Gestapo agent in Germany during
Kristallnacht changing out of his uni-
form and putting on an Am e rican
business suit. He changes his music
from Schubert to "Hello Beautiful,"
and he gets on an airplane and speaks
perfect English. That's all I knew and
everything else flowed from that.
Betty Shwedel and Family Celebrating Her Birthday...
As Mario's Owner, Vince Passalacqua, flambe's tableside for them.
'"emektmernm Reservations Taken for insumkg, ,,,
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1999
86
JN: How did you choose the name
Gene Wilder?
GW: When I was accepted into the
Actors Studio, I knew people like Elia
Kazan and Rod Steiger would be
there. I thought if I was going to
change my name professionally, I'd
better do it then.
A friend came over with his wife. He
talks faster than anyone I know He
started off with "A," rattling off names.
He went through the alphabet; it took
35 minutes. When he got to "W," I said
to stop. Thornton Wilder wrote Our
Town, which is my favorite play.
Gene came from Thomas Wolfe,
who wrote Look Homeward Angel and
You Can't Go Home Again. There's
always a leading character, which is
really [Wolfe], called Eugene; the peo-
ple who love him called him Gene.
I thought that was the reason for
choosing Gene. Then I realized that
when I was a young boy, I went to din-
ner with my family and a third cousin
came back after flying 33 missions over
Germany. His name was Gene and I'd
never met anyone with that name
before; it must have stuck with me.
Then, someone pointed out to me
a while later that my mother's name
was Jean. So, on a conscious level, it
was Thomas Wolfe; on an uncon-
scious level, it was the 33 missions
over Germany; and on an even deeper
level, it was my mother. I put them all
together and it came out Gen; Wilder.
JN: How did you end up in Stamford?
GW: I met a young lady named Gilda
Radner in a movie and I fell in love with
her. She had bought a home, an old
house from 1734, in Stamford, two
months before I met her. And then we
got married and she got ill and she died.
I didn't know it until after she died that
she left me the house. I hadn't lived here
very often; we came for three, four
weeks at a time, sometimes five or six.
I buried her three miles from this
house. I thought if I leave, I won't
come back. So, I decided to stay and
make peace with the ghosts and walk
though the house at night and get to
know the shadows and the creaks.
After a while — two, three months —
I didn't want to live anywhere else for
the rest of my life.
Claire Bloom plays murder victim
Emma Sachs, a woman who been
spiriting Jews out of Nazi Germany
JN: Do you have any plans to go
back to directing?
GW: No, not to directing — it's too
tough and takes so much time. I can
be very good at acting and writing,
but only good at directing. I don't
mean to say never, but I have no plans
to [direct]. I'm very happy. I know
that life is very short and I don't want
to spend [time] on something that
other people will do better than me.
JN: You've had such a varied career.
What are your thoughts on some of
the projects you've done?
GW: don't think I've been challenged
that much in my career, and I think
that I should be. I haven't always been
good, but it isn't because I was chal-
lenged; its because I wasn't right for the
part or I didn't try to make more of it.
It's like falling in love. You can fall
"in like," and sometimes you take a
part because you've fallen in like with
it. But you're "never really very good in
something unless you've fallen in love
— or you have an absolutely brilliant
director who brings out things you did-
n't think about when you took the part.
Young Frankenstein was just one of
those perfect parts for me. Sherlock
Holmes' Smarter Brother and The
World's Greatest Lover — there are
scenes that are very good. I like The
Frisco Kid for the acting.
When I'm with Richie Pryor (Silver
Streak, Stir Crazy, See No Evil Hear No
Evil), you never know what's going to
happen. When it's good, it's very
good. We didn't ever rehearse; we
improvised a lot. 1-1
The Lady in Question debuts on
A&E at 8 p.m. Sunday, Dec. 12.