Part 31 (1/2)

Mel: I think that word in and of itself is pale and kind of weak. And jejune. I'm very bright. Jejune. Jejune-you'll have to look it up-but it's just timid and I don't think anybody really covers racial hatred the way it should be covered. I agree with you. I agree with you even though you say your name wrong.

Judd: How did people react to it at the time?

Mel: At the time, there were letters. There were many letters from many people that said, How could you say that word? You're hurting so many people with the using the N-word, you know. And I had hired a very dear friend of mine who was working at the Vanguard in New York at the time when I was writing the movie. Richard Pryor, probably the best stand-up comic that ever lived. Man, he was the best. I said Richard, ”I want you to write this movie with me.” He fell in love with Mongo. He wrote a lot of Mongo. So anyway, I would say when the little old lady with the bonnet is walking down the street in Rockridge and Cleavon Little greets her and says, ”Good morning, ma'am, and isn't it a lovely morning?” And she says, ”Up yours, n.i.g.g.e.r.” Boom, you know, it's like, wow. Everything gets silent. But then we kind of save it a little bit. He goes into the jailhouse and he's in kind of tears and talks to Gene Wilder, who was the Waco Kid, and Gene says, ”Well, what did you expect? 'Come home, marry my daughter'? This is 1874, this is, these are people of the land. These are pioneers. You know, morons.” And that kind of took the edge off. But, you know, that was a tough one. John Calley-G.o.d bless him, he died last year-ran production for Warner Brothers at the time. So I said to John, ”Can we beat the s.h.i.+t out of a little old lady? Can we actually punch a horse? Can we use the N-word? Can we?” And Calley said, ”Mel, if you're going to go up to the bell, ring it.” And I never, that was early in my career and I never forgot what he said. I've gone, you know, uh, with the caveman masturbating in the History of the World-I was ringing the bell. I never forgot that advice.

Judd: The next question is from Richard Walden.

Richard: It's an honor.

Mel: It's a pleasure.

Richard: Who was the funniest celebrity you know? And I don't mean someone who is funny on camera, but someone we might not think is funny, but in real life- Mel: Carl Reiner is a seriously, seriously funny guy. He lost his wife, Estelle-she was a great singer, great person, great friend of Anne and I, just a wonderful person. Carl is still alive, he's ninety-one. He's a great comedian to this day. Estelle used to just rifle through magazines to buy things. She bought things through the mail all the time. She'd pick a dress, she'd pick a thing. She'd pick an iron. If there were Ginsu knives, Estelle had them. So anyway, the doorbell rang after she had pa.s.sed away and a guy came and said, ”Package for Estelle Reiner,” and Carl wondered what it was and he took it and he said, ”It's not a package for Estelle Reiner; it is Estelle Reiner.” It had come from the Neptune Society and they, you know-but I mean, the guts. That's a brave comment.

Judd: You and Carl are as funny as ever, but do you find that other funny people you hang out with have stayed funny-or did some people lose their sense of humor? I mean, why is it that you guys are always current and hilarious and it didn't fade at all, in any way?

Mel: Yeah, there's a couple. I don't know, even someone like Shecky Greene, one of the funniest guys that ever lived, went through a dark time. He had stage fright and suddenly he wasn't funny for three or four years. I think he's back doing everything well. Unless he's dead, I don't know. But people go through different periods and they're a.s.saulted by different memories or psychic problems or just physical maladies and they just don't feel funny. And you know, but I have never-G.o.d bless me, I'm knocking wood. I feel good. I have salmon and tomato every day. I like cuc.u.mber soup. It's cold but I like it. But I feel well and I have never given up my joie de vivre. I just love being alive and being in comedy, you know. But it happens. It happens to people.

Judd: Was it a big deal for you to make yourself a star of your movies?

Mel: It was. You know, I would have been a star ten years before I became a star. There was a great, great star, a great actor-comedian, Sid Caesar. And had I not run into Sid Caesar I probably would have gone from the Borscht Belt-”You're looking at me, ladies and gentlemen, I met a girl who was so thin, this girl was so skinny you can't believe it. I took her to a restaurant, the matre d' said check your umbrella. That's how skinny this girl was”-and, you know, those were the kind of jokes that I used to do. G.o.d bless. Anyway, I ran into Sid Caesar and I realized, you know, this guy's truly a genius, because he'd be in a sketch with Imogene Coca and she would go on and on about a car that was wrecked because it backed into the drugstore and then it smashed into the candy store, and he-Sid thought it was somebody else and he was laughing. The greatest laugh you'd ever heard. He was just on the floor spitting with laughter, and then, little by little, he realized that Imogene-it was his car. It was the family car. And then he just got quiet and more quiet. And then without asking him, without rehearsing, without directing him, she kept on with the story and tears ran down his eyes. You know n.o.body came with glycerin. He just cried. And the audience went bananas. The greatest sketch ever. I was one of the writers.

Judd: But did that delay your feeling like you should be the star because you were watching the greatest?

Mel: No, I was seeing stardust and I was seeing magic. And I was seeing real comedy and that was enough.

Judd: All right, the next question is from Don Moore.

Don: Yes sir. I was just wondering, Mel, you've had such a long career in show business and a successful career, does it bother you on any level that your legacy will be that of funny guy, comedy writer?

Mel: Strangely enough, I've always been just a little irritated, perturbed, upset that I have never been recognized in this business by my peers-by my fellow directors-as a director of movies. I have never been saluted or, really, thought of. I've been thought of as, you know, a funny writer, a producer of funny stuff and a performer, a funny performer, but I've never been considered...Kubrick thought I was a good director. Hitchc.o.c.k thought that I should have won the Academy Award for Young Frankenstein. Just for the backlighting, he said.

Judd: When comedies work, they feel effortless, so I think people get no sense that it took so much more work than making CGI dragons fly. They don't really give people credit for that.

Mel: You're right. They see what's green screen and think, How did they do that? Look, the wings look so real.

Judd: I think that's always been the case with the Oscars.

Mel: Well, Woody won for, you know- Judd: Annie Hall.

Mel: Yeah, Annie Hall, but there was a lot of heart and warmth in Annie Hall. I should have won for The Producers. It was crazy.

Judd: Well, they think misery is harder to create.

Mel: I think to make people sad is easier than to make them laugh. I do. I mean, they're both hard, you know. d.i.c.kens did them both. Nikolai Gogol. Those are two guys you should read if you want to do sad sometimes and you want to do comedy sometimes.

Judd: I think there's nothing harder to do than make a movie that is tear-down-the-house funny. It is harder than any kind of movie to make. To figure out a way to get that kind of momentum, that kind of joy from the crowd-to create tension and release, tension and release, for ninety minutes? I mean, I saw Young Frankenstein when they played it here in Santa Monica a few years ago and it was the biggest laughs I've ever heard in a movie theater. Every moment of the movie. There wasn't, like, you know, the moment that kind of resets-it just kept going and going. It's almost a miracle.

Mel: Well, look at the cast. You had Peter Boyle. Cloris Leachman alone could have carried that movie. Gene Hackman, without money, without-you know, we gave him some billing at the end, you know, to play the blind man and pour boiling soup on Peter Boyle's crotch. I mean, that was so- Judd: See, I wouldn't think he would be funny, Gene Hackman. How did you know Gene Hackman was that funny?

Mel: I like comedy that just strays an inch from reality. If it strays an inch to the right or left then it's really good because you don't, you feel it so real, you don't expect it to explode. Gene Wilder does that for me every time. He's very sincere. He's very emotional. He cares so much. You couldn't ask for a better real actor to play Dr. Frankenstein.

Judd: Wilder is your De Niro.

Mel: He's actually my Alberto Sordi. If you know anything about movies, Fellini-Alberto Sordi was his leading man, his comic leading man, in those early pictures. He went on to Marcello Mastroianni for La Dolce Vita and other movies, and he was always amusing and lovely and, you know. Fellini went on to a handsome guy and I never would have done that. I would have stayed with Alberto Sordi until I died.

Judd: What about Marty Feldman?

Mel: Oh, Marty Feldman is...I don't know. G.o.d put him together. We had nothing to do with it. The only way to hide from Marty Feldman was to put your nose against his. And then he can't see you because his eyes, his eyes go out the sides, you know. But we used to, I mean, Jesus, it's so wonderful. It was thrilling making that movie because Madeline Kahn, the funniest, the funniest, most moving-I mean when she did Lili Von Shtupp in Blazing Saddles and she leaned against something and missed and she...I'm a composer. I know a lot about music. She did a strange one-third off harmony with the melody. They had to carry me out.

Judd: Our next question is from Maria Markarian. How did I do on that one?

Maria: Very well, actually.

Mel: You're in my next picture, Maria.

Maria: Let's do it.

Mel: Just your name. You may not do a lot, but I like the name.

Maria: So my question is, aside from Carl Reiner, who has inspired you the most in your career?

Mel: I guess, you know, that's a good question. I don't know. It could be Buster Keaton. It could be Charlie Chaplin. Those guys inspired me. I was about nine years old and I used to go to Feltmans and Nathan's in Coney Island and Feltmans would have these silent movies. You'd have a knish or a hot dog for a nickel and maybe three cents for the root beer. It was incredible. And then you'd see, they'd show Harold Lloyd, you know, Safety Last, or Buster Keaton, The Navigator, The General. Or City Lights with Charlie Chaplin. I was just lost in it. It was so funny it made me cry. I had a lot of early influences way before people of my time told me, in no uncertain terms, what is really funny. What is really human and what is really funny.

Judd: Okay- Mel: That's my answer.

Judd: Our next question is from Cindy Kapp.

Mel: Spell Kapp. K-A-P-P?

Cindy: Yes.

Mel: Oh gee, how do you like that? You know there was somebody in music-Kapp Records.

Cindy: Yeah.

Mel: Do you know that? Are you related?

Cindy: Kapp was shortened from Kappulski.

Mel: Oh, Kappulski. Well, good shortening. Tell the family well done.

Cindy: Thank you. All right, my question is: What movie or project are you most proud of, and if you could go back and do something differently, what would you change and why?

Mel: You know, it's hard. It's like children. It's hard to pick. But I do have some favorites that I am really proud of. I'd say an underrated movie that I've done that I'm proud of is The Twelve Chairs because it's that perfect-for me, it's that perfect combination of having something really important to say about the human condition and human behavior and, and flights of fancy and comedy. It's a wonderful melange of comedy and, I don't know, bravery. I do like it. I'm very proud of and I'm very good in it. I have a small part, but I like it. But I'd say Twelve Chairs is overlooked.