His friends thought of Cassavetes as the most driven and ambitious actor they had ever known – desperate to succeed and make up for the years of idleness and unemployment. Others regarded him as willful, self-centered, cavalier and willing to do almost anything to further his own personal projects. His ambition led to a kind of ruthlessness. They said he would lie, cheat and steal any time it suited him, and then lie about what he had done if he got caught in the first lie. One of his closest friends reported that his typical response when confronted with someone who got in his way was to say, ‘Well, we’ll trick him.’ Or, ‘That’s OK. I’ll just lie to him about it.’ As proof that it wasn’t just big talk, on more than one occasion Cassavetes would say something like that, pick up the telephone, dial a number and unload a pack of lies to whomever the problem of the moment was, right in front of the friend. Far from being embarrassed or ashamed by his behavior, he seemed to love doing it. (Various friends report that, in an era when agents were infamous for taking advantage of their clients, Cassavetes ‘played’ his agent, Marty Baum, ‘like a violin’.)