From Who the Hell’s in It: Conversations with Hollywood’s Legendary Actors
, by Peter Bogdonavich:
And after forty years in films, Duke had more excitement about the job than most people just starting out. He liked working with newcomers, too, and was generous with advice; those who didn’t let ego stand in their way could learn quite a few good tricks. And all of this came without a note of pomposity or pretentiousness. In fact, he always seemed genuinely surprised, even slightly embarrassed, by praise. Without ambiguity, [Howard] Hawks said to me that “when you have someone as good as Duke around,” it became “awfully easy to do good scenes” because the actor helped and inspired everybody.
