Icarus

"Allan had a way of treating fellow homosexuals like mere employees and straight male friends like the brothers he never had. Despite Kleiser and Joel Thurm's exemplary work on Grease, it was the film's cinematographer, Bill Butler, whom Allan sought to adopt as an honorary brother of sorts, and he rewarded Butler in ways that went far beyond the dollars of his contract."—Robert Hofler (link)

"Allan allocated days, not hours, to searching every gym and athletic field in the Los Angeles area to find just the right 1,000 or so male contestants who could be whittled down to no fewer than 250 specimens of absolute masculine perfection. Allan envisioned something similar [to the gym scene from Gentlemen Prefer Blondes] for the “Y.M.C.A.” production number, only he jettisoned the lead female and radically multiplied the number of men, using split screens to cram as many glutes, pecs, and abs as possible into each frame.—Robert Hofler (link)

"The great thing he wanted in his life was [to host the Oscars], and he got that job and then would spend the rest of his life trying to recover from it."—Gary Pudney
"The Oscars is the one night Hollywood has no sense of humor."—Lorna Luft (pages 244-6)