“I didn’t trust myself so I wrote a couple of things: I want to thank the Academy of Arts, Sciences and Money for this wonderful award.
“Well, I’ll just say what’s in my heart. Ba-bump! Ba-bump! Ba-bump! Ba-bump!
I was so excited I almost forgot to take the statue with me!
“But seriously, I’d like to thank Sidney Glazier, the producer of The Producers for producing The Producers. Joseph E. Levine and his wife, Rosalie, for distributing the film.
“I’d also like to thank Zero Mostel, I’d also like to thank Gene Wilder, I’d also like to thank Gene Wilder. I’d also like to thank Gene Wilder. Thank you very much!”
The camera cut to Gene, who was in the audience, and had burst into tears once again.
* * *
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By the way, I thought you might be interested in a letter that Gene Wilder wrote to Jerome Robbins, who was the director of Mother Courage, the Bertolt Brecht play he appeared in with Anne before The Producers.
Dear Jerry:
When we worked together it was the best of times and the worst of times. But I’m more grateful to you now than I ever could have conceived I would be.
I’ll tell you why:
1. If you hadn’t miscast me in Mother Courage, I wouldn’t have met Anne Bancroft.
2. If I hadn’t met Anne Bancroft, I wouldn’t have met Mel Brooks.
3. If I hadn’t met Mel Brooks, I would probably be a patient in some neuropsychiatric hospital today, looking through the bars of a physical therapy window as I made wallets.
* * *
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Let me tell you a story about where that beautiful golden Oscar that I won for The Producers ended up. So because I had been making pretty good money for a few years, I told my brothers I would take over all the expenses that my mother （now living with her sister, my aunt Sadie） incurred. They had moved from New York down to Florida. They were living in Hallandale Beach in a big, beautiful apartment overlooking the ocean. When I asked my mother for the new address she said, “Everybody knows the building, it’s called The Presidential.”
I said, “The Presidential what?” I knew that grammatically “presidential” had to modify something—The Presidential Apartments, The Presidential Arms, The Presidential Suites. Something!
She said no, she insisted it was just “The Presidential” and I didn’t want to argue with her. So I took my wife and my Oscar down to Florida for a visit. When we pulled up to the building, I was astonished to see that she was absolutely right. It didn’t modify a damn thing! It was just The Presidential!
* * *
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The reason I brought my Oscar was because my mother kept all of my awards. It seems she had a regular Friday afternoon tea and cookie session with everybody in the building and their friends who wanted to come tour her apartment and see her famous son’s awards decorating the top of her TV set. I knew the Oscar would have pride of place in that collection.
Funnily enough, Anne’s awards also adorned the top of her mother’s TV set in Yonkers. Most of the awards that we both won, she won first. But where other couples, especially actors and artists, would be naturally competitive, she was never anything but supportive. She knew how to take care of people, especially people she loved. In addition to her Best Actress Oscar for The Miracle Worker, she won two Tony Awards, one for the Broadway version of The Miracle Worker and the other for her Broadway debut, also written by William Gibson, Two for the Seesaw, opposite Henry Fonda; as well as two Emmy Awards, one for a show called Annie, the Women in the Life of a Man, which I co-wrote and guest-starred in. She was one of a very few to have earned Hollywood’s acting-award triple crown—the Oscar, Emmy, and Tony awards.
* * *
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While Anne and I were visiting my mother in Florida, I rented a Lincoln Town Car to drive around. One day I pulled up outside of The Presidential in it to pick up my mom and Aunt Sadie for dinner. When I got out of the car a guy in a chauffer’s cap threw a question at me. He said, “Who ya got?”
I didn’t know what he was talking about…and then I realized that I was parked next to another black Lincoln Town Car that was clearly for hire. He repeated his question. He said, “Who ya got? Who ya driving?”
I said, “Oh! Mel Brooks. I’m driving Mel Brooks.” I didn’t want to lie to him.
He said, “Mel Brooks? Wow. Is he a good tipper?”
I said, “The best!”
Chapter 11
The Twelve Chairs
Like I mentioned before, the book The Twelve Chairs was written by two crazy and wonderful Russian writers who were trying to make sense out of czarist Russia morphing into this phenomenon called the Soviet Union.