Kiss Me Kate (1953)

Kathryn Grayson: Lilli Vanessi 'Katherine'

Photos 

Quotes 

• Baptista : Wonder of wonders, a gentleman in Verona desires you in marriage.

  Katherine : Then he best go back there.

• Lilli Vanessi : Do you really think *I* could play the shrew?

  Fred Graham : You'd make a perfect shrew!

• [repeated line] 

  Lilli Vanessi : You louse!

• Fred Graham : You can't eat before a performance. It gives you indigestion.

  Lilli Vanessi : It's my stomach, thank you. Bring it in, Suzanne!

  Fred Graham : You'll not burp during my love scenes. Take it away.

  Lilli Vanessi : Suzanne, don't you dare.

  Suzanne : Let's make up our mind, shall we?

• Fred Graham : [phone rings]  Well, pick it up. It's probably that cowboy.

  Lilli Vanessi : He is not a cowboy. He's a cattle baron.

  Fred Graham : Cattle baron, huh? What's his crest? A hamburger smothered with onions?

• Lilli Vanessi : I got a job reading tea leaves at the Automat.

• Fred Graham : [singing]  Let us drink, Liebchen mein

  Lilli Vanessi : In the moonlight divine

  Fred Graham , Lilli Vanessi : To the joy of our dream come true Wunderbar! Wunderbar!

• Lilli Vanessi : That was the season we played the Barter Theatre in Virginia - and they gave you a ham.

• Lilli Vanessi : I'm not nervous now and I'm not going to whoops. And I'll never call you a louse in public again. Never.

  Fred Graham : You will, my sweet. You will.

• Petruchio : Hearing thy mildness praised in every town. Thy virtue spoke of and thy beauty sounded myself am moved to woo thee for my wife. Come. Sit on me.

  Katherine : Asses are made to bear and so are you.

• Katherine : [singing]  Oh I hate men. If thou shouldst wed a businessman, be wary, oh, be wary, He'll tell you he's detained in town on business necessary, His bus'ness is the bus'ness with his pretty secretary...

• Petruchio : Sunday comes apace and we will have rings and things in fine array. And kiss me, Kate.

  [Kate slaps Petruchio] 

  Fred Graham : All right, Miss Vanessi. You asked for it and you're going to get it.

  [proceeds to rapidly spanking Miss Vanessi, aka 'Katherine', on stage, in front of the audience] 

  Lilli Vanessi : Fred, what are you doing? Stop it! Stop it!

• Petruchio : Come, come! You wasp! I' faith, you are too angry.

  Katherine : If I be too waspish, best beware my sting.

  Petruchio : My remedy, then, is to pluck it out.

  Katherine : Aye, if the fool could find it where it lies.

  Petruchio : Who knows not where a wasp does wear his sting? In his tail.

• Lilli Vanessi : Suzanne! Suzanne! Where's that ice bag?

• Lilli Vanessi : I can't sit down. I said, I can't sit down!

  [Suzanne enters starts to put the ice bag on Lili's forehead] 

  Lilli Vanessi : That is not where it hurts.

• Petruchio : Katherine, I - I charge thee, tell these headstrong women what duties they owe their lords and husbands.

  Katherine : I am ashamed that women are so simple to offer war where they should kneel for peace. Or seek to rule, supremacy and sway when they are bound to serve, love - and obey. Why are our bodies soft and weak and smooth unapt to toil and trouble in the world - but that our soft conditions and our hearts should well agree with our external parts? So hold your temper, wives, and - and meekly put your hand beneath your lord and husband's foot. In token of which duty, if he please my hand is ready. Ready may it do him ease.

• Lilli Vanessi : I want to go where no one would ever find me. I want to go to Texas.

• Fred Graham : [singing]  So taunt me, and hurt me.

  Lilli Vanessi : [singing]  Deceive me. Desert me.

  Fred Graham , Lilli Vanessi : [singing]  I'm yours till I die.