Kiss Me Like a Stranger: My Search for Love and Art. Gene Wilder

      To get into the Studio you had to pass a final audition, judged by Cheryl Crawford, Lee Strasberg, and Elia Kazan. At least two out of those three had to vote yes. No discussion. In those days, it was very difficult to become a member.

      Mary got into the Studio in the May finals. Six months later she did a scene with me for the January finals. I didn’t do a comedy scene, of course – I was too stupid to realize my strengths. Instead, I did a dramatic scene from a short story. But there was a certain innocence about the way I played the scene, and I think it was that quality that won the jury over. I passed the audition. Only two people out of twelve hundred got into the Studio that January.

      A few days later I became curious to find out how the three judges voted. One evening after I finished rehearsing a scene at the Studio, I peeked into the secretary’s unlocked desk: Cheryl Crawford and Elia Kazan voted yes … but not Strasberg.

      I had to choose a name, fast, before being introduced to all the members of the Studio. I didn’t think “Jerry Silberman in Macbeth” had the right ring to it.

      I went to my sister and brother-in-law’s apartment for dinner. With them was a screenwriter friend of theirs by the name of David Zelag Goodman. He talked so fast that, as I listened to him, I had the urge to gently wipe the foam from his mouth with a hanky. When David heard that I needed a stage name, he started with A and worked his way through the alphabet, ripping off names faster than I thought anyone could think and speak at the same time. When he got to W and said, “Wilder,” the bell went off … Thornton Wilder … Our Town. I wanted to be “Wilder.”

      After settling on the last name, I knew that I wanted only one syllable for my first name. “Gene” came from Look Homeward Angel, by Thomas Wolfe. The hero’s name was Eugene, but everyone who loved him called him Gene.

      There was another reason I chose Gene as a first name. When I was a little boy, during World War II, there was a big family dinner for a distant relative who had just flown in from Europe on a three-week leave after flying thirty-three missions over Germany. He was wearing his tattered leather flight jacket, and he was very handsome, and his name was Gene. I had never heard Gene used as a man’s name before.

      Margie made her usual timely interruption.

      “By the way, what was your mother’s name?”

      I felt like the biggest dummy in New York. After an embarrassed pause I finally said, “Jeanne.”

      On my first morning as a member of The Actors Studio, Lee Strasberg addressed the audience of actors: “The second actor who passed, and who is now a member of The Actors Studio, is –”

      Strasberg was used to calling me Jerry Silberman in his private class. He looked down at the white index card he was holding and then said:

      “Gene Wilder!”

      As everyone applauded, I lifted myself halfway off my seat and gave a little nod.

      “NO SIR!” Strasberg bellowed. “Here, if we’re going to take a bow, we take a bow! I’ll start again.” He repeated, “Gene Wilder!”

      I stood up, tall, and acknowledged the applause from an audience made up of so many actors I had seen in movies and on television.

      My first scene at The Actors Studio was from a short story by J. D. Salinger called “For Esmé, with Love and Squalor.” When the scene was over, Strasberg said a few words that stuck in the artistic half of my brain:

      “We know you’re sensitive. You’re always sensitive. You’re too goddamn sensitive! So you don’t have to show us that you’re sensitive. Show us some other colors – something we don’t know.”

      Then he said, “When you were standing at the refrigerator in your scene, trying to decide whether you should pick up the telephone … something very interesting was starting to happen … and then you just let it drop. Why’d you do that?”

      “I knew I could act that part of the scene, Lee. That’s my kind of stuff, so I didn’t work on it. I thought I should concentrate on what I didn’t know how to do.”

      He said, “I got news for you: If you don’t know how you’re going to act some part of the script – work on what you do know. Build up your confidence a little bit. That will help you find what you don’t know.”

      ROOTS

      Mary had auditioned for an English play called Roots, by Arnold Wesker, which was going to be done off Broadway and directed by a first-time director named Mark Rydell. (After Roots Mark went to Hollywood and began making beautiful films. On Golden Pond was one of them.)

      Mark was very impressed by Mary. He was also looking for someone to play her character’s husband, Frankie Bryant. I asked Mary if she could get me an audition. She asked, and they said yes.

      Mary helped me with my northern English accent. She also suggested little touches of authenticity, like sticking a handkerchief up the sleeve of my borrowed costume jacket, since I was supposed to be something of a country bumpkin. From that time on, whenever I did an audition, I always wore some suggestion of a costume that fitted the character.

      I did my audition for Mark Rydell. He liked it, and Mary and I were cast in the play as husband and wife.

      The opening night was filled with dignitaries, including Mark’s agent, a magnificent lady named Lily Veidt. She was the Jewish widow of the famous German actor Conrad Veidt, who had left Germany with Lily to escape Hitler. He brought Lily to Hollywood, where he was cast as the Nazi colonel in Casablanca.