It's not very appealing to come across as hoity-toity. But some people just naturally stink of wealth. Whether it's genetic or not, this set passes for upper crust without even meaning to. They can't help it. They just seem moneyed.

Natalie Schafer was one of those people, and she made a career out of acting wealthy. However, a 1965 interview with the Rochester, Minnesota Post-Bulletin reveals that Schafer may not have been acting very hard. While she insisted she was not as affluent as she appeared, her personality gave herself away.  The real Schafer was at odds with her projected image, and might have been closer to her onscreen character. 

"For some reason, I look wealthy, and I talk like a rich woman. It's insidious, a luxury, and a dream," said Miss Schafer.

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"Playing rich is supposed to make you feel very gay," she said. "However, I'm not at all that way. Money doesn't mean fun."

So, if she actually had the kind of money her character had as the millionaire wife of Thurstown Howell III, how would Natalie Schafer have spent it?

"I would do things for other people," she said. "To me, that's fun. I would have a secretary because I loathe writing letters. Next, there would be a car with a driver. And a yacht in which I could take six people around the Greek Islands."

That's one way to do things for other people.

And while she maintained that she felt a real distance from her character, Natalie Schafer also said things like, "Europe: it's the real escape," and "I love to take holidays in France." This isn't really the language of the working class, now is it folks?

"Once I was interviewing French maids, and a clever one said, 'Madame is French?' I hired her right away." Shafer doesn't come across as a starving artist when she says stuff like that, huh?

It seems like playing a tightly wound blue blood on TV made her sound like one. However, she continued to assert that she was very self-sufficient and could go days without any company.

"Solitude is refreshing," she said. "And I'm very lazy about keeping up contacts. I hate exercise, but I love massages and swimming in the sun."