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

by Gene Wilder

  “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.

  “HELLO, I MUST BE GOING.”

  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!”

  I turned and saw Orson Welles standing beside his table, beckoning to me to come over. When I got there, he introduced me to his friends, and then said, “I hope I didn’t disturb you. I just wanted you to know what a pleasure it is to meet you, Mr. Wilder. I’m a great admirer of yours. Thank you for coming over.” In the taxi on my way back to the hotel, I wondered if I could truly absorb this lesson in generosity that was unfettered by ego.

  Towards the end of October we were filming on a quay along the river Seine. It was one of the last scenes to be done before we all said good-bye.

  I was sitting alone at the water’s edge, watching actresses dressed as great ladies get in and out of 1789 carriages, with the fringe of their white petticoats showing underneath their long dresses. Tall men dressed as aristocrats, in beautiful blue satin costumes, rehearsed their sword fights on the steps of the quay. Ducks, geese, and pigs were being loaded onto 1789 barges—all in preparation for the next shot.

  I sat watching all these things, and a deep sadness came over me. Nothing to do with the Demon—it had to do with real life. Well, that’s a silly thing to say, because nothing I had been seeing or doing for the past three months was real; it was a movie. It was all remote from everyday experience. Even the real cobblestoned streets in Paris and the old buildings and houses that were constructed with curves and rounded moldings were all fantastical and very romantic. At first I thought I was sad at the thought of going back to the straight lines and glass rectangles of New York; then I realized that I was actually afraid of going back to Jo and Katie, which made no sense to me at the time.

  On the plane ride home I began writing my first screenplay, which I called Hesitation Waltz. It was never produced.

  chapter 17

  “I HAVE A REASON—I JUST DON’T KNOW

  WHAT IT IS.”

  When I got back to New York, we had a warm family reunion, but during the next several months little troubles started popping up, like buds in spring. Emily Dickinson wrote, “The heart wants what it wants, when it wants it, or else it doesn’t care.” It was certainly what Katie felt, and she was just eight years old.

  I was holding Katie’s hand one day as we were walking along the sidewalk on our way to the butcher, and she said that she wanted me to buy her some strange mechanical contraption that she saw in the stationery shop next to the butcher. I thought the thing she wanted was a little bizarre, apart from being fairly expensive.

  “Why do you want that crazy thing?” I asked.

  “I just want it.”

  “I know you want it—I’m not saying I won’t buy it for you. I just want to know why you want it. Do you have a reason?”

  “I have a reason,” she said, very frustrated, “I just don’t know what it is.” The originality of that answer was good enough for me; I bought her what she wanted.

  After Katie started growing a potbelly, Jo found a stockpile of empty candy bar wrappers stuffed into her desk drawer. The curious thing was that she could so easily have gotten rid of those wrappers—if she didn’t want us to see them—in any of those KEEP NEW YORK CLEAN baskets that were on every street corner. Why keep empty candy wrappers in her desk drawer?

  When the three of us sat down to dinner, Jo would say something like, “Honey, don’t you think it would be better if you ate this?” or, “better for you if you didn’t eat that?”

  I asked Margie for advice. She said, “When you talk to Katie, don’t talk about food!”

  JEAN RENOIR

  I received a film script with the oddest title: Quackser Fortune Has a Cousin in the Bronx. The script told an unusual story: A cheerful, uneducated young Irishman, in 1959, follows horses all around Dublin, collecting horse manure to sell to middle-aged women gardeners, with whom he occasionally has sexual dalliances. He wakes up one morning to find that all the horses that had been pulling milk wagons around Dublin for years have been replaced by motorized vehicles, and so he loses the only job he ever knew.

  When I finished reading Quackser, I knew I wanted to do it—but it certainly wasn’t the most commercial script I’d ever read. Sidney Glazier, who had produced The Producers, was leaving for England that night. I gave the script to him to read on the plane. He called me from London the next day and said that he wept after reading Quackser and that we were going to do it together. Sidney had backing from a wealthy company that wanted to invest in films. (Not Joe Levine’s company, thank goodness.)

  When Sidney came back from England, I told him that I thought the most important thing for us to do now was to find the right director, preferably an Irishman. The next week, we flew to London, where we stayed at the great Connaught Hotel. It was very difficult to get a room there, but Sidney always managed to get a suite because he brought the manager a special kind of bacon from a gourmet shop in New York. (That’s a producer.) On this trip he obtained his usual beautiful suite, and I got a little cubicle the size of a cloakroom—but it was a cubicle in the Connaught Hotel. We interviewed many directors, especially Irish ones, but none had a vision that impressed us.

  One afternoon, after another disappointing series of interviews, I casually exhaled a loud, “Oh, to find a Jean Renoir somewhere.” I pronounced the name correctly, but Sidney was a New Yorker who used to work in burlesque houses.

  “Who’s Gene Renwer?”

  “Oh, just one of the greatest directors of the twentieth century—Grand Illusion, Rules of the Game. His daddy was a famous painter.�
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  “Well, let’s get him.”

  “Sure, why don’t you just call him up and say, ‘Jean, baby, how’s about doing a nice little film about a young Irishman who collects horse shit for a living?’ ”

  The next morning Sidney said, “Pack your suitcase—we’re going to Paris. We have an appointment tomorrow morning with Gene Renwer. I sent him the script, and he’s reading it today.” (Now that’s really a producer.)

  We flew to Paris and stayed at the Hotel Raphael that night. The next morning we took a taxi to the address that was given to Sidney over the phone. It was just off Place Pigalle.

  I said, “Sidney, this can’t be right. That’s the Moulin Rouge across the street. We’re in a neighborhood of strip joints.”

  Sidney showed the taxi driver the small piece of paper on which he had written Renoir’s address.

  “Oui, oui, oui—c’est là!” the driver said, pointing to an iron gate.

  We got out of the taxi, and Sidney rang a bell that was attached to the side of the gate. I thought some pimp was going to answer. The gate buzzed open and—as in a fairy tale—we walked into a nineteenth-century street lined with tall chestnut trees, behind which were little gardens in front of very old town houses.

  Sidney started hollering, “MISSHURE RENWER—HELLO! MISSHURE GENE RENWER!” (I had tried earlier to explain the difference between “Gene” and “Jean” but failed. I didn’t attempt to change “Misshure.”)

  After Sidney had shouted, in his beautiful French, to all the second-floor windows on both sides of the street, a gardener who was working nearby finally pointed to a door. Sidney rang the bell, and the door buzzed open. We walked up one flight of stairs, then another, and then we heard a woman’s voice, with a beautiful English accent, call out to us, “Right here, gentlemen—just on the next landing.” We were expected.

  When we got to the landing, a distinguished-looking woman in her sixties, Renoir’s secretary, showed us into the sitting room. She pointed to two chairs that were facing a beautiful desk and asked us to sit down. She was French, but her English was impeccable.

  “Monsieur Renoir will be with you in just a moment. May I offer you some coffee or tea?” We both declined.

  After a minute or two, Jean Renoir walked in, slowly, followed by his secretary. He must have been close to eighty. His right eye seemed bigger than his left. After his secretary introduced us, she left the room. Renoir had lived and worked in the States, so speaking English was no problem for him.

  Renoir sat behind his beautiful desk, with the sun shining through the window next to him, hitting him directly in his right eye. We talked pleasantries for awhile, but when I saw tears starting to drop from the large, red eye, I asked—in as inoffensive a way as I could—if he wouldn’t like to change seats with me. “No, no,” he said. “The sun feels good on my bad eye.”

  To break the ice I said, “Monsieur Renoir, do you mind if I ask—which is your favorite restaurant in Paris?”

  “Well,” he said, “it’s an old bistro called Chez Allard. It may not be the best food in Paris, but it’s a good restaurant, and the wine is honest.”

  “So, Misshure,” Sidney began, “did you have a chance to read the script?”

  “Yes, I’ve read it. Not since Chaplin have I come across such a character as this Quackser. I’ll do your film.”

  My heart jumped.

  “But I cannot do this film for one year,” Renoir said, “because of obligations I have. And I know this movie business—you may not have the money one year from now. It’s a long time to wait. I know this problem. But, if you still want me . . . I’ll do this film.”

  After we said polite things and how honored we were to have met him, Sidney finished our meeting with, “Okay, we’ll keep in touch.” We shook hands again, and Sidney and I left the room.

  On the way down the staircase, Sidney said, “He’s a smart man. He’s right, you know—I have the money now, but I don’t know if I’ll have it in a year from now. It’s up to you—you want to take a chance, I’ll wait. But it’s a chance. You think about it.”

  I thought about it overnight. I knew this would be the only chance I would ever have to work with Jean Renoir, but I kept thinking of his words: “. . . I know this movie business—you may not have the money one year from now.” I thought about Joe Levine and how fickle money people can be. I decided I didn’t want to take a chance that Quackser wouldn’t be made. I told Sidney, “Let’s do it now,” but for a long while afterward I thought, What if?

  When we got back to England, we hired an Indian director, Waris Hussein, who lived in London. He had directed some wonderful dramas for the BBC and a lovely film with Sandy Dennis called Thank You All Very Much. In May, two months before filming was to begin, I went to Dublin with the author, Gabriel Walsh, in order to study Irish accents. Gabriel was born and raised in Dublin. With my miniature tape recorder I recorded people in all the restaurants and little shops where Gabriel took me. I discovered that there was a great difference in Irish accents, depending on which side of the river Liffey a person lived. The sounds were softer and more poetic in people who lived south of the Liffey, so I decided that when we started filming, I would try to sound like I was born and raised south of the Liffey.

  I wanted to live in the countryside when Jo and Katie came to live with me, so I went with the line producer, John Cunningham, to search for a home or a cottage somewhere south of Dublin. Cunningham knew the area very well. As we traveled through a quiet fishing village, called Greystones, we passed a simple, but beautiful home, and I casually remarked, “Now that’s the kind of place I’d like to find.” Cunningham stopped the car and started to get out.

  “Where are you going?”

  “To see about that house,” he answered.

  “But you can’t just walk into someone’s home and ask them if they’d like to rent it if there isn’t even a sign in front.”

  “Yes you can. In Ireland you can.”

  He disappeared for three or four minutes and then waved for me to come in.

  “It’s yours, if you want it. They could use the money, and they have a little place in Dublin they can live in for the summer.”

  . . . Well, I never.

  Two months later we were filming in one of the poorest sections of Dublin, but you wouldn’t have known it because the doors and the window frames and the shutters of each house were painted in soft, yet daring, colors—orange, green, blue, red, pink—and everything was extraordinarily clean. I was invited to take a look inside of the house that had been selected as “Quackser’s house.” We would only be using the exterior, but I wanted to see what it looked like inside. I found that everything was just as clean inside as it was outside. There were three large photographs placed prominently, side by side: John F. Kennedy, the pope, and Robert Kennedy.

  Children of the neighborhood gathered around us every day to watch us film. One little boy—a four-year-old named David—was like the mascot of the group. Everyone protected him. He was dressed so nicely, and scrubbed clean, and he always had a stoic face, except if one of us gave him an ice cream; then he would smile, slightly, and say, “Tanks very mooch.”

  I asked the director if we could use David in one of the scenes. It would mean money for his family. That afternoon he was my sidekick in a very short scene. He just held my hand, and I led him wherever I was supposed to go. The next day I had a slightly bigger scene for him. We were sitting on the step, in front of “my” house, as I was trying to digest the fact that the horses had all been replaced. We had to do the scene several times. David didn’t have any dialogue; he just had to sit quietly on my lap. After the fourth take, just as the camera started rolling, he said, “I don’t want ta do dis no more.”

  A month later David’s mother started hinting, in the nicest way, that it might be nice if I adopted David and took him to America with me. David was one of eight children. His father was permanently disabled, and the family survived on welfare. His mother wan
ted David to have a chance in life. I talked it over with Jo and Katie, and they both said it was all right with them. I had the producer make some inquiries. The Irish government said yes, I could adopt David, but I would have to wait two years before I could take him out of the country, he would have to keep his own name, and he would have to be raised as a Catholic.

  When I got over my anger with the Irish government, I took David for a picnic in the Wicklow Mountains—just the two of us—to find out if he would even want to come with me and live in America. After the most delicate probing, David said, “Naw, I don’t want ta do dat.” And dat was dat.

  I had a scene in a pub where I get drunk on Guinness beer. I like beer once in a while, and I tried getting real Guinness down my throat, but it was so heavy and bitter that I just kept spitting it out. The man in charge of props gave me a stein of Coca Cola and then poured an ounce of Guinness on top. It worked.

  When September came around, Jo and Katie had to leave for New York so that Katie could start school again. The weather in Ireland had been beautiful all summer, but by the end of October it became consistently dark and rainy, so depressing, that it could have driven a man to drink. If I had been a drinking man, with hardly any money and little opportunity to improve myself, I might have drowned my cares in beer, but under no circumstances would it have been Guinness.

  chapter 18

  NEW YORK, NEW YORK

  After shedding my manure clothing and exchanging those rags for my New York look—which meant dressing myself in the way that I thought Cary Grant dressed, so that I could fool myself into believing, for a moment when I looked into a mirror, that I looked a little like Cary Grant. I flew back to New York and my reunion with Jo and Katie.