TCM special (finally) gives comedian Wilder his due
Gene Wilder plays "Role Model" to Alec Baldwin in a wide-ranging TCM interview.
It's hard to believe now, but there was a time 30 years ago when Gene Wilder was one of the biggest box-office stars in Hollywood.
I know, I know, the '70s are sometimes difficult to explain. Just look at Burt Reynolds, Linda Ronstadt, Jimmy Carter and pet rocks.
Understand, this isn't a backhanded knock on Wilder (although it is on Reynolds, Ronstadt and Carter). It's just to point out that Wilder isn't what one typically thinks of when the idea of a major Hollywood star comes to mind. In fact, he's rarely even mentioned among the great film comedians.
Yet Turner Classic Movies sets out to give him his due with an all-night marathon today with the help of Alec Baldwin, who turns out to be a huge Wilder fan (difficult as it is to tell whether he's being ironic at first in saying there's no one he'd rather interview). The two sit down for an hourlong conversation in "Role Model: Gene Wilder" at 7, immediately followed by screenings of "The Producers" and "Blazing Saddles," two of Wilder's best Mel Brooks comedies. Altogether, it makes for an engaging, amusing, downright funny evening of entertainment.
Not that it's all smooth going. "Role Model" has the look of something TCM will turn into an occasional series, along the lines of the Sundance Channel's "Iconoclasts," which pairs a couple of unlikely artists in a mutual- admiration double profile that can pay unexpected dividends. Wilder and Baldwin are unlikely enough, but because this is mainly Wilder's profile Baldwin seems intrusive when he puts himself on equal footing.
Baldwin interrupts Wilder's anecdotes with a few of his own, and when Wilder admits, "I was a very mixed-up fellow as a young man," Baldwin doesn't follow it up to ask exactly how, why and what it did for his art as a comedian.
Baldwin, however, does manage to put Wilder at ease and get him to open up -- neither of which seems an easy task -- and while the production can be irritating and aggravating from time to time, it also produces a conversation that seems natural and honest. Wilder is semi-retired now -- "I don't like show business," he says. "I like show, but I don't like the business" -- and I'd forgotten just how appealing he could be as an actor and how skilled he was as a comedian. "Role Model" offers a pleasant reminder, and of course "The Producers" and "Blazing Saddles" should remove all doubt.
Brooks immediately pegged Wilder as the original Leo Bloom (dig the wink at "Ulysses," Aware One) in "The Producers" after meeting him backstage at a play Wilder was doing with Anne Bancroft in 1963. It took three years for Brooks to get the production rolling, but Wilder was still good to go. After making the movie in eight weeks for less than $1 million, it earned Brooks an Oscar for best screenplay and Wilder a nomination for best supporting actor. Wilder's mix of timidity, mania and vulnerability put him in demand ever after.
Yet most of his early films were borderline flops ("The Producers" included), and it wasn't until he teamed up with Richard Pryor that he hit the top of the charts.
"When he was good, he was very good, and it was wonderful," Wilder says of Pryor. "When he was bad, he was horrid -- but not on camera." It was, of course, drug abuse that made Pryor erratic. The '70s again.
Wilder doesn't go into even that much detail on his relationship with Gilda Radner, who died of cancer shortly after they were married. It seems too painful, and Baldwin doesn't press him. Wilder goes on to say he's been happily married for 16 years, and the entire interview takes place at his home in Connecticut.
Yet he proves to be an entrancing storyteller, in part because of the little glimpses he gives into a largely hidden private life. Getting back to the business of Hollywood, he quotes Radner: "Gilda used to say it's a coal town," Wilder recalls. "It's not coal, it's music and movies. But it's a coal town."
Wilder seems happy to have escaped that coal town and content to have landed where he has. Reminiscing about his work, he says he preferred film to stage because, "I know I don't have to be perfect the first time. I can be perfect the second or third time," but also because, "They can't get you," meaning the audience. "You're safe."
Wilder seems safe and sound in semi-retirement, and if he doesn't do films anymore because, "I don't want to act in junk," he reminds us again that it's for the most part our loss.
In the air
Remotely interesting: Public Enemy rapper Flavor Flav tries his hand at a sitcom in MyNetwork TV's new "Under One Roof," debuting at 7 p.m. Wednesday on WPWR Channel 50. Flav plays an ex-con who moves in with his conservative brother and his family. Channel 50 follows it up by reviving reruns of "In Living Color" at 7:30.
CBS replaces "Secret Talents of the Stars" with "48 Hours Mystery" at 9 p.m. today on WBBM Channel 2. … Sen. John McCain joins "The Hardball College Tour" at Villanova at 4 p.m. today on MSNBC with host Chris Matthews.… WMAQ Channel 5 has picked up a political blog called Division Street from media maven Steve Rhodes of The Beachwood Reporter Web site at www.nbc5.com. … Ellen DeGeneres is bringing her talk show, airing at 3 p.m. weekdays on Channel 5, to Chicago to tape an episode in May. Ticket information is at ellentv.com.
End of the dial: Brant Miller has joined oldies WZZN 94.7-FM as morning disc jockey. … Mark Suppelsa has hooked on doing news for morning hosts Kathy Hart and Eric Ferguson on WTMX 101.9-FM while he waits 90 days for a right-to-match clause from his old contract at WFLD Channel 32 to expire.
Chicago Public Radio and WBEZ 91.5-FM present a Global Activism Expo at 6 p.m. Wednesday at the Broadway Armory, 5917 N. Broadway, Chicago. Admission is $10, $8 for CPR members.