Kiss Me Like A Stranger: My Search for Love and Art

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Authors: Gene Wilder
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eventually appeared on screen—except the title was later changed to
The Producers
. Anne and I loved it.
    “So, would you like to play the part of Leo Bloom?”
    “Oh, yes, I would.”
    “All right, now listen to me—don’t take anything on Broadway or Off Broadway or anywhere else without checking with me first.
    Promise?”
    “I promise.”
    That September I was offered
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
, to be produced on Broadway, Kirk Douglas starring, with Alex Segal directing. I was asked to play the part of Billie Bibbit, the young boy who stutters terribly and then commits suicide at the end of the play. I called Mel and told him the situation.
    “Can you give them a two-week notice if you want to get out?”
    “Two weeks? . . . Mel, I’m not a star. They might accept a four-week notice.”
    “All right, all right—we’ll have to live with it.”
     
UNEXPRESSED ANGER
     
    I did get a provision in my contract that I could give a four-week notice if I wanted to get out of the play. I think I was good in
OneFlew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
, but I don’t think I could have done the part nearly as well if I hadn’t spent a year and a half at Valley Forge Army Hospital, on a locked ward, with all those poor fellows who were in the middle of psychotic breakdowns.
    After three months there was still no word from Mel. I wasn’t going to call him—I guessed that they must be having problems raising money for
Springtime for Hitler
.
    Something basic had changed since the days when I would meet Mary at the British Information Service for a quick kiss. I tried to make a go of our physical and emotional life, but there was no response. Mary and I made love once every six months—like clockwork. Easy for me to say, I know, but affection is my middle name, and her affection for me had dried up.
    That fall she was cast in a play with Jane Fonda and wore the same heavy angora sweater to rehearsals every day. The director came to me, privately, and said that the odor from her underarms was so strong that he and the other actors were having a hard time. He asked if I would say something to her. I did tell her, that evening, as gently as I could. She just said, “Oh, poof.”
    That spring Mary and I went to Ogunquit, Maine, to rehearse a workshop production of a new play. We stayed at a beautiful old inn that I knew from having worked at the Ogunquit Playhouse the summer before. This old house was a typical New England inn and had a small but lovely dining room. The only requirement for eating there was that men had to wear jackets and ladies had to wear a dress or a skirt—no pants. Mary refused to wear a dress or a skirt—she insisted on pants. So we walked into town most nights and ate at the local diner.
    I’m not saying that the Demon came back because my wife refused to wear a dress. . . . I’m saying that I felt a rage that I didn’t, or couldn’t, express.
     
    ______
     
    Our apartment was on Thirty-third Street, off Lexington Avenue. A woman I had seen several times in the elevator was moving out of her apartment. She had found something more to her liking on the Upper East Side, and she could afford it. I’ll call her Karla. She was not a fragile beauty; she was a buxom redhead—not unattractive—and looked a little like a former wrestler. She must have known that I was having troubles in my marriage because on the day that she moved out she handed me a card with her new address and telephone number. When we shook hands good-bye, she said, “If you ever get lonely, just give me a call.”
    I shook my head after she disappeared down the hall. Karla would certainly be the last person in the world I’d ever call if I were lonely. Of course, if she had been fragile, artistic, and blond . . .
     
    That summer Mary announced that she was going to Italy for six weeks to act in a play at Gian Carlo Menotti’s Spoleto Festival. She said she’d be back on September 5.
    I went on a summer tour in a

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