This is Anne Bancroft Day on TCM, and they are showing her in movies ranging from Anne Sullivan, the determined teacher of deaf-and-blind Helen Keller in "The Miracle Worker" to the boozy Mrs. Robinson seducing Dustin Hoffman in "The Graduate."
Before those triumphs, there was an unforgettable lunch with the young actress born Anna Maria Italiano in the Bronx. When we met at an elegant Park Avenue hotel in Manhattan soon after she won a Tony as the free-spirited Gittel in "Two for the Seesaw," she confided she was too shy to sit in the crowded dining room.
An understanding maitre d' took us to the far end of a huge, darkened main room that was closed for lunch and had a waiter serve us there.
She ordered a shrimp cocktail but when it arrived, the little fork was nowhere in sight. She apologized profusely for sending the waiter off on a long walk to find one but, as he was reentering the room, she gasped, "Oh my God" after finding a cocktail fork in the folds of the tablecloth.
Without hesitation, she slipped it into her bra and gave the waiter a dazzling smile of thanks as he set down the new one.
After becoming instant co-conspirators, we had a lively talk about growing up poor and ambitious in an outer borough and, for years afterward, I envied Mel Brooks who a few years later would bribe someone to find out where she was having dinner and show up to woo and wed her for a 40-year-marriage that couldn't possibly had had a dull moment.
Showing posts with label Mel Brooks. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Mel Brooks. Show all posts
Wednesday, August 06, 2008
Tuesday, April 15, 2008
Zero: A Memory
They're showing the original of Mel Brooks' "The Producers" on Turner Classic Movies tonight with Zero Mostel, an actor of comic genius. In 1943, we were in basic training together in South Carolina, and he gave me one of the most memorable evenings of my life.
The country boys in my company were excited by anything exotic and, given their lives before induction, it took little to tickle them. One day they were chortling over a guy in the next battalion named Zero.
He had been at City College a decade before me and in the 1940s was getting known in Manhattan night clubs for political satire that would later fail to amuse the House Un-American Activities Committee. The night I looked him up, Zero was on his way to becoming the pear-shaped presence that years later would charge around a Broadway stage and turn into a rhinoceros.
Sitting on his bunk, field jacket zipped to the throat, his big head seemed to be resting on a bulging bag of laundry. He was in his late twenties, but his eyes were a thousand years old. When I told him I was from the Bronx, he grabbed me as if I were a pastrami sandwich.
We went into town Saturday night to the Spartanburg USO, where local ladies entertained with doughnuts, coffee and Southern charm, and the troops entertained back however they could. When the hostesses heard Zero was a professional performer, they pushed him to the stage. I sat in the front row, happily awaiting my share of the attention he would be getting.
Zero slouched up to the microphone with a shy smile and a glint in his eye, gathered his bulk, fixed his face into a scowl and suddenly emitted the roar of a deep Southern demagogue. To this audience of dewy damsels and redneck recruits, he was offering his rendition of Senator Pellagra T. Polltax, a raging parody of the Mississippi racist, Theodore Bilbo.
As Zero flung his arms in all directions and turned up the angry rant about niggers and kikes, I slid down in my seat, looking for an exit.
By the time he finished, I was crouching near the floor. Through the startled silence, I heard the start of a low rumble, and I sprinted to the stage where Zero was beaming and bowing, grabbed his elbow and shoved him through a door toward the bus that would carry us, untarred and unfeathered, back to camp. On the ride Zero seemed relaxed, a small smile on his face. We never went to the USO again.
The country boys in my company were excited by anything exotic and, given their lives before induction, it took little to tickle them. One day they were chortling over a guy in the next battalion named Zero.
He had been at City College a decade before me and in the 1940s was getting known in Manhattan night clubs for political satire that would later fail to amuse the House Un-American Activities Committee. The night I looked him up, Zero was on his way to becoming the pear-shaped presence that years later would charge around a Broadway stage and turn into a rhinoceros.
Sitting on his bunk, field jacket zipped to the throat, his big head seemed to be resting on a bulging bag of laundry. He was in his late twenties, but his eyes were a thousand years old. When I told him I was from the Bronx, he grabbed me as if I were a pastrami sandwich.
We went into town Saturday night to the Spartanburg USO, where local ladies entertained with doughnuts, coffee and Southern charm, and the troops entertained back however they could. When the hostesses heard Zero was a professional performer, they pushed him to the stage. I sat in the front row, happily awaiting my share of the attention he would be getting.
Zero slouched up to the microphone with a shy smile and a glint in his eye, gathered his bulk, fixed his face into a scowl and suddenly emitted the roar of a deep Southern demagogue. To this audience of dewy damsels and redneck recruits, he was offering his rendition of Senator Pellagra T. Polltax, a raging parody of the Mississippi racist, Theodore Bilbo.
As Zero flung his arms in all directions and turned up the angry rant about niggers and kikes, I slid down in my seat, looking for an exit.
By the time he finished, I was crouching near the floor. Through the startled silence, I heard the start of a low rumble, and I sprinted to the stage where Zero was beaming and bowing, grabbed his elbow and shoved him through a door toward the bus that would carry us, untarred and unfeathered, back to camp. On the ride Zero seemed relaxed, a small smile on his face. We never went to the USO again.
Thursday, January 31, 2008
A Mel Brooks Presidential Debate
Like the finale of "Blazing Saddles," last night's Republican brawl broke through the fourth wall and spilled over onto the sets of other movies.
John McCain and Mitt Romney played their Western shootout against a backdrop of "Air Force One," while being watched by "The Terminator" sitting next to the 100-year-old lady from "Titanic," smiling sweetly as all the candidates pledged their fealty to the ghost of The Gipper.
Anderson Cooper seemed awestruck by having an actual Reagan relic on the table in front of him, a leather-bound diary from which he solemnly quoted to the Republican hopefuls.
The scene could have used some Mel Brooks pizzazz, but it made up with non-sequiturs what was lacking in wit.
Ron Paul had the best line of the night. Watching McCain and Romney grapple over who was most patriotically devoted to prolonging the killing in Iraq, Paul looked at them deadpan and said, "Silly."
Hilarious, if you like zany comedy that makes you want to cry.
John McCain and Mitt Romney played their Western shootout against a backdrop of "Air Force One," while being watched by "The Terminator" sitting next to the 100-year-old lady from "Titanic," smiling sweetly as all the candidates pledged their fealty to the ghost of The Gipper.
Anderson Cooper seemed awestruck by having an actual Reagan relic on the table in front of him, a leather-bound diary from which he solemnly quoted to the Republican hopefuls.
The scene could have used some Mel Brooks pizzazz, but it made up with non-sequiturs what was lacking in wit.
Ron Paul had the best line of the night. Watching McCain and Romney grapple over who was most patriotically devoted to prolonging the killing in Iraq, Paul looked at them deadpan and said, "Silly."
Hilarious, if you like zany comedy that makes you want to cry.
Wednesday, October 10, 2007
Frankenstein's Fred
If he doesn’t make it to the White House, Fred Thompson would be a natural for the musical version of “Young Frankenstein,” the Mel Brooks 1974 classic that came out not long after the Watergate black comedy played out on live TV.
Just as Gene Wilder gave life to the hulking Peter Boyle in Transylvania, Sen. Howard Baker pushed forward his gangling former campaign manager as Minority Counsel in the Washington hearings and launched his dual career in politics and acting.
In yesterday’s debate, it was difficult not to picture Thompson as the Creature who came off the lab table stiffly but eventually warmed up enough to perform a creditable soft-shoe “Putting on the Ritz” for the nervous crowd that had been anticipating his debut.
The question now is whether Thompson’s handlers can continue to zap him with enough voltage to keep their big guy animated while holding off Giuliani’s angry Republican villagers who will be hounding him on the campaign trail.
If not, Mel Brooks will be waiting.
Just as Gene Wilder gave life to the hulking Peter Boyle in Transylvania, Sen. Howard Baker pushed forward his gangling former campaign manager as Minority Counsel in the Washington hearings and launched his dual career in politics and acting.
In yesterday’s debate, it was difficult not to picture Thompson as the Creature who came off the lab table stiffly but eventually warmed up enough to perform a creditable soft-shoe “Putting on the Ritz” for the nervous crowd that had been anticipating his debut.
The question now is whether Thompson’s handlers can continue to zap him with enough voltage to keep their big guy animated while holding off Giuliani’s angry Republican villagers who will be hounding him on the campaign trail.
If not, Mel Brooks will be waiting.
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