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

by Gene Wilder

  I went to see Margie to ask her opinion. She said that she thought Katie was so filled with anger at her biological father—whom she had never met and who had abandoned her—that the best way to get back at him was to get back at her “father.”

  How could such an unhappy thing have come about? My intuition tells me that if she ever did tell me what I had done, I might give her some simple explanation—about how ill Gilda was—or I might just apologize for hurting her and ask her to forgive me. But then she might lose her anger, and I think—for reasons she’s probably not aware of—that she needs to hold on to her anger. I know that I may never see Katie again. I hope that the little girl I loved and adopted will be able to let go of that anger one day.

  During this time, two messengers from Heaven were sent to Gilda and me. The first was a gastroenterologist named Edward Feldman, whom we met when he was brought in to oversee Gilda’s first operation. He would come to my house in Los Angeles, two or three times a week, after a long day of work, just to look in on Gilda. Very often, on his day off, he would bring his wife, Jane, and we’d all talk about silly things that would make Gilda laugh. My friendship with Ed Feldman was to play an unexpected role in my life.

  The second messenger was a cancer therapist named Joanna Bull, whom Gilda found through the Wellness Community, in nearby Santa Monica. Joanna came to the house each week and would talk with Gilda for an hour. Whatever they talked about was working. I could see that Gilda was starting to get control of her life, and also starting to enjoy life again. Still no sex for me—that went out months earlier—but I never wanted to burden Gilda with a request for relief, by hand or mouth, and Gilda never mentioned the subject. In the meantime, the major blood test that indicated tumor activity, called CA-125, was returning to normal.

  The gynecological oncologist in charge of Gilda’s case was a gentle man. Before each chemotherapy session he’d sit with us for an hour, in Gilda’s hospital room, talking and joking, and especially listening. After Gilda finished her last chemotherapy, she was given her second-look operation, where the doctor took tissue samples to see if there were any cancer cells observable. Two tissue samples were tainted; the rest were pink and clear. I kept telling her that the news was wonderful . . . only two out of forty-one . . . and I believed it. Gilda felt wonderful, but her doctor said he wanted her to have some radiation now. “Belt and suspenders,” he would say. So she had her entire abdomen radiated.

  When she was finished with the radiation, we went back to her house in Connecticut, “cancer-free,” she used to say . . . and so we thought. But after three weeks—when she went to a local oncologist for her routine blood test—she was told that her CA-125 had gone up, quite high. She had to start chemotherapy again. She thought that the oncologist who told her this had death in his eyes. She even referred to him as Dr. Death, and she wouldn’t see him again.

  When we were in France, the spring before we were married—staying at Chateau St. Martin—we played tennis with a New York oncologist and his wife. His name was Ezra Greenspan. Ezra was a kind man, and he always managed to make Gilda laugh. When she found out that she had to start chemo again, she asked me to call Dr. Greenspan.

  We went to New York to see Ezra, and, after looking at her records and tissue samples, he gave her a spurt of new life in the form of hope.

  “Dr. Death told me I had cancer in my liver.”

  “On your liver,” Ezra said, “not in it.”

  “Do I have to have chemotherapy again?”

  “Yes, but not what you had before—your body gets used that stuff. We’ve got to fool it—give it a different combination of chemo every time. AND GET THE HELL OFF OF THAT MACROBIOTIC DIET YOU’RE ON! . . . It’s all right if you’re healthy, but not if you’re sick. We need to fatten you up. Eat hamburgers, pork, whatever—you need iron!”

  During the car ride home Gilda was bubbling over in anticipation of eating a big, juicy hamburger again, which she did as soon as I returned from Giovanni’s Country Market.

  Ezra put us in touch with a soft-spoken and very good-humored oncologist in Connecticut, Dr. Boyd, who agreed to work under Dr. Greenspan’s supervision. His office was close to where we lived, and he came to Gilda’s house every week to administer the chemotherapy himself, in our kitchen, while we all jabbered away, made jokes, and sometimes even had a glass of wine, as the new combination of chemicals was being infused into Gilda’s vein.

  chapter 27

  THIRD MOVEMENT

  While Gilda was throwing up in our bedroom in Connecticut, I was writing a comedy in the room just below her. It sounds oxymoronic, but absurdity was a familiar guest now.

  Gilda got her chemo every Monday or Tuesday and always had a portable toilet next to her bed. I would check on her every half hour or so, and Grace—the extraordinary lady who took care of the house—would always make sure that everything near Gilda was clean and smelled nice.

  Before coming to Connecticut, I had done research at the Braille Institute in Los Angeles for See No Evil, Hear No Evil. The Braille Institute gave me confidence in writing Richard Pryor’s character—but now that I was in Connecticut, I needed to know about people who were profoundly deaf, which was the case with the character I was to play.

  My assistant in Los Angeles called the New York League for the Hard of Hearing. They wanted to see a copy of what I had written thus far and said that I should call a certain Ms. Webb, who worked at the league as clinical supervisor.

  Ms. Webb? Oh, my God! I thought I’m going to get some cranky New England biddy out of Our Town, who’s going to ask me, in her arrogant, raspy voice, “What are you trying to do—make fun of the deaf?

  With my heart beating a little faster than normal, I called the league and asked to speak to Ms. Webb. After a few moments a soft voice came on the phone.

  “Hello—I’m Karen Webb.”

  “Oh! Hi, I’m Gene Wilder.”

  “Yes, I know.”

  “Did you get the script?”

  “Yes I did. I think it’s very funny.”

  “Oh, good. It’s just a first draft.”

  “Well, I can see that it could do a lot of good for the hearing-impaired—especially with all the people who will want to see the movie if you and Richard Pryor are doing it.”

  “Thank you.”

  “But it’s filled with inaccuracies.”

  “. . . Yes. Well, I mean, yes—that’s why I called you.”

  I was a little taken aback by how nice she sounded and also because she thought the script was funny. I made an appointment to come to the league the following week.

  When I arrived, I told the receptionist that I had an appointment with Ms. Webb. After a minute, out came this lovely woman—in a lavender-and-pink dress—with a little touch of blue mixed in—that flared out just below her knees as she walked towards me. I hadn’t had any sexual activity in so long that I tried, for Gilda’s sake, and mine, to suppress those natural urgings. But seeing Ms. Webb’s dress sway back and forth brought an ache to my heart, not to mention my loins. She took me to her office and asked me to sit in front of a monitor.

  “I’m going to show you a video of a woman talking. You won’t hear any sound—I just want you to tell me what you think she’s saying.”

  She started the video. I did my best to concentrate, until I realized that the pretty woman who was doing the silent talking was the woman in front of me . . . Ms. Webb. When the short video was over, I told her what I thought the woman was saying.

  “Let’s try it again,” she said. “This time the camera will be closer.”

  She started the video. Now the camera showed her face just from her eyebrows to her chin. I concentrated again on what I thought she was saying, and I thought I did pretty well.

  “Let’s try it again,” she said. “This time the camera will be closer.”

  She started the video again. Now it was a giant close-up of just her lips. I wanted to say, “Okay, I give.” But of course—being the gentlem
an I am—I pretended to be studying her lips as if I were a scientist and tried to shut out any erotic thoughts. After a while I really thought that I did understand what those lips were saying.

  “How’d I do? Pretty good, I’ll bet.”

  “Fair.”

  After swallowing my pride with a silly joke, I told Karen that in certain scenes I would actually prefer not to hear what the other actors were saying. She sent me to the audiologist in the office next to hers, to have my ears fitted with skin-colored plugs that I could wear during the filming.

  During the following two weeks, Karen sent me to Beginning, Intermediate, and Advanced lipreading classes (they call it “speech reading”) where I could ask the clients any questions, about anything. I asked one group, “How do you feel when you read some cab driver’s lips who’s screaming at you, ‘WHAT’RE YOU—FUCKING DEAF?’ because you didn’t stop when he honked his fucking horn—which you couldn’t hear?” They all laughed, mostly because they had all been in that situation.

  A bizarre concern cropped up two weeks before filming was to begin. A faction of the deaf community wanted Tri Star to hire “actually blind” and “actually deaf” actors to play the parts that Richard and I were going to play. I met with one representative and tried to explain that—even if they got what they wanted—what good would it do if no one went to see the movie? How funny could the actors be, compared to how many millions of people would pay to see Richard and me being funny? To give our film some moral ammunition, Tri Star and our director, Arthur Hiller, hired Karen Webb as technical consultant—with screen credit, but without pay.

  See No Evil, Hear No Evil began filming in August. Gilda surprised me—and everyone else—by showing up at Union Square on our first day of filming. She had been driven from Connecticut and stayed to watch us for half an hour. She looked so pretty, wearing a skirt and blouse again, and a little makeup. I hadn’t seen her in anything but one of her short nightgowns for so many weeks. Arthur Hiller cried, and Richard and I did our best to make her laugh. She was our audience. And she did laugh.

  Of all the pleasurable times that Richard and I had on previous films—and there were some wonderful times, despite the difficulties—the experience on See No Evil was the happiest. Richard was sane and clearheaded and filled with good humor. A short while later he had a heart attack, and a short while after that he felt the onset of his multiple sclerosis.

  * * *

  Gilda developed a bowel obstruction. The radiation that she had had over her entire abdomen sought its revenge. All of her intestines reacted to any food passing through them in the same way that a severely sunburned person reacts to even the slightest touch of someone’s hand.

  On October 3 she had an operation to repair the blockage. She spent the better part of two weeks at Mount Sinai Hospital, with one of those nasogastric tubes in her nose. She hated it, like everyone does, but she couldn’t have it removed until there were signs that her bowel was working, and the proof the doctors needed that the bowel was working was an unmistakable fart. After ten days she let fly with a small, but beautiful, fart. I was staying at the Carlyle Hotel during this time, and each evening after filming I’d go to the hospital and report all the funny things that happened during the day with Richard and me.

  The doctors were able to repair Gilda’s bowel obstruction. Biopsies revealed no tumor activity. Dr. Greenspan’s program was working; she was able to eat again. I took Gilda back to Connecticut on my day off, and she and Sparkle had a grand reunion.

  WITH EVERY GOOD-BYE YOU LEARN.

  During the last week of filming See No Evil, Hear No Evil, Karen Webb invited me to her apartment for dinner. I don’t know why I hesitated. I think it was because I was attracted to her and didn’t want to cause problems. Then I decided that I was just being silly, and that I ought to accept her invitation, since I was so grateful to her for how much she helped us during the filming.

  I walked into her apartment on East Ninety-eighth Street, and, after the usual hellos and small talk, I went into her kitchen to keep her company while she finished cooking dinner.

  Browsing around as we talked, I saw that she had a long, pointed tea strainer, like the one I always used, except that hers was made of bamboo and mine was made of wire mesh. Resting next to her strainer was a can of Twinings Earl Grey Loose-Leaf Tea. I remarked on the coincidence of her choice of tea and method of brewing it. As I continued babbling, I noticed a bunch of notes and several small photos on one of her cupboards. There was a particular piece of paper, in a frame, that caught my eye. It had several lines printed on it. This is what it said:

  “AFTER A WHILE”

  Veronica A. Shoffstall

  After a while you learn

  the subtle difference between

  holding a hand and chaining a soul

  and you learn that

  love doesn’t mean leaning

  and company doesn’t always mean security.

  And you begin to learn

  that kisses aren’t contracts

  and presents aren’t promises

  and you begin to accept your defeats

  with your head up and your eyes ahead

  with the grace of a woman, not the grief of a child

  and you learn

  to build all your roads on today

  because tomorrow’s ground is too uncertain for plans

  and futures have a way of falling down in mid-flight.

  After a while you learn that even sunshine burns

  if you get too much.

  So you plant your own garden

  and decorate your own soul

  instead of waiting for someone to bring you flowers.

  And you learn that you really can endure,

  that you really are strong

  and you really do have worth.

  and you learn

  and you learn

  with every good-bye you learn.

  After I read that framed paper, I stood in Karen’s kitchen, watching her for the longest while. I didn’t speak until she asked me something about roasted garlic, while she was pulling things out of the oven, and then she said, “We can sit down now—dinner’s ready.”

  Dinner was delicious—lamb and roasted garlic, with lots of vegetables. She served a wine that I knew was expensive—too expensive for what I imagined her salary must be. I didn’t want her to think I didn’t appreciate the wine, but I scolded her, very gently, for spending so much money.

  During dinner she told me that she was trying to get a grant to make a video that could be sent to libraries all around the country. It was going to be for people who couldn’t come to New York but who were losing their hearing and wanted to learn how to read lips. Karen asked if I would help make it funny—keep it from being plain and dry—if she ever got the grant. I said I’d be happy to help. I had to leave fairly early that night since I had an early-morning call, so I told her I’d better be going. I held her hand on the way to the door and thanked her for the delicious dinner and for all the help she had given to the film.

  When we arrived at the door, I didn’t want to leave. I just stood looking at her—the memory of the poem on her cupboard was fusing with the face in front of me, and I longed to hold that face in my hands, just for a few moments, and kiss her. It had been such a long time since Gilda and I had kissed, romantically. I stopped thinking. I took Karen’s face in my hands and kissed her. The way she responded seemed to be part passion and part compassion and, I think, part hope that we might meet again.

  * * *

  In November, Gilda, Sparkle, and I flew back to Los Angeles. Gilda had been working on a book for over six months and now Simon & Schuster was going to publish it. It was called It’s Always Something. Originally it was going to be the story of a young comedienne from Detroit who becomes very famous, gets cancer, fights it with all her might and, miraculously, gets well. She had the ending in mind before she knew what the ending would be. Gilda had another operation at the beginning
of 1989 to alleviate her burnt intestines. She felt better for awhile, but then her cancer went on a rampage. Six weeks before she died, she wanted to take singing lessons. She hired a singing teacher, who came to the house once a week. While he accompanied her on the piano, Gilda sang “When You Wish upon A Star.”

  Three weeks before she died, she pulled herself out of bed, put on a skirt and blouse, and was driven to a recording studio, where she made the audio copy of It’s Always Something. She was forty-three years old when she died, on May 20, 1989. I buried her in a nondenominational cemetery three miles from her 1734 colonial home, in front of a tall white ash tree.

  I used to go the cemetery several times a week, to say a few words to Gilda and to let Sparkle pee on top of her grave. I knew Gilda would love that. I don’t go to the cemetery for her sake anymore—as if she might know each time I came and would be hurt if I skipped a week. I know she’s not there. If I go now, it’s for my sake. I used to worry all my early life about being good enough to please God. Gilda didn’t think much about those things—she was just naturally good. I don’t want to be a better person than Gilda—she was just human, and that’s all I want to be . . . just human.

  Before I met Gilda, I knew nothing about cancer. I was not only ignorant—I was dumb. Like many families, mine never mentioned the C word, as if by talking about cancer you could catch it. After Gilda died, one question kept intruding into my thoughts: if the blood marker they call CA-125 was used to detect tumor activity with women who had ovarian cancer, why couldn’t they use it as a screening test for women who had symptoms like Gilda’s, to find out if they had ovarian cancer?