Latest Gene Wilder Quotes from Interviews

Quotes about:

• [Gilda Radner] died in '89, and I got non-Hodgkin's lymphoma in 2000. I've just passed the five-year mark and I'm now what you call - well, it's called complete remission, but I'm cured. I'm fine.

  Gene Wilder

  Years, Remission, Mark

  Source: keranews.org

• Her business manager said, you know, Gilda [Radner] left you that house. That's when I decided to stay and test it out. And after about a month, the roots grew, and I didn't ever want to live anywhere else for the rest of my life - travel, yes, but not to live anywhere else.

  Gene Wilder

  Roots, House, Want

  Source: keranews.org

• I came home [after funerals] and I thought if I go back to California, where I had a small house, I don't think I'll ever come east again. So I decided to stay and go through the halls and stairways, talk to Gilda Radner, holler, express some of my anger and make sure there were no ghosts in the hallways that I should ever be afraid of.And then I found out - it sounds strange, but I found out she had left me the house. We never talked about her dying and what she was going to leave me or I would ever leave her. We just didn't talk about those things.

  Gene Wilder

  Home, Thinking, California

  Source: keranews.org

• [Gilda Radner] was in the in vitro fertilization program, and it nearly, nearly drove us apart, too. She wanted that baby, so badly, and it didn't work. Oddly enough, when we were doing "Haunted Honeymoon" in London, she did become pregnant for about 10 days, but then she lost it. But, anyway, my odyssey with Gilda was wonderful, funny, torturous, painful and sad. It was - it went the full gamut.

  Gene Wilder

  Baby, London, Odyssey

  Source: keranews.org

• There wasn't a funeral per se. I buried [Gilda Radner] 3 miles from her house that she had bought just shortly before we met. It was an old house, old colonial house, 1734. And there were just a few friends at the funeral, a nonsectarian cemetery. And an old friend of hers from junior high school or high school was the rabbi in town, and he performed the service.

  Gene Wilder

  School, House, Funeral

  Source: keranews.org

• I found a very diabolical way of making myself suffer - not in the same way [my mother ] was suffering but to prevent me from enjoying my own life.

  Gene Wilder

  Mother, Suffering, Way

  Source: keranews.org

• Anyway, when I got out of the Army, I went to see a therapist. And she said, what seems to be the trouble? And I said I want to give all my money away. And she said, how much do you have? And I said, I owe $300. She stared at me for several seconds, and she said, I see. Well, let's get to work. And maybe by the time you do have some money, you'll be wise enough to know what to do with it.

  Gene Wilder

  Wise, Army, Giving

  Source: keranews.org

• I had improvised a lot in classes and at the Actors Studio, but I never did it in front of the camera.

  Gene Wilder

  Class, Cameras, Actors

  Source: keranews.org

• My humor is - was quite different. Mine was "Sherlock Holmes' Smarter Brother" and "The World's Greatest Lover" and "Haunted Honeymoon," "The Woman In Red," things - "See No Evil, Hear No Evil." But his was much broader, and I think much funnier, too.

  Gene Wilder

  Brother, Thinking, Evil

  Source: keranews.org

• When people, especially from France, would ask me to talk about or so they could write about New York Jewish humor, I'd say I don't know anything about New York Jewish humor. I know who Zero Mostel was and I know Mel Brooks, but that's about all I could tell you about New York Jewish humor.

  Gene Wilder

  New York, Zero, Writing

  Source: keranews.org

• I certainly didn't have New York Jewish humor. But I was in three Mel Brooks films so people thought I was a connoisseur of New York Jewish humor.

  Gene Wilder

  New York, People, Three

  Source: keranews.org

• And Mel [Brooks] - you have to understand this important point - he had done "The Producers" for $50,000 over two years, and he didn't make a penny from it. And then he did "The Twelve Chairs" - $50,000 for two more years and didn't make a penny from it. That's four years of work. And then they offered him quite a bit of money to direct "Young Frankenstein," and he took it.

  Gene Wilder

  Years, Two, Important

  Source: keranews.org

• My agent at the time, Mike Medavoy, before he became a movie mogul, called me up and said, how about a movie with you and Peter Boyle and Marty Feldman? And I said, well, what makes you think of that? He said because I now handle you and Peter Marty.

  Gene Wilder

  Thinking, Make You Think, Moguls

  Source: keranews.org

• Because we had to convince the scientific members of Transylvania that with the procedure I was using on the creature, Dr. Frankenstein could be taught to be a civilized human being, what I called a man about town. Instead of a monster who's going to kill their children, it was someone who could sing and dance.

  Gene Wilder

  Children, Men, Monsters

  Source: keranews.org

• With Mel [Brooks], only one time and that was later on during "Young Frankenstein" - never with Zero [Mostel] and never with Mel except I was writing every day, and then Mel would come to the house and read what I'd written. And then he'd say, yeah, yeah, yeah, OK, yeah, OK. But we need a villain or we need whatever it was.

  Gene Wilder

  Zero, Writing, House

  Source: keranews.org

• I met [Gilda Radner] on the first night of filming ... Hanky Panky that Sidney Poitier was directing. And it's funny, I was in costume and makeup - my tuxedo and makeup because I'd done a few shots before she arrived, and she told me later that she cried all the way in, in the car, because she knew that she was going to fall in love with me and want to get married.

  Gene Wilder

  Falling In Love, Makeup, Night

  Source: keranews.org

• We gave each other a hug, [Richard Pryor] said how much he admired me, I said how much I admired him, and we started working the next morning, and we hit it off really well, and he taught me how to improvise on camera.

  Gene Wilder

  Morning, Hug, Cameras

  Source: keranews.org

• At the time, I didn't know why, but I know now that when I was a little boy, I was scared to death of the Frankenstein films ... and in all these years later, I wanted it to come out with a happy ending, and I think it was my fear of the Frankenstein movies when I was 8 and 9 and 10 years old that made me want to write that story [Young Frankenstein].

  Gene Wilder

  Writing, Boys, Thinking

  Source: keranews.org

• I met Richard Pryor for the first time in Calgary, in Canada. A very quiet, modest meeting.

  Gene Wilder

  Canada, Firsts, Quiet

  Source: keranews.org

• [ Zero Mostel] would tell anyone anything, not to be impolite, but he'd show that he wasn't at all afraid of however much money that person [had] or whatever title they had in a company. It didn't scare him. Mel [Brooks] was very much the same way.

  Gene Wilder

  Zero, Scare, Titles

  Source: keranews.org

• I put out my hand to shake hands with Zero Mostel, and he took my hand [and] he pulled me up to his face, and he gave me a kiss on the lips. And all my nervousness went out the window.

  Gene Wilder

  Zero, Kissing, Hands

  Source: keranews.org

• Zero Mostel wasn't afraid of authority in any form, and that's the part that influenced me the most.

  Gene Wilder

  Zero, Authority, Form

  Source: keranews.org

• You say the character [of Leo Bloom] was meek and insecure, and you could've been describing me as well. I was a very shy person in those days, and working with Zero [Mostel], who was bigger than life, helped me grow. Zero was a strong influence on me.

  Gene Wilder

  Strong, Zero, Character

  Source: keranews.org

• I was miscast in that production [of Mother Courage and Her Children] ... but it was with Anne Bancroft, whose boyfriend at the time was Mel Brooks, and that made my - I can't say my day, it made my life, in a way.

  Gene Wilder

  Mother, Children, Way

  Source: keranews.org

• I met Mel [Brooks] backstage in Anne's [Bancroft] dressing room. He was wearing one of those pea coats, pea jackets that were made famous by the Merchant Marines, and I admired it and he said, "You know, they used to call this a urine jacket, but it didn't sell."

  Gene Wilder

  Marine, Coats, Rooms

  Source: keranews.org