3. The first musical he saw on Broadway? “White Horse Inn,” starring Kitty Carlisle, in 1936 or 1937; he grew up in New York, and his parents took him to the theater weekly. His first play? “Julius Caesar,” starring Orson Welles, around the same time. “What in hell my parents were doing, taking me to that, I don’t know. At the age of 8 or 9!”

4. Reining in ambition. At 14, he said, “I had a nervous breakdown — the ambition thing was so strong, and I don’t quite know why, but I do know I was talking to myself, walking in the park, and I knew I was getting into the fantasy of what my career would be too much.” He rebounded, but when he got his first job, with the famed producer George Abbott, “Everybody liked me, but they also seemed to back off a little when I came into a room.” Mr. Prince’s solution? “I took my desk calendar, and I wrote for one year, at the top of it, ‘Watch It!’ ” he said. “It helped me calm down a little.”