Judd: Was it a big deal for you to make yourself a star of your movies?
Meclass="underline" It was. You know, I would have been a star ten years before I became a star. There was a great, great star, a great actor-comedian, Sid Caesar. And had I not run into Sid Caesar I probably would have gone from the Borscht Belt—“You’re looking at me, ladies and gentlemen, I met a girl who was so thin, this girl was so skinny you can’t believe it. I took her to a restaurant, the maître d’ said check your umbrella. That’s how skinny this girl was”—and, you know, those were the kind of jokes that I used to do. God bless. Anyway, I ran into Sid Caesar and I realized, you know, this guy’s truly a genius, because he’d be in a sketch with Imogene Coca and she would go on and on about a car that was wrecked because it backed into the drugstore and then it smashed into the candy store, and he—Sid thought it was somebody else and he was laughing. The greatest laugh you’d ever heard. He was just on the floor spitting with laughter, and then, little by little, he realized that Imogene—it was his car. It was the family car. And then he just got quiet and more quiet. And then without asking him, without rehearsing, without directing him, she kept on with the story and tears ran down his eyes. You know nobody came with glycerin. He just cried. And the audience went bananas. The greatest sketch ever. I was one of the writers.
Judd: But did that delay your feeling like you should be the star because you were watching the greatest?
Meclass="underline" No, I was seeing stardust and I was seeing magic. And I was seeing real comedy and that was enough.
Judd: All right, the next question is from Don Moore.
Don: Yes sir. I was just wondering, Mel, you’ve had such a long career in show business and a successful career, does it bother you on any level that your legacy will be that of funny guy, comedy writer?
Meclass="underline" Strangely enough, I’ve always been just a little irritated, perturbed, upset that I have never been recognized in this business by my peers—by my fellow directors—as a director of movies. I have never been saluted or, really, thought of. I’ve been thought of as, you know, a funny writer, a producer of funny stuff and a performer, a funny performer, but I’ve never been considered…Kubrick thought I was a good director. Hitchcock thought that I should have won the Academy Award for Young Frankenstein. Just for the backlighting, he said.
Judd: When comedies work, they feel effortless, so I think people get no sense that it took so much more work than making CGI dragons fly. They don’t really give people credit for that.
Meclass="underline" You’re right. They see what’s green screen and think, How did they do that? Look, the wings look so real.
Judd: I think that’s always been the case with the Oscars.
Meclass="underline" Well, Woody won for, you know—
Judd: Annie Hall.
Meclass="underline" Yeah, Annie Hall, but there was a lot of heart and warmth in Annie Hall. I should have won for The Producers. It was crazy.
Judd: Well, they think misery is harder to create.
Meclass="underline" I think to make people sad is easier than to make them laugh. I do. I mean, they’re both hard, you know. Dickens did them both. Nikolai Gogol. Those are two guys you should read if you want to do sad sometimes and you want to do comedy sometimes.
Judd: I think there’s nothing harder to do than make a movie that is tear-down-the-house funny. It is harder than any kind of movie to make. To figure out a way to get that kind of momentum, that kind of joy from the crowd—to create tension and release, tension and release, for ninety minutes? I mean, I saw Young Frankenstein when they played it here in Santa Monica a few years ago and it was the biggest laughs I’ve ever heard in a movie theater. Every moment of the movie. There wasn’t, like, you know, the moment that kind of resets—it just kept going and going. It’s almost a miracle.
Meclass="underline" Well, look at the cast. You had Peter Boyle. Cloris Leachman alone could have carried that movie. Gene Hackman, without money, without—you know, we gave him some billing at the end, you know, to play the blind man and pour boiling soup on Peter Boyle’s crotch. I mean, that was so—
Judd: See, I wouldn’t think he would be funny, Gene Hackman. How did you know Gene Hackman was that funny?
Meclass="underline" I like comedy that just strays an inch from reality. If it strays an inch to the right or left then it’s really good because you don’t, you feel it so real, you don’t expect it to explode. Gene Wilder does that for me every time. He’s very sincere. He’s very emotional. He cares so much. You couldn’t ask for a better real actor to play Dr. Frankenstein.
Judd: Wilder is your De Niro.
Meclass="underline" He’s actually my Alberto Sordi. If you know anything about movies, Fellini—Alberto Sordi was his leading man, his comic leading man, in those early pictures. He went on to Marcello Mastroianni for La Dolce Vita and other movies, and he was always amusing and lovely and, you know. Fellini went on to a handsome guy and I never would have done that. I would have stayed with Alberto Sordi until I died.
Judd: What about Marty Feldman?
Meclass="underline" Oh, Marty Feldman is…I don’t know. God put him together. We had nothing to do with it. The only way to hide from Marty Feldman was to put your nose against his. And then he can’t see you because his eyes, his eyes go out the sides, you know. But we used to, I mean, Jesus, it’s so wonderful. It was thrilling making that movie because Madeline Kahn, the funniest, the funniest, most moving—I mean when she did Lili Von Shtupp in Blazing Saddles and she leaned against something and missed and she…I’m a composer. I know a lot about music. She did a strange one-third off harmony with the melody. They had to carry me out.
Judd: Our next question is from Maria Markarian. How did I do on that one?
Maria: Very well, actually.
Meclass="underline" You’re in my next picture, Maria.
Maria: Let’s do it.
Meclass="underline" Just your name. You may not do a lot, but I like the name.
Maria: So my question is, aside from Carl Reiner, who has inspired you the most in your career?
Meclass="underline" I guess, you know, that’s a good question. I don’t know. It could be Buster Keaton. It could be Charlie Chaplin. Those guys inspired me. I was about nine years old and I used to go to Feltmans and Nathan’s in Coney Island and Feltmans would have these silent movies. You’d have a knish or a hot dog for a nickel and maybe three cents for the root beer. It was incredible. And then you’d see, they’d show Harold Lloyd, you know, Safety Last, or Buster Keaton, The Navigator, The General. Or City Lights with Charlie Chaplin. I was just lost in it. It was so funny it made me cry. I had a lot of early influences way before people of my time told me, in no uncertain terms, what is really funny. What is really human and what is really funny.
Judd: Okay—
Meclass="underline" That’s my answer.
Judd: Our next question is from Cindy Kapp.
Meclass="underline" Spell Kapp. K-A-P-P?
Cindy: Yes.
Meclass="underline" Oh gee, how do you like that? You know there was somebody in music—Kapp Records.