Bill Sampson
Once again, Mankiewicz has given one of his characters a name suggestive of a
biblical story: the name, Samson, is synonymous with strength, but linked with
© VATE Inside Stories 2014 — ALL ABOUT EVE 29
vulnerability to women whose untrustworthiness is dangerous. Mankiewicz’s Bill
Sampson, like the other men in the film, is less vibrant than the women, but he has
three important functions. As Margo’s longtime lover, he is representative of the
strong conservatism of the 1950s, which pushed women, however successful, to feel
incomplete and inferior without a man. Bill is decent and intelligent; his rejection of
Eve’s advances is uncompromising, though expressed in terms that reflect rigid
social gender roles.
Bill also explains the theatre several times, a mouthpiece for Mankiewicz’s
overarching idea that the film is about human experience, not merely the theatre,
when he says, ‘The theatre's for everybody—you included, but not exclusively—so
don't approve or disapprove. It may not be your theatre, but it's theatre of somebody,
somewhere.’
VATE INSIDE STORIES 2014—ALL ABOUT EVE
KEY QUOTES: BILL SAMPSON
• "What book of rules says the theater exists only within some ugly buildings
crowded into one square mile of New York City? Or London, Paris, or Vienna?"
• "A flea circus. Also opera. Also rodeos, carnivals, ballets, Indian tribal dances,
Punch and Judy, a one-man band - all theater. Wherever there's magic and
make-believe and an audience - there's theater."
• "...you don't like them all - why should you? The theater's for everybody - you
included, but not exclusively - so don't approve or disapprove. It may not be
your theater, but it's theater for somebody, somewhere...It's just that there's
so much bourgeois in this ivory green room they call the theater."
• (To Margo) “As of this moment, you're six years old.”
• (To Margo) "You know what I feel about this age obsession of yours. And now
this ridiculous attempt to whip yourself up into a jealous froth because I spent
ten minutes with a stage-struck kid."
• “How can you take offense at a kid trying in every way to be as much like her
ideal as possible?”
• "This is my cue to take you in my arms and reassure you, but I'm not going
to; I'm too mad"
• “ Darling, there are certain characteristics for which you are famous onstage
and off. I love you for some of them in spite of others. I haven't let those
become too important. They're part of your equipment for getting along in
what is laughingly called our environment. You have to keep your teeth
sharp, all right. But I will not have you sharpen them on me - or on Eve.”
• “When you start judging an idealistic, dreamy-eyed kid by the barroom
benzedrine standards of this megalomaniac society, I won't have it.”
• “Eve Harrington has never by a word, a look, or a suggestion indicated
anything to me but her adoration for you and her happiness at our being in
love... to intimate anything else doesn't spell jealousy to me. It spells out
paranoiac insecurity that you should be ashamed of.”
• “To be a good actor or actress or anything else in the theatre means wanting
to be that more than anything else in the world.”
• “[To be a good actor] means concentration of desire or ambition, and sacrifice
such as no other profession demands”
• (About being in the theatre) “...the man or woman who accepts those terms
can't be ordinary, can't be just someone. To give so much for almost always
so little.”
“ I am sick and tired of these paranoiac outbursts”
• “You've got to stop hurting yourself and me and the two of us by these
paranoiac tantrums.”
• “I love you! You're a beautiful and an intelligent woman and a great actress…
at the peak of her career.”
• “You have every reason for happiness. But due to some strange,
uncontrollable, unconscious drive, you permit the slightest action of a
kid ...like Eve to turn you into an hysterical, screaming harpy.”
• "I'm in love with Margo...And I'm as curious as the next man...The only thing -
what I go after, I want to go after. I don't want it to come after me."
• "The so-called art of acting is not one for which I have a particularly-high
regard"
Once again, Mankiewicz has given one of his characters a name suggestive of a
biblical story: the name, Samson, is synonymous with strength, but linked with
© VATE Inside Stories 2014 — ALL ABOUT EVE 29
vulnerability to women whose untrustworthiness is dangerous. Mankiewicz’s Bill
Sampson, like the other men in the film, is less vibrant than the women, but he has
three important functions. As Margo’s longtime lover, he is representative of the
strong conservatism of the 1950s, which pushed women, however successful, to feel
incomplete and inferior without a man. Bill is decent and intelligent; his rejection of
Eve’s advances is uncompromising, though expressed in terms that reflect rigid
social gender roles.
Bill also explains the theatre several times, a mouthpiece for Mankiewicz’s
overarching idea that the film is about human experience, not merely the theatre,
when he says, ‘The theatre's for everybody—you included, but not exclusively—so
don't approve or disapprove. It may not be your theatre, but it's theatre of somebody,
somewhere.’
VATE INSIDE STORIES 2014—ALL ABOUT EVE
KEY QUOTES: BILL SAMPSON
• "What book of rules says the theater exists only within some ugly buildings
crowded into one square mile of New York City? Or London, Paris, or Vienna?"
• "A flea circus. Also opera. Also rodeos, carnivals, ballets, Indian tribal dances,
Punch and Judy, a one-man band - all theater. Wherever there's magic and
make-believe and an audience - there's theater."
• "...you don't like them all - why should you? The theater's for everybody - you
included, but not exclusively - so don't approve or disapprove. It may not be
your theater, but it's theater for somebody, somewhere...It's just that there's
so much bourgeois in this ivory green room they call the theater."
• (To Margo) “As of this moment, you're six years old.”
• (To Margo) "You know what I feel about this age obsession of yours. And now
this ridiculous attempt to whip yourself up into a jealous froth because I spent
ten minutes with a stage-struck kid."
• “How can you take offense at a kid trying in every way to be as much like her
ideal as possible?”
• "This is my cue to take you in my arms and reassure you, but I'm not going
to; I'm too mad"
• “ Darling, there are certain characteristics for which you are famous onstage
and off. I love you for some of them in spite of others. I haven't let those
become too important. They're part of your equipment for getting along in
what is laughingly called our environment. You have to keep your teeth
sharp, all right. But I will not have you sharpen them on me - or on Eve.”
• “When you start judging an idealistic, dreamy-eyed kid by the barroom
benzedrine standards of this megalomaniac society, I won't have it.”
• “Eve Harrington has never by a word, a look, or a suggestion indicated
anything to me but her adoration for you and her happiness at our being in
love... to intimate anything else doesn't spell jealousy to me. It spells out
paranoiac insecurity that you should be ashamed of.”
• “To be a good actor or actress or anything else in the theatre means wanting
to be that more than anything else in the world.”
• “[To be a good actor] means concentration of desire or ambition, and sacrifice
such as no other profession demands”
• (About being in the theatre) “...the man or woman who accepts those terms
can't be ordinary, can't be just someone. To give so much for almost always
so little.”
“ I am sick and tired of these paranoiac outbursts”
• “You've got to stop hurting yourself and me and the two of us by these
paranoiac tantrums.”
• “I love you! You're a beautiful and an intelligent woman and a great actress…
at the peak of her career.”
• “You have every reason for happiness. But due to some strange,
uncontrollable, unconscious drive, you permit the slightest action of a
kid ...like Eve to turn you into an hysterical, screaming harpy.”
• "I'm in love with Margo...And I'm as curious as the next man...The only thing -
what I go after, I want to go after. I don't want it to come after me."
• "The so-called art of acting is not one for which I have a particularly-high
regard"