War & Peace Quote by Marie Windsor

“Regrettably” does a lot of sly work here: it’s the language of etiquette stapled onto a confession that’s barely a confession at all. Marie Windsor frames “bitchy” not as a moral failing but as a gravitational pull she occasionally has to resist. The result is a line that sounds like contrition while winking at the audience that, honestly, the impulse is half the point.

Coming from an actress whose screen persona often lived in the noir neighborhood of sharpened smiles and lethal poise, the word choice is a small act of cultural judo. “Bitchy” is the insult historically lobbed at women who speak crisply, judge quickly, or refuse to soften their edges for other people’s comfort. By owning the label in plain language, Windsor flips it from accusation to temperament: not “I am cruel,” but “I have standards and teeth.” The humor is defensive and strategic, the way performers (especially women of her era) learned to preempt the press by delivering the punchline first.

The subtext is an argument about agency. She admits to a “tendency” as if it’s weather, then asserts control by “fight[ing]” it. That balancing act mirrors a career reality: Hollywood rewarded a woman’s bite on screen but punished it off screen. Windsor’s line lets her keep the bite while signaling she knows the rules of the room. It’s self-awareness as social camouflage, and it lands because it’s honest enough to feel intimate and polished enough to stay uncatchable.