Speaker 1: These are people of the land, the common clay of
Speaker 1: the New West.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 3: Welcome to Amusing Jews, where we celebrate Jewish contributors and
Speaker 3: contributions to American popular culture. I'm Jonathan Friedman and I'm
Speaker 3: Joey Angelfield producer engineer Mike Tomren is working somewhere behind
Speaker 3: the scenes. Amusing Jews is a project of Adauchavareem Congregation
Speaker 3: for Humanistic Judaism, the Jewish Museum of the American West,
Speaker 3: and Atheist United Studios. Hey, Joey, one of the joys
Speaker 3: of my life is discovering that the same person is
Speaker 3: behind two seemingly unrelated things that I love. George Miller,
Speaker 3: for instance, is responsible for both the Mad Max franchise
Speaker 3: and the family classic Babe. Norman Jewison, who is not
Speaker 3: Jewish nor the son of a Jew, directed both Fiddler
Speaker 3: on the Roof and Jesus Christ Superstar. Our guest today
Speaker 3: wrote a charming new documentary about a beloved comedic actor,
Speaker 3: and numerous episodes of a creepy documentary series about unexplained events.
Speaker 2: We're delighted to talk with Glenn Kirshbaum, a documentary writer, producer,
Speaker 2: and director whose latest film is remembering Gene Wilder. He
Speaker 2: also wrote episodes of Unsolved Mysteries and has overseen hundreds
Speaker 2: of hours of programming on the History Channel, A A E. Discovery,
Speaker 2: National Geographic, the Travel Channel.
Speaker 3: The Food Network, HGTV, the.
Speaker 2: Weather Channel, and more. Glenn, welcome to Amusing Jews.
Speaker 4: Thank you, and I will try to be amusing. I
Speaker 4: am Jewish, so let's see where that takes us.
Speaker 2: So we'll start at the beginning. But this is a
Speaker 2: big laden question. You've spent over forty years in the
Speaker 2: television business. How did you get your start?
Speaker 4: You know, I came out here to write comedy. My
Speaker 4: brother was a comedy writer, and when I arrived, he
Speaker 4: was writing for a show called Fridays, which was ABC's
Speaker 4: answer to Saturday Night Live. And it became very clear
Speaker 4: to me early on just how miserable every comedy writer was.
Speaker 4: I mean, these are funny, funny people. They were, you know,
Speaker 4: Larry David and Michael Richards and Larry Charles, and you know,
Speaker 4: they were putting great material on the air. But when
Speaker 4: you would talk to them, or when they talk amongst themselves,
Speaker 4: nobody ever laughed. They you know, would say, oh, yeah,
Speaker 4: that's funny. Or that works. Yeah, that's great, Yeah, that's hysterical. Yeah.
Speaker 4: And it just was a group of people that I thought,
Speaker 4: you know, Jesus, I don't know if I'm that guy
Speaker 4: to hang out with these folks. And so I ended
Speaker 4: up getting an internship at a show called That's Incredible,
Speaker 4: which was, you know, it was basically an excuse to
Speaker 4: find the biggest maniacs in the world, people who were
Speaker 4: totally missugar and put them on the air. So I
Speaker 4: was hired as the receptionist. Because I did such a
Speaker 4: fine job of reading fan mail, they said, I think
Speaker 4: this guy would be really good on the phones. And
Speaker 4: when calls came in that weren't very good, I would say,
Speaker 4: let me give you a researcher. But if it was
Speaker 4: a really good story, I'd say, oh tell me, oh really,
Speaker 4: Oh you know what, can I call you back tonight?
Speaker 4: So I ended up finding the most insane people, you know.
Speaker 4: I brought in the guy who ate and digested a bicycle,
Speaker 4: the guy who could stop electrical fans with this tongue,
Speaker 4: you know, thing, people of that ilk. And as a result,
Speaker 4: they said, you know, this guy shouldn't be on the phones,
Speaker 4: And they made me a researcher, and I moved up
Speaker 4: from being a researcher to being an associate producer to
Speaker 4: ultimately being a director in the field. So it just
Speaker 4: was a case of you know what, you got to
Speaker 4: just go for it, and I was very, very fortunate
Speaker 4: and surrounded by people who are still dear friends to
Speaker 4: this day.
Speaker 3: That's incredible that you were involved with That's incredible. What
Speaker 3: an incredible show that was. I watched it every day,
Speaker 3: especially in the summer months when there was a much
Speaker 3: to do. It was on TV in the middle of
Speaker 3: the day. I remember the guy with the tongue and
Speaker 3: the fan. I remember the guy eating the bicycle.
Speaker 4: We coined the expression don't try this at home. So
Speaker 4: I hope you paid attention, Jonathan. I see your tongue
Speaker 4: is still functioning. That's good. That's a good sign. But yeah,
Speaker 4: the bicycle guy, he wanted to eat a helicopter for us,
Speaker 4: and ultimately our budget didn't allow for that because he
Speaker 4: could eat a pound of metal every day, but it
Speaker 4: would have taken him months and we just couldn't afford
Speaker 4: to film and check in with him. His name was
Speaker 4: Michelle Lo Tito, but he was known as Monsieur monge
Speaker 4: too or mister eats All. Unfortunately he's no longer with us.
Speaker 4: I know that's a shocking revelation, but I do believe
Speaker 4: he ended up eating a small cessna for another umpany
Speaker 4: and if you go on YouTube you can find that material.
Speaker 3: So that's today's hot tip. So it sounds like you're
Speaker 3: really energized about this stuff still. So to Joey's question
Speaker 3: about what has kept you going, I think it maybe
Speaker 3: is just sort of the novelty, the excitement, the curiosity,
Speaker 3: the just the whole package.
Speaker 4: All of the above. It's joy. It's whatever you're doing,
Speaker 4: do it well and have fun with it. So I've
Speaker 4: been blessed. I've met a lot of people. I've done
Speaker 4: serious projects, you know, when you do a film about
Speaker 4: Hitler and the Holocaust, Believe me, that's not easy. And
Speaker 4: then I've done silly projects, you know. The Richard Simmons
Speaker 4: Show was one that I did. And so I've had
Speaker 4: forty three years of truly running the gamut on programming,
Speaker 4: and I've just had fun and brought a sense of
Speaker 4: fun and joy and adventure to everything I do.
Speaker 3: As you're alluding to, the first documentary feature you produced
Speaker 3: was Adolf Hitler, Man and Myth, for which he traveled
Speaker 3: throughout American and Europe, interviewing Holocaust survivors as well as
Speaker 3: members of Hitler's inner circle. You later produced The Unfinished
Speaker 3: Civil War, for which he traveled across the American South,
Speaker 3: tracing contemporary racism to the Civil War. Did you develop
Speaker 3: in each tricks for staying objective while investigating these very
Speaker 3: sensitive topics? For starters, I changed my name Kirshbaum, felt
Speaker 3: a little ethnic, so I went with Glenn King, and
Speaker 3: the tricks were, let me see survival techniques, you know,
Speaker 3: to to try to wait when you're interviewing. I mean,
Speaker 3: this was the last We were traveling with this horrible
Speaker 3: man named David Irvitt, who is a revisionist. He's still alive,
Speaker 3: but he had access to the last surviving Nazis.
Speaker 4: So we interviewed Hitler's pilot and Ava Bron's best friend,
Speaker 4: and his last surviving doctor and his adjutant, and we
Speaker 4: would feeld horrible questions. You know, people would ask me,
Speaker 4: is this film you're doing going to be a positive
Speaker 4: or negative depiction of the furor? And and so you
Speaker 4: learned to just say, you know, in that case We're
Speaker 4: not going to take a point of view. We're going
Speaker 4: to let the audience make up their minds. So you know,
Speaker 4: we tried. I mean, ultimately, I knew that I was
Speaker 4: going to be editing and writing and putting the film together,
Speaker 4: so it was okay, you know, for these people to
Speaker 4: say horrific things on camera, like you know, the fact
Speaker 4: that Hitler was only doing what was best for Germany,
Speaker 4: and you learned to just sit there and you know,
Speaker 4: you can question. But at the same time, you know,
Speaker 4: these are eighty five ninety year old people. They're not
Speaker 4: going to change their mind, you know, on camera speaking
Speaker 4: with me. But you know, again I knew, and you
Speaker 4: know now that we interviewed Simon Wisenthal, we interviewed you know,
Speaker 4: you know, people who were in the Roosevelt administration, you know,
Speaker 4: and so we had access. When you say you're doing
Speaker 4: a project for the History Channel, you can pretty much
Speaker 4: get anyone on the phone, you know, for the Unfinished
Speaker 4: Civil War. In the same week that I interviewed David Duke,
Speaker 4: I interviewed Martin Luther King the Third So you can't
Speaker 4: get more polar opposites. But I try to be honest.
Speaker 4: I try to be fair. I try to let people take,
Speaker 4: you know, express themselves, and yeah, in the end, you
Speaker 4: do want the audience to make up their own mind
Speaker 4: on you know, we've presented you with information and hopefully
Speaker 4: you know, I mean, we live at a time that
Speaker 4: you know, there's a lot of people who say the
Speaker 4: Holocaust never happened, you know, So I really did see
Speaker 4: it as a responsibility to present this material. And yeah,
Speaker 4: it was very difficult when you're in a community in
Speaker 4: Germany and you're told everyone in this community is a
Speaker 4: retired SS. Believe me, that's a difficult situation to put
Speaker 4: yourself in. But I came back from that experience basically
Speaker 4: believing that I can do anything, and that's been my philosophy,
Speaker 4: you know, for the last thirty years of programming.
Speaker 2: Enjoining the show, click like and subscribe. Speaking of staying objective,
Speaker 2: you wrote for several seasons on the long running documentary
Speaker 2: series Unsolved Mysteries, which frequently explored paranormal events. How did
Speaker 2: you go about making these unbelievable stories seem believable?
Speaker 4: Well, I think, and this was we had just won
Speaker 4: a couple of Emmy Awards for the Hitler documentary and
Speaker 4: Unsolved Mysteries was looking for a new writer, so my
Speaker 4: timing was perfect, and I was looking for something that
Speaker 4: was a little less taxing on me and so Unsolved
Speaker 4: Mysteries the way we made it believable. I mean, you're
Speaker 4: going to have people telling these amazing stories of whether
Speaker 4: it's ghostly encounters or UFO encounters or experiencing life after death.
Speaker 4: So again, we let people tell their stories. You know,
Speaker 4: I was writing whatever Robert Staff would say, so you know,
Speaker 4: you would find little secrets like saying, you know, there
Speaker 4: were those who believe, or some say or it's been said,
Speaker 4: and you know, it might be some schmuck living in
Speaker 4: a trailer who said it, but at least someone did
Speaker 4: say it. We were honest in what we were saying.
Speaker 4: But these were fascinating stories, and at the same time,
Speaker 4: I really felt good about what we're doing. Because Unsolved Mysteries,
Speaker 4: I think it was over one hundred and fifty bad
Speaker 4: guys were found because of our show. We would do stories,
Speaker 4: you know, on these terrible crimes where we were looking
Speaker 4: for the perpetrators and you can reach, you know, tens
Speaker 4: of millions of people with a show like this, and
Speaker 4: it's truly amazing. I can't remember what I had for breakfast.
Speaker 4: But we would put stories on the air and someone
Speaker 4: would say, you know, I rented skis from that guy
Speaker 4: fourteen years ago. He's living in New Hampshire. And we
Speaker 4: would solve cases that way, and so it was a
Speaker 4: very rewarding experience. I mean, the little known, you know
Speaker 4: secret is that many times the actors who were in
Speaker 4: the re enactments, they would get arrested or they well,
Speaker 4: someone would finger saying I know that guy. Well it's like, yeah,
Speaker 4: that was the actor that wasn't the bad guy, and
Speaker 4: so I will say this we Matthew McConaughey, who later
Speaker 4: you know, became a very famous Hollywood actor, is very
Speaker 4: first acting gig was in an episode of Unsolved Mysteries
Speaker 4: down in Texas, and the director came back and said,
Speaker 4: this guy was a character, and he insisted on doing
Speaker 4: his scenes with his shirt off. And that was Matthew.
Speaker 4: And you can go on YouTube and see those clips.
Speaker 4: But he was great, and that experience was great.
Speaker 1: Come with me and you'll be in a world of
Speaker 1: your imagination, heybo, and you'll see himTo your imagination.
Speaker 3: I was really surprised when I watched remembering Gene Wilder
Speaker 3: and heard Wilder, who died in twenty sixteen, narrating the
Speaker 3: movie by way of an audiobook recording of his two
Speaker 3: thousand and five memoir Kissed Me Like a Stranger. This
Speaker 3: was an effective choice and it gave me and I'm
Speaker 3: sure others the feels. As they say, how did you
Speaker 3: go about crafting the narrative of this movie? Well, well,
Speaker 3: first of all, we felt very fortunate to have Jean's
Speaker 3: audio audio recording that that was made available to us
Speaker 3: by his widow, Karen, who worked with us closely throughout
Speaker 3: the film.
Speaker 1: You know, the.
Speaker 4: Having Jean's voice added a real sense. You almost felt
Speaker 4: like he was in the editing bay with us making
Speaker 4: the film. And and so what I did as the
Speaker 4: writer of the film, you know, we would listen to
Speaker 4: what was important to Jeane, what made his book. He
Speaker 4: would do all sorts of interviews on the Mike Douglas
Speaker 4: Show to Cavitt, merv Griffin, and if he would would
Speaker 4: repeat a story several times. For instance, he talked about
Speaker 4: the fact that his mother had heart condition when he
Speaker 4: was eight, and his mother's doctor went to young Jean
Speaker 4: and said, whatever you do, don't upset your mother, you
Speaker 4: could kill her make her laugh. Well, this was amazing
Speaker 4: pressure to put on an eight year old child. But
Speaker 4: and I think it created some of who Jane later became.
Speaker 4: He would keep things bottled up and they would explode later,
Speaker 4: and it made for you know, great characters, you know,
Speaker 4: whether it was Leo Bloom or you know, Doctor Frankens, Frackenstein, Frokenstein, whatever.
Speaker 4: But having Jean's voice, having his biography, knowing what was
Speaker 4: important to him, that gave us a lot of insight
Speaker 4: into who he was. Plus we had great interviews with
Speaker 4: mel Brooks and Carol Caine and Alan Alden, people who
Speaker 4: knew Gene intimately. And if there would be times that
Speaker 4: mel Brooks would give us rich material that also could
Speaker 4: be intercut with Jane's telling of the same story that
Speaker 4: went into the film. For instance, their only argument on
Speaker 4: Young Frankenstein was Jeane wanted put none the rits. He
Speaker 4: wanted Doctor Frankenstein to be up on stage with the monster,
Speaker 4: you know, doing a song and dance number. And mel
Speaker 4: thought that was a ridiculous idea and hated it and
Speaker 4: fought him tooth and nail, and finally when he saw
Speaker 4: how badly Jean wanted that scene in the film. He
Speaker 4: relented and said, Okay, it's yours, and in our film,
Speaker 4: Mel ends up saying, you know, that was the best
Speaker 4: part of the entire film. Geene was right. So hearing
Speaker 4: those two men talk about that scene, or hearing Alan
Speaker 4: all to talk about the Abby Normal scene, we just
Speaker 4: knew these are things that are going into our film.
Speaker 4: I mean, if you get someone talking about one of
Speaker 4: our favorite moments of the producers, you know, or Blazing Saddles,
Speaker 4: it was going to go in there. So we wanted
Speaker 4: to create a lot a laugh fest, and hopefully we succeeded.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's a love fest as well, really beautifully executed.
Speaker 3: I've always wondered why it is that in Young Frankenstein,
Speaker 3: I think that's the only mel Brooks directed somebody that
Speaker 3: he himself does not appear in. And I heard that
Speaker 3: it was because Gene Wilder didn't want him to be
Speaker 3: in the movie. I don't know if you know any
Speaker 3: of this inside baseball stuff.
Speaker 4: Absolutely, yeah, no man. Mel admits that Mel says it
Speaker 4: on camera in our film that Jean said I want
Speaker 4: you to It was Jeane's idea. He was like, Mel,
Speaker 4: I want you to co write with me. I want
Speaker 4: you to direct, and I don't want you in the film.
Speaker 4: And I think probably because.
Speaker 3: Mel is so big.
Speaker 4: Mel is so broad, you know, in Blazing Saddles, he
Speaker 4: you know, his subtlety is.
Speaker 1: Not his.
Speaker 4: Strong suit. And so I'm sure Jean just felt that
Speaker 4: he would lose control of the film if Mel was
Speaker 4: in it. And I think ultimately it was the right call.
Speaker 4: And we love Mel Mel. Mel was great. Mel has
Speaker 4: been promoting our film. Mel introduced it at the La
Speaker 4: Jewish Film Festival where we debuted, and he tweeted how
Speaker 4: much he loved the film and it was amazing. It
Speaker 4: two million eyeballs on Mel's tweet. And when we opened,
Speaker 4: we had lines up and down Wilshire Boulevard at the
Speaker 4: Saban Theater and people laughing. At the opening credits. We
Speaker 4: were like, oh my god, we're sitting on gold here.
Speaker 4: And just to give you an idea of how excited
Speaker 4: we are, we ended up winning. First of all, we
Speaker 4: pitched it to Netflix and they said no, they said,
Speaker 4: really good film, not right for our audience, and we
Speaker 4: then went the film festival route. We ended up winning
Speaker 4: nine festivals. Keno Lauber asked they wanted to distribute the film.
Speaker 4: They opened it up in one hundred and fifty theaters nationwide.
Speaker 4: It was held over in LA in New York, in Boston.
Speaker 4: It did incredibly well. Netflix came back to us and
Speaker 4: said we want the film, and it applied into number
Speaker 4: five on Netflix. So yeah, it was an incredibly rewarding experience.
Speaker 4: And you know, I don't want to call it vindication,
Speaker 4: but it just goes to show if you have a
Speaker 4: belief in what you're doing, go for it. You know,
Speaker 4: well doublet a little rejection, you know, make you feel
Speaker 4: that you're raw. We knew we were making a sweet film,
Speaker 4: a loving film, a celebration of someone who brought so
Speaker 4: much joy into the lives of those of us who
Speaker 4: you know, grew up in the seventies. And I'm thrilled that,
Speaker 4: you know, it's now there's a whole new audience. You know,
Speaker 4: my son is seventeen. He's told all of his friends
Speaker 4: and I'm now coming to their classroom, you know, to
Speaker 4: give a lecture about Gene Wilder to these seventeen year
Speaker 4: olds and they're all big fans. So it's great. I'm
Speaker 4: feeling so good about that film and the way things
Speaker 4: worked out.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that initial rejection from Netflix has me wondering, what
Speaker 3: does Netflix think their audience is. I mean, that's kind
Speaker 3: of a weird thing to say. Meanwhile, they have the
Speaker 3: Arnold Schwarzenegger documentary on there and other things. I mean,
Speaker 3: it's kind of strange just even try to wrap your
Speaker 3: head around what they meant by isn't right for our audience.
Speaker 3: Maybe they felt it skewed too old, you know, I
Speaker 3: don't know. No one likes to say that, but maybe
Speaker 3: that was the thinking. I just think we have a responsibility.
Speaker 3: If people did good in the world, and Gene Wilder
Speaker 3: did good, it's let's celebrate those people, you know, and
Speaker 3: and and you know, I'm so glad Rotten Tomatoes we've
Speaker 3: got I think eighty six percent positive.
Speaker 4: And the few people who have criticized us have said, well,
Speaker 4: you didn't talk about his disasters, you didn't talk about
Speaker 4: his you know, his failures. Well, you know what, that
Speaker 4: wasn't the film we were making. We were making a
Speaker 4: film that was people who knew Gene, who loved Jean,
Speaker 4: who wanted to sing his praises, And that was the
Speaker 4: film that we made. If someone wants to make a
Speaker 4: film that trashes Gene Wilder. God love them, but that
Speaker 4: wasn't our intention.
Speaker 2: Gene Wilder's humanity really comes across in his relationship with
Speaker 2: Richard Pryor. The two actors had amazing chemistry on screen
Speaker 2: in Silver Streak, See No Evil, Here, No Evil, and
Speaker 2: a couple other movies, but they didn't have much of
Speaker 2: a friendship off screen. Pryor was diagnosed with MS in
Speaker 2: nineteen eighty six, and Wilder was very sensitive to this
Speaker 2: and helped Pryor through their scenes together in very subtle
Speaker 2: and gentle ways. What does this tell us about Gene
Speaker 2: Wilder as a person.
Speaker 4: Gene Wilder was a mensch and we heard this over
Speaker 4: and over and over from everyone we interviewed. They did
Speaker 4: not have a negative word to say about him. And
Speaker 4: among those people was Rain Pryor, Richard Pryor's daughter, who
Speaker 4: was on the set of See No Evil, Here No Evil,
Speaker 4: and which is when Richard had MS, and she knew
Speaker 4: that Jeane had gone out of his way. Yes, they
Speaker 4: were not friends off camera, you know, Richard when they
Speaker 4: were making Soaper Streak, he stayed in a separate hotel
Speaker 4: he had, he was drinking, he was doing drugs. It
Speaker 4: was not conducive to making a comedy to showing up.
Speaker 4: He was showing up late on the set. You know,
Speaker 4: he was difficult and and you know it didn't take
Speaker 4: away from the finished product, but it was sad. Here
Speaker 4: was a man who was was hurting himself. And and
Speaker 4: so when Jean and they ended up, you know, doing
Speaker 4: four films together. By the time Richard was sick. You know,
Speaker 4: Jeane went out of his way to show love and
Speaker 4: compassion and understand and Richard so appreciated that. And you know,
Speaker 4: I think that by the end they did become dear friends.
Speaker 4: But early on, you know, it was guys from different
Speaker 4: I mean, it was one of the first buddy films
Speaker 4: that had an African American actor and a Caucasian actor
Speaker 4: together in teaming up. And you know, the partnership was hysterical.
Speaker 4: I mean, they played off each other beautifully. But yes,
Speaker 4: that was surprising to us to hear that they were
Speaker 4: not friends off camera, at least not during their first
Speaker 4: two films together.
Speaker 3: That ability of Gene Wilder to have that very intimate,
Speaker 3: very organic relationship with an African American partner, I mean
Speaker 3: we see this in Blazing Saddles with clevand little as well.
Speaker 3: What was his sort of engagement with African American culture
Speaker 3: growing up? Do you have any sense of that?
Speaker 4: You know, grew up in Milwaukee. Uh, went to the
Speaker 4: University of Iowa. You know, Quite honestly, I don't think
Speaker 4: he had much of a you know, interaction with African
Speaker 4: but he was he was raised with with a decency.
Speaker 4: His grandfather was the president of their show. And he
Speaker 4: had a real sense of Yiddish kite, you know. And
Speaker 4: and I think his decency, of course extended to when
Speaker 4: he met Cleveland and you know Blazing Saddles. Mel tells us,
Speaker 4: you know in the interview that film was an anti
Speaker 4: racism film. You know, even though the N word is
Speaker 4: thrown around, and and and you know, the townspeople in
Speaker 4: the townspeople, let's be honest, are made to look like
Speaker 4: a bunch of schmucks. You know. But you know, Mel,
Speaker 4: God loved him. He told us in his interview that,
Speaker 4: you know, he made the film he wanted to make.
Speaker 4: You know, the executives had Wanner Brothers had given him
Speaker 4: three instructions. They said, you know, no N word, no
Speaker 4: punching of horses, and no and no farting and Mel said,
Speaker 4: no problem, you won't see any of that, and of
Speaker 4: course he kept it all in and and that's how Mel.
Speaker 4: You know, we can all learn from that. Sometimes you
Speaker 4: have to stick to what you know works. And yeah,
Speaker 4: that was blazing saddle. So that the same thing happened
Speaker 4: in The Producers, where the executive producer wanted to get
Speaker 4: rid of Gene Wilder after seeing the first dailies, and
Speaker 4: Mel said, okay, he's gone, and then never released him
Speaker 4: and ultimately kept shooting and kept the executive producer away
Speaker 4: until it became obvious he said, I can't get rid
Speaker 4: of him. He's done half the film so and the
Speaker 4: audience has loved him anyways. So you know, so Mel
Speaker 4: stuck by Jeane, stuck by Richard. You know, there's something
Speaker 4: to be said for friendships, and that's what we wanted
Speaker 4: to celebrate in our film.
Speaker 3: Carol Kine is back in the popular consciousness with her
Speaker 3: outstanding performance in the very quirky and very Jewish dramedy
Speaker 3: Between the Temples. I didn't know this before watching your documentary,
Speaker 3: but Gene Wilder was responsible for giving Carol Kine her
Speaker 3: comedic start with the World's Greatest Lover, released in nineteen
Speaker 3: seventy seven, Could you tell us about that The World's
Speaker 3: Greatest Lover came on the heels. Carol Kaine had done
Speaker 3: a film called Hester Street, which was a drama. She
Speaker 3: was nominated for an Academy Award, and as she tells us,
Speaker 3: the phone didn't ring for a year afterwards, and when
Speaker 3: it finally rang, it was g wanting her for the
Speaker 3: World's Greatest Lover. And I think what he recognized was
Speaker 3: the that here was a woman who could do comedy,
Speaker 3: who could be funding. Ben Bankowitz, who's Jewish, tells us
Speaker 3: this on camera that Gene had this uncanny ability to
Speaker 3: recognize talent. I think what he was attracted to. If
Speaker 3: you watch the World's Greatest Lover, Jeane and Carol both
Speaker 3: have these big, wide eyes. You know, Jeene had these
Speaker 3: beautiful blue eyes, and you know, they were doing a
Speaker 3: send up of silent films, and in silent films, the
Speaker 3: eyes tell the story. So I'm sure that Gene recognized
Speaker 3: here is this woman with these remarkable eyes that she
Speaker 3: and I could play off of each other and in
Speaker 3: a comedic way, and and she was brilliant there she
Speaker 3: you know, obviously, you know he was right because she's
Speaker 3: now had forty years of doing comedy ever since, and
Speaker 3: and she was one of those people that when we
Speaker 3: called and said we're doing a film on Jean Wilder,
Speaker 3: she said, help me in. So, you know, it was
Speaker 3: a privilege to interview her and include her at our film.
Speaker 3: I got to say, her portrayal in Hester Street is
Speaker 3: so amazing and convincing that I now think that she
Speaker 3: actually came from Eastern Europe and that she's really gotten
Speaker 3: over her accent in her cultural baggage and she's just
Speaker 3: like everybody else though.
Speaker 4: That's great. Yeah, No, she what a talent, and you know,
Speaker 4: you gotta respect someone who is still you know, doing
Speaker 4: great comedy. You know, forty years afterwards, forty years after
Speaker 4: the world's Greatest lover, Remembering Gene Wilder does a wonderful
Speaker 4: job of taking us through the difficult times in Wilder's life,
Speaker 4: especially the death of his first wife, Gilda Radner, and
Speaker 4: his trouble with dementia. What lessons might we learn from
Speaker 4: exploring the ups and downs of in Wilder's life. You know,
Speaker 4: Jane was a survivor Gene, you know his childhood. You know,
Speaker 4: don't upset your mother. You could kill her. His military
Speaker 4: experience and and he you know, worked in the psychological
Speaker 4: ward and was exposed to people who had mental trauma,
Speaker 4: which he used later I think in Willy Wonka, you know,
Speaker 4: and he says that that he picked up, you know,
Speaker 4: some characterizations of what madness looks like. Gene was it
Speaker 4: like the kind of guy and and you know, with
Speaker 4: with losing Guilda and moving on, he was the kind
Speaker 4: of guy that would find a reason to move forward,
Speaker 4: you know, despite disappointments, despite upsets. He had his own
Speaker 4: bout with cancer and and and beat it and overcame it.
Speaker 4: And the interesting thing with our film is it was
Speaker 4: completely financed Jean's final years of life. He had Alzheimer's
Speaker 4: and our film was completely funded by Alzheimer's and pharmaceutical
Speaker 4: companies who wanted us to draw attention, raise awareness to
Speaker 4: this horrible disease. Karen Wilder, just to give you the
Speaker 4: quick genesis of the film. When Jeane died, it almost
Speaker 4: killed his wife, Karen. Karen had been caring for him
Speaker 4: during his last three years of life, and she told
Speaker 4: people after his funeral that she wanted to devote the
Speaker 4: rest of her life to raising Alzheimer's awareness. And one
Speaker 4: of the people who attended the funeral was Julie Nimoy.
Speaker 4: Her dad was Leonard Nimoy, and Leonard and Gene were friends.
Speaker 4: Julie had done a film about her dad, who died
Speaker 4: of COPD and it was funded by pharmaceutical companies. And
Speaker 4: Julie said to Karen Wilder, you know, I could put
Speaker 4: together a team that will make a film about Gene,
Speaker 4: a tribute film to Gene, and we'll raise Alzheimer's awareness.
Speaker 4: And Karen said, let's do it. And Julie got on
Speaker 4: the phone to my partner, Ron Frank, who ended up
Speaker 4: he would direct on the East coast, I would direct
Speaker 4: on the West coast. I would write, he edited, And
Speaker 4: so that was our team. It was really four people.
Speaker 4: It was Julie Nimoy, her husband, David Knight, Ron Frank,
Speaker 4: and myself and four people put together the film, with
Speaker 4: Karen Wilder giving us occasional notes. And I think that
Speaker 4: we were able to do a loving, sweet film. We
Speaker 4: didn't have a network executive who was coming along with
Speaker 4: their own vashon and saying, you know, I'd like to
Speaker 4: open with this or move this, or you know. We
Speaker 4: got to make the film we wanted to make. And
Speaker 4: you know, one of our executive producers did say at
Speaker 4: one point that they didn't like the scene with Jean
Speaker 4: falling in love with the sheep from the Woody Allen
Speaker 4: Fell and she said, I'm anna, I love animals. They
Speaker 4: get rid of that scene, and we learned from Mel
Speaker 4: the Master. We said, okay, the sheep is out, and
Speaker 4: we never took it out. And then once we started
Speaker 4: showing it to audiences and people were laughing, I mean,
Speaker 4: it's funny, funny stuff. That's when we were given permission. Okay,
Speaker 4: you can keep the sheep in the fel. But the
Speaker 4: bottom line is Jean was a survivor. We wanted to
Speaker 4: pay tribute to him. We wanted to make people laugh,
Speaker 4: and at the same time, we wanted to raise Alzheimer's awareness.
Speaker 4: And that was a challenge to go from big laughs
Speaker 4: to what this poor man endured. And hopefully we succeeded
Speaker 4: in bridging those those two worlds in making Remembering Gene Wilder,
Speaker 4: one last question.
Speaker 3: You were involved with wrestler Bill Goldberg's Automaniac show Any
Speaker 3: good Goldberg stories.
Speaker 4: Well, Bill is a professional wrestler, so when you have
Speaker 4: a wrestler as the host of your show, it puts
Speaker 4: a lot of pressure on you.
Speaker 3: You know, you you.
Speaker 4: Don't want to upset the host when you know he
Speaker 4: could get you in a half nelson or give you
Speaker 4: a drop kick, you know, across the room. So there
Speaker 4: were times when Bill would look at a script and
Speaker 4: then like announced to the room, you know who wrote
Speaker 4: this shit, And you know, in many cases it was me,
Speaker 4: and I had to raise my hand and say that was.
Speaker 3: Me, Bill.
Speaker 4: But we always worked it out, you know, because I
Speaker 4: would threaten to kick his ass and not kidding, but
Speaker 4: but no, Bill. Bill was great to work with because
Speaker 4: he brought energy and passion, and it was a series
Speaker 4: about cars, and he collected cars, and and so this
Speaker 4: was his love, you know, after wrestling, you know, And
Speaker 4: and so we would do great things where Bill would
Speaker 4: you know, be talking about you know, an ed Soul
Speaker 4: or whatever car we're focusing on, and he'd smash it
Speaker 4: with his fist and then our graphics people would have
Speaker 4: the car explode and we'd look at the engine or
Speaker 4: we'd talk about the transmission. And it was just a
Speaker 4: great way to do a car series with a wrestler
Speaker 4: as a host. He also would colin in favors. You know,
Speaker 4: he brought Burt Reynolds to you know, talk about Smoky
Speaker 4: in the Bandit and to show us his car from
Speaker 4: the film. And so we got to do some great
Speaker 4: things together and it was great to work with, you know,
Speaker 4: a Jewish boy, you know, Bill, and you know, he
Speaker 4: was a delight. I wish the series had lasted many
Speaker 4: years longer, but we had a lot of fun. And
Speaker 4: Bill's a great guy.
Speaker 3: I was read an interview with him where they were
Speaker 3: asking if he ever faced any anti Semitism as a wrestler,
Speaker 3: and he said no. And you know, it's it's surprising,
Speaker 3: you know, going as a wrestler under your given name,
Speaker 3: under Goldberg. But then again, who's gonna say anything to
Speaker 3: that guy? No, you're right.
Speaker 4: I mean he never hid his Judaism. You know, he
Speaker 4: wore it front and center, sort of like Max Behar,
Speaker 4: who you know, boxed with a Jewish star on his trunks.
Speaker 4: And yeah, no, Bill if he wrote a butt an
Speaker 4: autobiography and talks about his Judaism, you know, and play
Speaker 4: at the University of Georgia. So yeah, you wouldn't think that,
Speaker 4: you'd think his mother at some point would have said, Okay,
Speaker 4: no football and no wrestling. But you know who's gonna
Speaker 4: tell Bill no? And you know, God love him. He's
Speaker 4: still living a great life. And you know I will
Speaker 4: send your best. I'll let him know that he has
Speaker 4: fans out here in California.
Speaker 3: Much appreciated. Thanks for joining us.
Speaker 4: Glinn, Thank you Jonathan, and we'll be in touch. And
Speaker 4: to our audience, now back to your regularly scheduled lives.
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