beer, Bach and Beethoven, as it were.

  Terry : Isn't it rather late for music?

  Calvero : Not if we play a nocturne.

  [to the band] 

  Calvero : Proceed with the butchery, only make it soft, sentimental, largo.

• Terry : Calvero, come back. You've got to come back.

  Calvero : I can't. I must go forward. That's progress.

• Calvero : Now let me see, your mother was a dressmaker and your father a Lord?

  Terry : The fourth son of a Lord. That's quite different.

  Calvero : How is it that he married your mother?

  Terry : She was one of the family housemaids.

  Calvero : Sounds like a novelette!

• Terry : [Calvero sneezes as part of his act on stage]  Gezundheit!

  Calvero : It certainly does.

  Terry : I beg your pardon?

  Calvero : The dress. It goes on tight.

• Terry : I'm scared. Pray for me.

  Calvero : God helps those who help themselves.

• Neville : I finally have the chance to talk to you and I have nothing to say.

  Terry : What is more eloquent than silence?

• Terry : You've joined the army?

  Neville : On the contrary, the army joined me. I was drafted.

  Terry : Oh, that's awful.

  Neville : I agree. It's carrying the war too far.

• Terry : It's more than pity. It's something I've lived with, grown to. It's his soul, his sweetness, his sadness. Nothing will ever separate me from that.

• Terry : Something's gone. Gone forever.

  Calvero : Nothing's gone, it only changes.

• Terry : Are you all right?

  Calvero : Of course. I'm an old weed. The more I'm cut down, the more I spring up again.

• Calvero : [dream sequence, performing on stage]  I don't know you? Who are you? Who are your people? Are you in the social register?

  Terry : My name happens to be Smith.

  Calvero : Never heard of them.

  Terry : That shows you're asinine.

  Calvero : I should have worn my overcoat.

• Calvero : What did you do?

  Terry : I just ran and wept. Ran and wept.

  Calvero : Then what happened?

  Terry : I tried to forget.

• Terry : I'll never dance again! I'm a cripple.

• Terry : Cheer up. Look! The dawn is breaking. Oh, that's a good omen. I know it. It will be. It must be!

• Terry : I'm tired of fighting.

  Calvero : Because you're fighting yourself. You won't give yourself a chance. But the fight for happiness is beautiful.

  Terry : Happiness...

  Calvero : There is such a thing.

  Terry : Where?

  Calvero : Listen, as a child I used to complain to my father about not having toys and he would say this

  [pointing his head] 

  Calvero : is the greatest toy ever created. Here lies the secret of all happiness.

• Terry : To hear you talk, no one would ever think you were a comedian.

  Calvero : I'm beginning to realize that. It's the reason I can't get a job.

  Terry : Why?

  Calvero : Because they have no imagination. Or think because I'm getting on in years I'm old, all washed up.

• Terry : I'm sorry.

  Calvero : You should be. A young girl like you wanting to throw your life away. When you're my age, you'll want to hang on to it.

  Terry : Why?

  Calvero : Well, at this stage of the game life gets to be a habit.

  Terry : A hopeless one.

  Calvero : Then live without hope. Live for the moment. There are still, there are still... There are still wonderful moments.

  Terry : But if you've lost your health!

  Calvero : My dear, I was given up for dead six months ago, but I fought back. That's what you must do.

• Calvero : Perhaps I drank too much.

  Terry : There's usually a reason for drinking.

  Calvero : Oh yes.

  Terry : Unhappiness, I suppose.

  Calvero : No, I'm used to that. It was more complicated. As a man gets on in years, he wants to live deeply. A feeling of sad dignity comes upon him, and that's fatal for a comic. It affected my work. I lost contact with the audience, couldn't warm up to them. And that's what started me drinking. I had to have it before I went on. It got so I couldn't be funny without it. The more I drank... It became a vicious circle.

  Terry : What happened?

  Calvero : A heart attack. I almost died.

  Terry : And you're still drinking?

  Calvero : Occasionally, if I think of things. The wrong things I suppose, as you do.

• Terry : It's more than pity. It's something I've lived with, grown to. It's his soul, his sweetness, his sadness... Nothing will ever separate me from that.

• Terry : If we could only get away. That house in the country, where we could have peace and happiness.

  Calvero : Happiness. The first time I've ever heard you mention that word.

  Terry : I'm always happy with you.

  Calvero : Are you?

  Terry : Of course. I love you.

• Terry : I'd stand listening. Excited and melancholy.