Two days after the death of Gene Wilder, Mel Brooks paid tribute to his late friend and collaborator on The Tonight Show. “I expected that he would go but when it happened, it’s still tremendous,” Brooks said. “It’s a big shock. I’m still reeling from…no more Gene. I can’t call him. He was such a wonderful part of my life.”
Brooks also described his first meeting with Wilder. “I met him when my late wife Anne Bancroft was doing Mother Courage, a Bertolt Brecht play, and Gene was in it,” he said. “He was the chaplain. He came backstage, and I got to know him a little bit. The chaplain is a great part—it’s sad and funny. It’s touching, and it can be amusing. So he said, ‘Why are they always laughing at me?’ I said, ‘Look in the mirror – blame it on God.’”
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Wilder and Brooks would eventually work together on three classic films, Blazing Saddles, Young Frankenstein, and The Producers. “We became very good friends, and I told him about Leo Bloom in the thing I was writing called The Producers,” Brooks said. “And I said, ‘Look, I’m promising you: When we get the money, you are gonna be Leo Bloom.’ He said, ‘Oh yeah, when you get the money. You’re doing a play about two Jews who are producing a flop instead of a hit, knowing they can make more money with a flop. And the big number in it is ‘Springtime for Hitler.’ Yeah, you’re gonna get the money!”
Later, Brooks visited Wilder backstage at another play after securing funding for the film. “He was taking off his make-up in his dressing room,” he said. “I took the script, and I said, ‘Gene, we got the money. We’re gonna make the movie. You are Leo Bloom.’ And I threw it on his make-up table. And he burst into tears and held his face and cried. And then I hugged him. It was a wonderful moment.”
If that’s not enough Brooks for you, here’s a second clip in which he talks about a time he peed out of a window in Brooklyn.
[h/t Splitsider]
