I always stayed in tune with my own ambitions and attitudes and I'm still my intractable old self, for better or worse.
Eating is one of the great beauties in life. One of my favorite recreations... eating with friends, the service, the ambience.
No, I never had any dreams. The process of art is a dream in itself. The artist just doesn't... you work out something. It's yours. You don't have to go to sleep to do that. You do that on the canvas.
Imagination comes of not having things.
I guess I created LeRoy Neiman. Nobody else told me how to do it. Well, I'm a believer in the theory that the artist is as important as his work.
I hold doors open for all the women. Men can open the doors for themselves.
As I turn 91 this June 8th, I have to admit my hours at the easel have diminished.
I draw all the time. Drawing is my backbone. I don't think a painter has to be able to draw, I just think that if you draw, you better draw well.
When I paint, I seriously consider the public presence of a person - the surface facade. I am less concerned with how people look when they wake up or how they act at home. A person's public presence reflects his own efforts at image development.
I played an artist in a comedy called 'Rooster.' It was a zany film by Glen Larson, a friend who produced several successful television series including 'Magnum PI.'
I've got the public. I don't care about the critics. I did at one time. I don't any more. I did when I needed compliments. But if you get a lot of compliments, you don't need a critic to tell you, 'This should be done another way.'
I can easily ignore my detractors and feel the people who respond favorably.
The most important thing is to just do it. If I work at a higher level I have responsibility to do better than what I've done before. Sometimes the best happens - beyond possibility. Just do it. Can't worry about it.
You can't take yourself too seriously.
It has been difficult to hold onto many paintings but I have retained a few. Possibly the current favorite is titled 'Big Band' completed in 2005. It measures 13 feet x 9 feet. It has 18 nearly life size recognizable portraits of the biggest jazz stars that I knew and saw perform in the 1950s, '60s, '70s, '80s and includes Wynton Marsalis.
The people who love my paintings, that respond to them the most, they're spectators, they're not viewers.
Boxing is my real passion. I can go to ballet, theatre, movies, or other sporting events... and nothing is like the fights to me. I'm excited by the visual beauty of it. A boxer can look so spectacular by doing a good job.
It's not the act of arrogance to draw, it's humbling - you must use your God-given talent. And of all the people I sketch, in most cases I feel I have to measure up to the subject.
Some people try to paint in my style. Some simply sell pirated copies of my work. Some claim to be my publisher or agent or even my exclusive representative, when they are not.
'Playboy' made the good life a reality for me and made it the subject matter of my paintings - not affluence and luxury as such, but joie de vivre itself.
