I've had an ambition to be somebody since I was 13 years old because I wanted to help my family. I wanted to hurry and grow up so I could make enough money to buy my father a big car and my mother a beautiful home with an electric washing machine and all those things she used to see in the newspapers.

Frank Sinatra discovered me at a nightclub called P.J.'s in Hollywood. It was 1962. He used to come in there a lot with all his big star friends. I was so nervous to see him. I've only had one idol in my life, and that was Frank Sinatra.

I knew Sinatra for 38 years. He was like my father. Frank Sinatra was my 'dad.' He treated me like his son. He gave me the best advice about singing, about this and that... He was a very sensitive man, very astute, one of the sharpest men that I ever met in my life.

I've always wanted to do acting. The biggest thing I ever did was 'The Dirty Dozen.' My contract was for three months, but the picture was taking longer to make than they thought it would. I stayed for seven months, and Frank Sinatra told me to leave. He said the public is very fickle and that they'll forget you.

I've had a wonderful life - I really didn't expect to have this career.

I went to work in an office and learned, among other lessons, to do things I did not care for, and to do them well. Before I left this office, two of my books had already been published.

We have a lot of people with a Western education who work in Russia and understand the international rules of business and corporate governance.

Subsequent to the original Quicken, the whole idea that we, as a consumer products company, could actually make business products, that was a whole revolution in our thinking.