After I left high school and got my GED, I studied broadcast journalism for a year at a community college.
Public, noncommercial broadcasting is also giving kids social-emotional skills like persistence and self-control that are fundamental to success in school, not to mention in the military, the institution where I spent most of my career.
I think I was on this very straightforward escalator - grammar school, high school, college, get a job on Wall Street, kind of everything leads to the next thing. But at what point do you get to step back and say, 'I'd like to take a broader view of my time on this planet?'
Back in 1978, when I was still in high school, I went to see a Broadway show, 'Paul Robeson,' starring James Earl Jones. It was all about Robeson's journey as a human being, an artist, a champion of civil rights. Had I not seen the play, I might not have known who Robeson was. I was certainly never taught about him in school.
My grandparents actually, whenever they got the chance, took me to Broadway, but that started when I was in high school, because that's when I realized... At the very beginning of high school, I realized, 'Oh my gosh. Okay, this is a career choice for me.' So yeah, then they always brought me to New York to see Broadway shows whenever they could.
The funny guy doesn't get the girl until later in life. High school, college, everyone still wants the brooding, dangerous guy you shouldn't have.
My friends always laugh because I'm the kind of person who bought the Brooks Brothers school skirt, even though it's not my school's uniform skirt, but just because I liked it. I'm a knee-high socks kind of person.
After leaving school, I got a job in a department store not dissimilar to Grace Bros in 'Are You Being Served?'
My husband and I had to raise five of my younger brothers and sisters. They lived with us. We sent them to school.
I really didn't want to rap; I was just a regular kid. My friend - his name is William Aston - we went to the same high school together, and he was rapping. He put out a freestyle over Chris Brown's 'Look at Me Now,' and it was fire, and the whole school went crazy.
I'd say, for my freshman year in college, I was doing everything in my power to hide the fact that I had ever had any association with the Paul Green School of Rock Music because it was like this bruise. It was such a sore subject.
When I finished my degree I became a physics and maths teacher. And worked in the international school in Brussels, because like many kids, after University I went home going ‘ahhh I don’t know what to do’. I happened to fall upon a job there because they were desperate for a physics teacher which is a common theme among many schools.
I studied drama in high school, and when I was 18, I studied at the Actors Studio in New York. Then I moved to London when I got engaged to Bryan Ferry, and I studied at the National Theatre there.
I love kimonos because you can just throw them on over anything. Ever since I got my first kimono from Lane Bryant in high school and thought, 'This is amazing; I can wear it with everything!'
My head was always bubbling over with facts and it seems to me this had little to do with my paying close attention in school and more to do with my voracious and omnivorous reading habits.
In high school, AAU, even prep school, I didn't really know how to play basketball. It was kind of like, 'Let's throw the balls out, go get buckets, just score, and go play.'
I had 10 to 12 close buddies who I played ball with all the way from elementary to high school. That is where I learned to compete.
You would be surprised of films that people just don't see. You know what I mean? I'm always working and I'm a film buff but I'm an old school film buff.
I went to an inner-city school in Buffalo. We had no money. But our teachers believed in hands-on active learning - there was a mandatory science fair, which was critical.
I was lucky that science fair was mandatory at my high school in inner-city Buffalo.
