Kiss Me Like A Stranger: My Search for Love and Art (13 page)

The judge asked Jo and me to leave the room. While we waited in the courtroom, I tried to figure out what could possibly have gone wrong. After only two minutes we were asked to come back into the judge’s office. As we walked in, the judge shook my hand and said, “Congratulations. You’re a father.”

After Jo and Katie left the office, I waited behind to ask the judge if he would tell me what happened. He said, “I just asked Katie if she wanted you to be her daddy . . . and she said yes.”

______

Joe Levine thought that the title
Springtime for Hitler
would offend the Jews in the Midwest, so Mel changed the title to
The Producers
. One week before the film opened, Joe got a call from Peter Sellers in the middle of the night. He told Joe that he had just seen the funniest comedy in the last twenty years and asked him why on earth he had changed the title. The next day Joe called Mel Brooks.

“You want to change it back?”

“Are you crazy?” Mel asked. “I fought for
Springtime for Hitler
. You said no. We’re opening in Philadelphia next week! All the advertising is done! All the posters are up! And
now
you want to change it back??”

The Producers
opened in November.

After I was nominated for an Academy Award for playing Leo Bloom, I was walking through the halls of Joe Levine’s empire—called Embassy Pictures—and on my way to the publicity department I heard Joe holler from his office, “YOU’RE A GREAT ACTOR, GENE WILDER!”

Thanks, Joe . . .
for not insisting that Mel fire me
.

MARGIE
: Tell me.

ME
: This is going to sound crazy—well, I guess I’m in the right place—but all my life I’ve consciously avoided spitting, on the sidewalk or street if there was a black person near me.

MARGIE
: Why?

ME
: Because I didn’t want them to think I was spitting at them.

MARGIE
: Why would they think that?

ME
: I don’t know. I just didn’t want to take the chance of offending a black person.

MARGIE
: Why?

ME
: Probably because my dad once hired a black man named Joe. When I was three years old, my father had started experimenting
with resin in the basement of our apartment building, melting it down to liquid and then pouring it into shot glasses and miniature beer glasses. When the resin hardened, it looked like real whiskey and beer, and he’d sell the glasses a dozen at a time—until they threw us out of our apartment building because of the stink. When I was four, my dad rented a tiny store and hired Joe to help him. Joe used to pick me up and carry me around the store on his shoulders. When the war broke out, he was drafted, and if any of the kids in my neighborhood ever started in with the usual, “My dad could beat up your dad,” I’d say, “Well, Joe could beat up your dad and your brothers and your uncles and anyone else you know.”

MARGIE
: Who did you spit on?

ME
: I was walking home from the grocery store today and I felt a bug or a mosquito or something fly into my throat, and I spit it out just as an elderly black woman was about to pass me on the sidewalk. She thought I was spitting at her, so she spat back and said, “I can spit at you, too. How do
you
like it?”

MARGIE
: And that set off your compulsion?

ME
: No. No compulsion. It just struck me how ironic it was. I let my spitting guard down one time in all these years, and I hurt some old black lady. It made me sad.

MARGIE
: And if it had been some old white lady, what would you have said?

ME
: I would have just said, “Excuse me.”

James Brooks said that he had written a character just for me after he saw
The Producers
. He wanted me to act in a movie for television called
Thursday’s Game,
with Bob Newhart as my partner in a clothing business, Ellen Burstyn as my wife, Cloris Leachman as Bob’s wife, Valerie Harper as my secretary, Norman Fell as my employer,
Nancy Walker as my unemployment counselor, and Rob Reiner as my agent. I said yes.

The biggest problem I had during the seven weeks of filming was trying not to break up laughing when I was acting in a scene with Bob Newhart. It was a constant problem. After the second or third time that Bob and I broke up laughing in the middle of one particular scene, the director—instead of letting the laughter play itself out—made us feel like we were naughty third-grade children, and when he did that, I always felt like saying, “Well, Bob started it!” But of course Bob would probably have said, “Well, Gene started it,” so I kept my mouth shut.

On the last day of filming
Thursday’s Game
, we were outside in downtown Los Angeles, which was supposed to be New York. We even had a fake Yellow Cab with fake New York license plates. We finished filming at midnight, and the producer sent Bob and me home in the same fake Yellow Cab, along with a pile of our own clothing that we had loaned to the production. A Teamster driver drove us.

When we got to Bob’s home in Beverly Hills, we both got out of the cab, carrying a bundle of Bob’s clothes. We started walking toward the front door, and then a police car drove up. One of the cops yelled, “HOLD IT RIGHT THERE!”

Bob said, “Officer—”

“SHUT UP AND MOVE BACK TO THE CAB!”

Bob said, “Well, it’s not really a cab, Officer, it’s—”

“SHUT UP AND DROP THOSE CLOTHES.”

We started laughing.

“THINK IT’S FUNNY? FACE THE CAB, BOTH OF YOU, AND PUT YOUR HANDS ON THE ROOF.”

Now we were scared. We dropped the clothes, faced the cab, and put our hands on the roof.

“Officer, we’re not—we’re not stealing these clothes. These are
my
clothes. You see—we’re both actors. This is Gene Wilder, here, and I’m Bob Newhart, and Gene was just helping me get my clothes into my house.”

“WHERE’D YOU STEAL THE CAB FROM?”

I bit my cheeks so I wouldn’t laugh. Bob said, “Uh, no Officer. That’s not a cab.”

“SHUT YOUR MOUTH AND SPREAD YOUR LEGS APART!”

Now we both broke up and couldn’t stop laughing.

“THINK IT’S FUNNY?”

Bob tried to sound logical. “No, Officer—no, sir, not at all. It’s just that—this cab is not really a cab. . . . It’s a fake cab.”

“IT’S GOT NEW YORK LICENSE PLATES. DID YOU STEAL THOSE TOO?”

“No, sir. . . . Those are . . . those are fake license plates.”

The other policeman, who was with the bulldog who was doing all the talking, whispered something into the bulldog’s ear.

“YOU’RE ACTORS, HUH?”

We both said, “Yes, sir,” as sweetly as we could.

“ALL RIGHT, YOU CAN DROP YOUR HANDS.”

We both said, “Thank you, Officer,” at the same time.

As the bulldog got back into his police car, he yelled out, “AND DON’T LET THIS HAPPEN AGAIN!”

In 1967, when I visited Mel in a recording studio as he was putting music into
Springtime for Hitler
, I was told that there was a phone call for me from Mike Nichols.
Bonnie and Clyde
hadn’t opened yet, but Arthur Penn showed Mike the outtakes of my scenes from
Bonnie and Clyde
.

Mike said, “I’m going to do
Catch-22
. Promise me you’ll be in it.”

I said, “Mike, I’d rather work with you than anyone, but I never read
Catch-22
. I don’t know it at all.”

“Get it! Read it! The part is Milo Minderbinder. We’re filming in Mexico. Promise me you’ll be in the movie.”

“If I’m right for the part, I promise you I’ll be in the movie.”

That night I read the book and loved it. I could see why Mike wanted me for Milo Minderbinder—someone who’s doing the most horrible things during World War II but thinks that he’s doing good for everyone.

A few days later I got a call to meet with Norman Lear at his office in New York. When I got there, he offered me the leading role in a big film he was producing called
Start the Revolution Without Me
—a comedy that took place during the French Revolution. His partner, Bud Yorkin, would be directing. I would play twins—a peasant and an aristocrat. It was going to be filmed in Czechoslovakia that summer. The script arrived the next day, and I loved it.

The film script for
Catch-22
arrived by messenger a few days later. I didn’t have to make a choice. The irony of Milo Minderbinder had not made it into the script, except for a few token sentences. It was just about all the horrible things that Milo was doing—without his crazy rationale for why he was doing them. I felt that there was nothing for me to act. I accepted
Start the Revolution Without Me
.

A few weeks later, Russia invaded Czechoslovakia, and our location was changed to Paris.

In June, Jo, Katie, and I flew to London, where I got fitted for costumes and wigs, and then a week later we flew to Paris. This was
an actor’s dream—something you might fantasize about, knowing it will never happen. But it
did
happen! Wigs, costumes, Paris! Donald Sutherland was cast in the other leading role, and he was also playing twins. Two actors in four parts. This would be fun.

I had never heard of “French hours” before, but what a wonderful idea it is. Since so many French actors who work in films during the day also work onstage at night, filming in France doesn’t begin until noon. But there’s a terrible trap involved. The production company lays out an enormous lunch at 11:00
A.M
. For the crew that’s fine, but it’s deadly for the poor American actor who, after lunch, has to act straight through until 7:00
P.M
. At my first lunch there weren’t any tuna salad sandwiches; all these cheapskates served was appetizer, main course, white wine, red wine, cheese, fruit, and dessert. After the first lunch I learned to say, “No,
merci
.”

Orson Welles was playing the Narrator in
Start the Revolution Without Me
, and I wanted to meet him. He only had two filming days, and I thought it would be more polite if I waited until the second day to say hello. On the second day, at about three in the afternoon, I got to the chateau where they were filming; Orson Welles was gone. I asked Bud Yorkin what happened.

“Well,” Bud said, “we’d start a scene, and after a little while Orson would call ‘Cut!’ He’d look at me and say, ‘Now, you don’t honestly want any more of that shot, do you, Bud? Surely you’ll be cutting to the twins at that point.’ And I’d say, ‘Yes . . . well . . . yes, I suppose so.’ Then we’d be in the middle of the next scene, and he’d yell, ‘Cut!’ and he’d say, ‘Now surely you’ve got to cut there, Bud—it wouldn’t make any sense if you didn’t cut to the mob at that point.’ So we finished shooting all of his sequences an hour ago.”

It rained almost every day that summer. As much as I loved Paris, it was difficult for Katie. The rain made for beautiful photography,
but for an eight year old to go swimming or play outside was nearly impossible. There would be the odd day of sunshine, but mostly there was rain.

Food also was a problem for Katie. We were in the gastronomic capital of the world, and all she wanted to eat was pizza or a plain broiled steak. I didn’t blame her. What’s a great sauce to an eight-year-old? We found a place called the American Restaurant not far from where we lived, so when we didn’t eat in our apartment, we went to the American Restaurant for steak, baked potatoes, and ice cream. Jo found a lovely baby-sitter—a young French girl named Georgina who spoke English perfectly. If Jo and I wanted to go out to a restaurant, Georgina would take Katie to the Champs Elysées, to a place called Pizza Pino, and that made Katie happy.

September came, and Jo had to leave so that Katie could go back to school in New York. We all kissed good-bye. I gave up the apartment we had all lived in and moved to a small hotel just off the Champs Elysées. For me, living alone is nice . . . for about a day.

On my first evening alone I was eating at a popular bistro, just finishing my dinner as I read the
International Herald Tribune
, when in walked Orson Welles. He was accompanied by three other people, who looked like they were all working together on a film. Why did I feel so embarrassed at the thought that Orson Welles might happen to see me? I have no idea. I suppose because he was a great star, and I didn’t want to intrude on his privacy. Or perhaps it was out of my own ego, afraid that the director of
Citizen Kane
wouldn’t know me from Adam, and then I would have to remind him that I
was the fellow who had the lead in the film he worked on for two days last month.

I quickly paid my check, covered my face with my
Herald Tribune
, stooped over—like Groucho Marx—and duck-walked across the floor as quickly as I could. Just as I reached the door, I heard, “OH, MR. WILDER!”