Kiss Me Like A Stranger: My Search for Love and Art

by Gene Wilder

  Irene Mayer Selznick—who had produced A Streetcar Named Desire on Broadway—saw me in Wingless Victory and asked me to come to her office. She had the strange notion that I might be right for the part of the Dutch valet in Graham Greene’s The Complaisant Lover, starring Michael Redgrave, which she was going to produce on Broadway.

  I went to the Netherlands Information Service and took two lessons on how to speak with a Dutch accent. Then I had to audition for the director, a revered Englishman named Glen Byam Shaw. Irene Selznick was a smart cookie; she arranged for Mr. Shaw to audition the twenty other actors who were reading for the same part, and then she had me come in last. I had rented a valet’s jacket from a costume house, memorized the lines, got the part, and won the Clarence Derwent Award for “Best Performance by an Actor in a Nonfeatured Role.” Sounds so simple, but I was always good with accents, and by that time I knew how to act in comedy using the same method as I did for drama, which is . . . make it real.

  chapter 10

  MOTHER COURAGE

  January 1963

  Jerome Robbins was going to direct Bertolt Brecht’s play Mother Courage on Broadway, with Anne Bancroft as the star.

  Mr. Robbins wanted to audition as many actors from the Studio as he could, and since Cheryl Crawford was producing the play, it was easy. (She was the one who got me into the Studio, along with Elia Kazan.)

  I read for the small, but very good part of Swiss Cheese, Mother Courage’s son. I memorized the scene I was supposed to read, as I always did, and found a “character jacket.” The audition went so well that Mr. Robbins asked me to come back the next day and read again. That audition went so well that he asked me to study the part of the Chaplain, which was one of the leading roles.

  I memorized the scene he wanted me to read, found another character jacket, and also brought a prop (a hammer or a broom, I forget which) so that I could be doing something instead of just standing there, saying lines.

  The reading went so well that Mr. Robbins asked me to come back the next day and audition again. This turned out to be a habit of Jerome Robbins’s—to keep actors reading, so that he could be “sure,” and also, I’m sure, so that he could get ideas for how to direct certain scenes. (According to Actors Equity, you’re supposed to pay an actor after three readings, which Mr. Robbins never did.)

  After my fifth reading I was told that I would have to do one more final audition. The competition for the role was between me and Gerald Hiken—the wonderful actor whose first scene at The Actors Studio I had snuck in to watch from the balcony. By this time my confidence had dropped a few notches. The horrible trap is that an actor tries to remember what he or she did that impressed the director originally, and, unfortunately, the actor starts imitating what he thought he did. Nevertheless, after my sixth audition, I got the part. Barbara Harris was cast as the Prostitute, and Zohra Lampert was cast as the mute daughter of Mother Courage.

  Rehearsals were a little strained. Mr. Robbins thought that the best way to get us into Brecht’s Communist/Socialist way of thinking was for all of us to play Monopoly during our lunch hour. I should have known that there was trouble ahead.

  We opened previews at the Martin Beck Theater to a packed house. I had a rousing and funny scene toward the end of the first act, after which Mother Courage and her daughter and I pushed Mother Courage’s wagon to our next destination (on a revolving stage), accompanied by some thrilling music. Before the curtain could come down, the audience burst into applause. Anne and Zohra and I were filled with joy. But Mr. Robbins cut the heart of the scene the next day. He said, “That isn’t what Brecht wants. It’s the intellectual ideas that he’s trying to get across, not the conventional emotion that we get in American plays.” (My father would have said, “Was you there, Charley?”)

  Jerome Robbins found a patsy in every production—someone he could pick on if he was frustrated with how things were going. (Many famous directors have been guilty of the same habit—Otto Preminger and John Dexter, to name two.)

  Robbins had selected a wonderful actor by the name of Eugene Roche to be his patsy. One afternoon, when everything Mr. Robbins was doing seemed to make things worse, he started in on Eugene in front of the rest of the cast. We all had to stand there and listen to Jerry Robbins railing and belittling—until he crossed the line. Eugene, who was a devout Catholic with five children, stood up and said:

  “Listen, you little fuck—if you insult me one more time, I’m going to come over there and smash the teeth out of your fucking face.”

  From that time on, Eugene Roche became Jerome Robbins’s favorite actor.

  After the previews began, Anne Bancroft’s boyfriend came to pick her up each night, after the show. The boyfriend’s name was Mel Brooks.

  When I met Mel for the first time he was wearing a black pea jacket, of the kind made famous by the merchant marines. Mel said, “You know, they used to call these urine jackets, but they didn’t sell.” Anne and I burst out laughing. She’s probably still his best audience.

  I was terribly miscast in Mother Courage. Most of us were—especially Jerome Robbins. Despite Anne’s Academy Award that year for The Miracle Worker, Mother Courage closed after three months.

  When the closing notice went up, Mel asked if I would like to spend a weekend with him and Anne on Fire Island. He said that he had thirty pages of a screenplay he was writing and that he wanted to read it to us. It was called Springtime for Hitler.

  I went to visit them on a weekend in June. Mel met me at the dock where the ferry comes in, and then he and I went fishing off the surf for about an hour. After dinner Mel asked Anne and me to sit down, and then he began reading the first three scenes of Springtime for Hitler, almost verbatim as they eventually appeared on screen—except the title was later changed to The Producers. Anne and I loved it.

  “So, would you like to play the part of Leo Bloom?”

  “Oh, yes, I would.”

  “All right, now listen to me—don’t take anything on Broadway or Off Broadway or anywhere else without checking with me first.

  Promise?”

  “I promise.”

  That September I was offered One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, to be produced on Broadway, Kirk Douglas starring, with Alex Segal directing. I was asked to play the part of Billie Bibbit, the young boy who stutters terribly and then commits suicide at the end of the play. I called Mel and told him the situation.

  “Can you give them a two-week notice if you want to get out?”

  “Two weeks? . . . Mel, I’m not a star. They might accept a four-week notice.”

  “All right, all right—we’ll have to live with it.”

  UNEXPRESSED ANGER

  I did get a provision in my contract that I could give a four-week notice if I wanted to get out of the play. I think I was good in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, but I don’t think I could have done the part nearly as well if I hadn’t spent a year and a half at Valley Forge Army Hospital, on a locked ward, with all those poor fellows who were in the middle of psychotic breakdowns.

  After three months there was still no word from Mel. I wasn’t going to call him—I guessed that they must be having problems raising money for Springtime for Hitler.

  Something basic had changed since the days when I would meet Mary at the British Information Service for a quick kiss. I tried to make a go of our physical and emotional life, but there was no response. Mary and I made love once every six months—like clockwork. Easy for me to say, I know, but affection is my middle name, and her affection for me had dried up.

  That fall she was cast in a play with Jane Fonda and wore the same heavy angora sweater to rehearsals every day. The director came to me, privately, and said that the odor from her underarms was so strong that he and the other actors were having a hard time. He asked if I would say something to her. I did tell her, that evening, as gently as I could. She just said, “Oh, poof.”

  That spring Mary and I went to Ogunquit, Maine, to rehearse a wor
kshop production of a new play. We stayed at a beautiful old inn that I knew from having worked at the Ogunquit Playhouse the summer before. This old house was a typical New England inn and had a small but lovely dining room. The only requirement for eating there was that men had to wear jackets and ladies had to wear a dress or a skirt—no pants. Mary refused to wear a dress or a skirt—she insisted on pants. So we walked into town most nights and ate at the local diner.

  I’m not saying that the Demon came back because my wife refused to wear a dress. . . . I’m saying that I felt a rage that I didn’t, or couldn’t, express.

  ______

  Our apartment was on Thirty-third Street, off Lexington Avenue. A woman I had seen several times in the elevator was moving out of her apartment. She had found something more to her liking on the Upper East Side, and she could afford it. I’ll call her Karla. She was not a fragile beauty; she was a buxom redhead—not unattractive—and looked a little like a former wrestler. She must have known that I was having troubles in my marriage because on the day that she moved out she handed me a card with her new address and telephone number. When we shook hands good-bye, she said, “If you ever get lonely, just give me a call.”

  I shook my head after she disappeared down the hall. Karla would certainly be the last person in the world I’d ever call if I were lonely. Of course, if she had been fragile, artistic, and blond . . .

  That summer Mary announced that she was going to Italy for six weeks to act in a play at Gian Carlo Menotti’s Spoleto Festival. She said she’d be back on September 5.

  I went on a summer tour in a play called The White House, starring Helen Hayes. It had a good cast, and most of us had done the play with her on Broadway that spring. She played the wife of every president from George Washington to Woodrow Wilson, and I played one or two lawyers, a college roommate, and Mary Lincoln’s son at her trial. The play didn’t last very long on Broadway, but Miss Hayes liked it so much that she took a big cut in salary and asked all of us to tour New England with her in the summer.

  I liked Helen Hayes—as an actress and as a person—but as well as we all got along with her, none of us ever called her Helen, only “Miss Hayes.” I wanted to be a little more familiar, but she had an aura about her from a world I had only read about.

  When I got back to New York, I decided to give my marriage one last chance. Mary was due back in ten days. I found a new apartment on Fifty-seventh and Third Avenue. It was only one room, but it was a big L-shaped room, with a little kitchenette, and it was new and clean, with sunlight pouring through the large window that overlooked Fifty-seventh Street. The rent was $150 a month, which was certainly reasonable, but also the limit of what I could afford.

  I bought a new dining room table, made of raw pinewood, and I antiqued it myself. I’m not a very good carpenter, but this had more to do with painting than carpentry.

  On the morning of September 5, I bought some flowers, placed them in a little vase in the center of the table, and took a shower. When I got out of the shower, a telegram arrived:

  Staying in Italy another two weeks. Stop. Mary.

  I had the urge to break something. I sat still for a long time, trying to think of what I could do to release the rage in me. Then I searched through my address book until I found what I was looking for: “If you should ever get lonely, just give me a call.”

  As I was about to knock on Karla’s door, I heard a man talking in her apartment, and then I heard Karla’s voice. I figured, Well, a neighbor, a relative, who knows? I knocked.

  Karla came to the door. I saw what looked like a well-dressed businessman just finishing tucking in his shirt. He reached for his jacket, and Karla introduced us. I don’t remember what his name was—I just remember the tucking in of his shirt.

  The man said a polite good-bye, and Karla asked me to come in and make myself comfortable. (What is this? Am I supposed to pay her?)

  She offered me some coffee and then invited me into her bedroom, as if we had arranged all of this beforehand. Karla started getting undressed. After a few awkward moments of standing there, I got undressed.

  “You know,” she said, “I’ve become something of a nymphomaniac lately.” She followed this with a little laugh.

  “It’s just that, at this point in my life I get a little lonely. I hope you don’t mind.”

  “Me? No, of course not.” (What in God’s name am I saying? I sound like Woody Allen.)

  I got into bed with her and sort of kissed her, after which she put “it” inside. I guess you could have counted to seven or eight, and then boom.

  I tried to be as polite as I could manage to be in what was an absurd situation. And actually, she was trying to be polite as well. I just wanted to get out of there. After several polite thank-yous I said a polite, “Good night, Karla,” and left.

  A day or two later a friend of mine, who saw that I was coming apart at the seams, suggested that I see his psychoanalyst—just for a recommendation. Her name was Ingrid Steiner. I made an appointment, and, after listening to me for a short while, Dr. Steiner called a therapist she knew named Margie . . . ever hear of her?”

  Margie smiled.

  chapter 11

  A TASTE OF FREEDOM

  A week after The White House closed, I walked into Margie’s office and gave her a cheerful, “Hi.” “

  What’s the matter?” she said.

  “What do you mean? . . . All I said was, ‘Hi.’ ”

  “What happened?”

  I got to the couch and lay down, staring at the ceiling.

  “Is there a name for what I’ve got?”

  “Repetition compulsion. Now tell me what happened.”

  After about a minute of silence, I started to cry. Margie didn’t say a word.

  “The Demon came back,” I said.

  Margie waited.

  “I saw a picture of three starving children on the cover of the magazine section of the New York Times. Their stomachs were all bloated. A young doctor was leaning over one of the kids, trying to feed her.”

  “So? What do you want me to do?”

  “Oh, you’re just the Angel of Mercy, aren’t you? I’m talking about morality.”

  “Morality is where you draw the line. If you want to hold on to your compulsion, that’s your business.”

  “What the hell are you talking about? You think I like being this way?”

  “Maybe.”

  “Oh, Jesus.”

  “Are you praying now?”

  “Yes! To you! Please—I want you to get rid of my compulsion and get me out of this nonfucking marriage.”

  “And what will you be doing—playing tennis?”

  Long pause. Then Margie said,

  “Are you still living with Mary?”

  “Yes.”

  “Not healthy.”

  “I know it. I can’t afford another place.”

  “Let her go to work.”

  “Fine! Would you tell her? She thinks it’s a husband’s responsibility.”

  “And what’s the wife supposed to do?”

  “She asked me to please get out of the apartment in the afternoons because she’s writing a play now. She’s also joined a poetry group in the evenings, with four homosexual men.”

  “Mister Wilder . . . your marriage stinks.”

  “Thanks. How much do I owe you for that?”

  “Have you seen any other women?”

  “No. Not yet. Well . . . just the unhappy nymphomaniac I told you about. But . . .”

  “But?”

  “I met a little dancer at a party last week. I thought I might ask her out.”

  “What do you mean by a little dancer?”

  “She’s four-foot-eleven. She dances on Broadway.”

  “What’s her name?”

  “Well, I call her ‘Billie’ because she reminds me of an adorable Broadway actress I read about who was famous in the twenties.”

  Margie wrote something in her notepad.

  INTER
MEZZO

  I asked Billie if she’d like to go to dinner with me on Sunday evening—her night off—and she said yes. She knew I was married but “sort of” separated.

  We went to a small bistro on the West Side that she knew was open on Sundays, and where she also knew the owner. We shared a coq au vin and a nice bottle of Beaujolais.

  Billie wore a very simple, but ever-so-pretty, pink-and-lavender blouse, which went awfully well with her shiny blond hair. She also wore quite a short skirt—with fairly high heels, of course. What she wore looked inexpensive, but still very special, in the way that dancers know how to choose things to wear. It was the best meal I’d had with a woman in a long time.

  At the end of the meal, the owner came over and sat down with us, bringing his own glass of whatever he had been drinking. He was a jolly man and told some jokes and told us about a few people he missed very much who still lived in France. From the look in his eyes, I think one of them might have been an old lover. Then he clinked glasses with us and said, “Des souvenirs!” (“To memories!”)

  After dinner I went to Billie’s apartment. We sat on the floor, leaning against her sofa. She played some music—not classical, but mellow forties standards. I kissed her. She kissed back; I wouldn’t say passionately, but nicely. Almost politely. I inched my way up the side of her sweater and got close to her breast, which was hard to find because she was almost completely flat chested. My mind started racing. Seema Clark, Seema Clark, angora sweater, “You’re just like all the other boys, aren’t you?” Now here’s the thing that knocked me for a loop—she grabbed my hand and plunked it down over her left breast.

  “You wanna feel? Then feel!”