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This April, Turner Classic Movies (TCM) will honor
Gene Wilder with an entire night of programming
headlined by ROLE MODEL: GENE
WILDER, a new special in which the movie
funnyman sits down with Alec Baldwin for an
intimate conversation about Wilder’s extensive
career. The tribute will feature two of Wilder’s most
popular collaborations with writer-director Mel
Brooks: The Producers (1968), which this
year celebrates the 40th anniversary of its wide
theatrical release, and Blazing Saddles (1974).
ROLE MODEL: GENE WILDER comes to
TCM from executive producer Robert Trachtenberg
(The Dick Cavett Show with Special Guest
Mel Brooks; Cary Grant: A Class Apart) and
premieres Tuesday, April 15, at 8 p.m. (ET).
“For four decades, movie funnyman Gene Wilder
has been keeping audiences in stitches with his
combination of over-the-top neurosis and sweet
vulnerability,” said Tom Brown, vice president of
original productions for TCM. “We are proud to be
able to celebrate this outstanding actor, writer and
director and are especially honored to have Alec
Baldwin sit down with Wilder, his movie idol, for this
intimate conversation.”
“I’m so grateful that Turner Classic Movies asked
me to be a part of this project,” Baldwin said during
the opening of ROLE MODEL: GENE
WILDER. “I’m a big fan of the network, so I
jumped at the chance when I was asked, ‘What
movie star would you like to have a conversation
with?’”
In ROLE MODEL: GENE WILDER, Wilder
and Baldwin engage in a wide-ranging conversation
at Waveny House in New Canaan, located in
Wilder’s home state of Connecticut. Their talk
touches on several important events in Wilder’s life,
including the night he met Mel Brooks, who was
then dating (and would later marry) Anne Bancroft,
Wilder’s co-star in the stage production of
Mother Courage; being kissed fully on the
lips by renowned actor Zero Mostel just before
auditioning for The Producers; getting to act
opposite Lee J. Cobb in a television production of
Death of a Salesman, a performance Wilder
saw Cobb give when Wilder was 16; and working on
his first screenplay, Young Frankenstein,
which earned an Oscar® nomination for Best
Adapted Screenplay.
Wilder also speaks about his love life, including his
too-brief marriage to comedienne Gilda Radner (who
died of ovarian cancer in 1989 and whose struggle
Wilder chronicled in the book Gilda’s
Disease); and his current, 16-year marriage to
Karen Boyer.
Both Wilder and Baldwin also talk about acting on
stage versus acting in film. Wilder prefers the latter.
“The thing I love about making movies is the peace
of mind that I know I don’t have to be perfect the first
time,” Wilder said. “I can be perfect the second
time or the third time.” Baldwin, on the other hand,
prefers the stage, with the immediacy and intimacy
that develops with a live audience.
Wilder, who is semi-retired from acting, also talks
about what he’s doing now. Following last year’s
extraordinary success of his widely praised
romantic novel My French Whore, Wilder has just completed a new book, The Woman Who Wouldn't.
 
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31 Days of Oscar Highlights for Feb. 23
Enjoy Charles Laughton in the western spoof, Ruggles of Red Gap, a Best Picture nominee of 1935, plus other Academy Award contenders such as Gigi (1958), Topper (1937), The Awful Truth (1937) and more.
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