{"id":24639,"date":"2019-09-15T09:00:38","date_gmt":"2019-09-14T23:00:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.tomgrimshaw.com\/tomsblog\/?p=24639"},"modified":"2019-09-18T23:08:42","modified_gmt":"2019-09-18T13:08:42","slug":"gene-wilder-and-marty-feldman","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.tomgrimshaw.com\/tomsblog\/?p=24639","title":{"rendered":"Gene Wilder and Marty Feldman"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Gene Wilder and Marty Feldman<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gene Wilder and Marty Feldman shared the same agent, but didn\u2019t know each other. One day Marty was introduced to Gene over the phone who announced he was writing a part for him in a screenplay called \u201cYoung Frankenstein.\u201d Marty said \u201csounds great,\u201d never expecting to hear about this again. After all, the film was just a notion, hadn\u2019t been set up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nevertheless, Gene sent Marty pages, specifically the sequence wherein \u201cAye-gore\u201d meets \u201cDr. Fronkenstein.\u201d Many months later, this would be the first scene the two men shot together.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gene Wilder was a man of his word. That turned him, in the words of Marty\u2019s wife Lauretta, into \u201ca saint.\u201d That sainthood would be confirmed further down the road.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gene went to bat for Marty since Mel Brooks \u201ceyed\u201d playing the role of the hunchback himself, but Wilder was steadfast. He only wanted Brooks to direct. By relegating leading man duties to Wilder and remaining behind the camera, Mel Brooks wrought his best work as a filmmaker.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Marty was nervous shooting his first scene in a major Hollywood movie with an established star that\u2019d co-written the script, but Gene instantly approved of everything Marty was doing. This emboldened Marty to pause before delivering the classic line \u201cWhat hump?\u201d Mel Brooks kvetched \u201cYou can drive a truck through that pause,\u201d but Gene and Marty melded into a comedy team with inimitable rhythm. Gene\u2019s bewildered exasperation got the laugh after \u201cWhat hump?\u201d when he said: \u201cLet\u2019s go.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Marty felt relaxed enough to improvise \u201cwalk this way\u201d as a joke for the crew. Mel instructed him to \u201cleave it in.\u201d Marty explained he was just \u201cscrewing around\u201d and how it was \u201ca terrible old joke.\u201d Mel Brooks decreed \u201cit\u2019s funny\u201d and, as Marty would later attest, his instincts were always right.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gene had trouble completing takes without cracking up. Marty found it lovely to have a leading man that found his fellow actors so funny. Marty also had insight: Since this was the first produced screenplay Wilder had co-written\u2026 he was also enjoying his own words.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Marty was floored by the finished product, especially Gene\u2019s performance. On set Wilder was an actor struggling to get through takes without laughing, but on the big screen, playing the title role\u2026 Gene Wilder had reached comic nirvana.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Marty recounted how Wilder once mentioned that he never wanted to \u201cact like some asshole movie star\u201d and never did. Marty was thrilled when Gene told him he was writing another part for him, this time in \u201cThe Adventures of Sherlock Holmes\u2019 Smarter Brother\u201d which Wilder directed on Feldman\u2019s home turf of the UK.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Many years later, Marty passed away at the age of 48. I didn\u2019t see Gene Wilder at the funeral, but decades later Marty\u2019s widow told me a story that confirmed her appraisal of the man. It\u2019s something that\u2019s never ever been written. Wilder called Lauretta after the memorial, concerned not just about her emotional well-being, but fiscal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cDo you own your home?\u201d asked Wilder. Lauretta replied \u201cno, why?\u201d \u201cBecause if you need me to,\u201d Wilder offered, \u201cI\u2019ll buy it for you.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cVirtue is the truest nobility.\u201d ~ Miguel de Cervantes<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gene Wilder played many characters in his lifetime, but the best role he ever played was himself.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Gene Wilder and Marty Feldman Gene Wilder and Marty Feldman shared the same agent, but didn\u2019t know each other. One day Marty was introduced to Gene over the phone who announced he was writing a part for him in a screenplay called \u201cYoung Frankenstein.\u201d Marty said \u201csounds great,\u201d never expecting to hear about this again. … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Gene Wilder and Marty Feldman”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-24639","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general-interest","category-inspiration"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tomgrimshaw.com\/tomsblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24639","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tomgrimshaw.com\/tomsblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tomgrimshaw.com\/tomsblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tomgrimshaw.com\/tomsblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tomgrimshaw.com\/tomsblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=24639"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.tomgrimshaw.com\/tomsblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24639\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24641,"href":"https:\/\/www.tomgrimshaw.com\/tomsblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24639\/revisions\/24641"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tomgrimshaw.com\/tomsblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=24639"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tomgrimshaw.com\/tomsblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=24639"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tomgrimshaw.com\/tomsblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=24639"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}