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Great art direction is NOT the same thing as great film direction!

Gene Wilder

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Gene Wilder
Age: 83 †
Born: 1933
Born: June 11
Died: 2016
Died: August 29
Actor
Comedian
Diarist
Film Director
Film Producer
Screenwriter
Stage Actor
Television Actor
Writer
Milwaukee City
Wisconsin
Jerome Silberman
Thing
Direction
Art
Film
Great

More quotes by Gene Wilder

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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
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I'm in complete remission. I'm alive and well.
Gene Wilder
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[ 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.
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For what we are about to see next, we must enter quietly into the realm of genius!
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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.
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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
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I write funny. If I can make my wife laugh, I know I'm on the right track. But yes, I don't like to get Maudlin. And I have a tendency towards it.
Gene Wilder
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To match the shoes with the jacket is fey. To match the shoes with the hat is taste.
Gene Wilder
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Which one of us, anywhere in the world, doesn't yearn to be believed when the audience is watching?
Gene Wilder
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In fact, [Gene Wilder] had made a hysteric seem considerably less funny in his film debut as a terrified undertaker in Bonnie And Clyde. And neurotics soon became his stock-in-trade, whether he was playing the weird title character in Willy Wonka And The Chocolate Factory...
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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.
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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
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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
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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.
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Little surprises around every corner, but nothing dangerous.
Gene Wilder
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I never thought of it as God. I didn't know what to call it. I don't believe in devils, but demons I do because everyone at one time or another has some kind of a demon, even if you call it by another name, that drives them.
Gene Wilder
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Actors fall into this trap if they missed being loved for who they really were and not for what they could do - sing, dance, joke about - then they take that as love.
Gene Wilder
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A lot of comic actors derive their main force from childish behavior. Most great comics are doing such silly things you'd say, 'That's what a child would do.
Gene Wilder
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My favorite author is Anton Chekhov, not so much for the plays but for his short stories, and I think he was really my tutor.
Gene Wilder
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I had improvised a lot in classes and at the Actors Studio, but I never did it in front of the camera.
Gene Wilder