One day, when I was having lunch in the Warner Bros. commissary, I saw at a table across the room the one and only John Wayne.
Wow! I thought, what a stroke of fortune it would be to get John Wayne to play the Waco Kid. So I held my breath, walked over to his table, and introduced myself.
I said, “Mr. Wayne, you don’t know me. My name is Mel Brooks and I’m making a picture here at Warner Bros.”
He said, “I know you. You’re Mel Brooks. You made The Producers! It’s one of my favorite comedies. So what are you making now?”
“I’m making a Western like there’s never been a Western before. It breaks all the rules—except for one: The good guys come out on top. And I’d like you to be one of the good guys.”
He said, “Send it over to my office. I promise I’ll read it tonight. Meet me at the same table tomorrow at the same time.”
Wow! I did just as he said and could hardly sleep that night. Wow, could John Wayne possibly be the Waco Kid?
I met him at exactly the same table at the same time the next day. He had the script in his hand, and he said, “Mel, this is one of the craziest and funniest things I have ever read. But I can’t do it. It’s just too dirty. My fans will accept almost anything, but they won’t take dirty. They’re not that kind of audience. So like I said, I can’t do it. But I’ll tell you this: When it opens, I’ll be the first in line to see it.”
I thanked him profusely and went forward with my search for the Waco Kid. So I couldn’t get my Western hero, but maybe I could get my alcoholic?
* * *
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I reached out to Gig Young, who was normally a light comedy actor. For example, his delicious performance in Joe Bologna and Renee Taylor’s Lovers and Other Strangers. But he was also devastatingly emotional as the alcoholic lead in They Shoot Horses, Don’t They? with Jane Fonda, for which he won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor. He was a remarkably good actor, and I knew he could be the Waco Kid because he had comedy in his background and was capable of rich drama. But I was still cautious about the alcohol business, because he had a reputation of hitting the bottle now and then. But his agent assured me he’d been on the wagon for more than a year and was totally trustworthy when it came to showing up sober. Good enough for me—I hired him.
Wait a minute…We all know that Gig Young is not the Waco Kid. That memorable role is played by the great Gene Wilder.
What is Mel talking about? Let Mel explain.
For some reason, our first day of shooting was scheduled on a Friday. The first scene was a simple introductory meeting between the new sheriff and the Waco Kid. Gig Young as the Waco Kid was hung upside down from his bunk in the jail cell of the sheriff’s office. He is trying to recover from a bad hangover.
Cleavon as the sheriff asks him, “Are we awake?”
And upon seeing the Black sheriff he’s supposed to respond, “We’re not sure, are we Black?”
Instead Gig replies, “We’re not sure, are we bla…are we bla—BLA?”
I turned to my assistant and whispered, “Wow, look what we’re getting. He’s so real.”
And then the shit hit the fan. Instead of finishing the line, Gig started spewing green vomit all over the jail cell. It was like Mount Vesuvius erupting in green.
I said, “This is a little too real. Call an ambulance.”
Obviously, Gig was not a recovering alcoholic, recovering had played no part in it. He was still in a lot of trouble. The ambulance came and took him to a local hospital. The doctor who was attending him called me and said he had the d.t.’s (delirium tremens, severe alcohol withdrawal) and was much too sick to perform for the next few months.
It was a Friday night, and I knew what I had to do to save the picture: I called Gene Wilder. Through tears I told him what had happened and begged him to save me.
He said, “I don’t know whether to laugh or cry, but I’ll be on a plane tomorrow morning.”
* * *
—
It was the weekend, and the studio was closed, but they opened up a few departments for me. Someone from wardrobe helped him with a costume. We went through props and he chose a pair of six-shooters. We drove out to the WB ranch, and he picked out a horse. And then he picked out a white cowboy hat and I said, “No, you’re not the sheriff. You’re the sheriff’s buddy.”
So he picked out a dark cowboy hat, which suited him perfectly. By the end of that day Gene Wilder had become the Waco Kid.
And believe it or not on that Monday (without losing a day of shooting) he was there, hanging upside down in the jail cell and redoing the same scene that Gig Young had attempted on Friday.
Gene was absolutely perfect and I asked myself: Why hadn’t I cast him in the first place? It was because I was suffering the same prejudice everybody had about serious actors and comedy. Either they can do one or the other. Originally, I didn’t want the Waco Kid to be funny. I wanted the Black sheriff to be funny, but I wanted the Waco Kid to be serious. I wanted him to carry some of the more emotional qualities of the film. I was dead wrong, but I didn’t know it yet. I hadn’t realized if you can find a funny actor who can be serious, then you’ve got heaven. That day I learned the lesson. A really good actor can do both. Hence, Gene Wilder.
From their first scene together, Cleavon and Gene bonded immediately.
* * *
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We shot for ten weeks, half on a Western set at Warner Bros., and the other half on location in the Antelope Valley in California. At Warner Bros. I met John Calley, the head of production. He was an invaluable aide in fashioning the movie. I’d often come to him and ask something like, “John, is it too crazy to beat up an old lady in a Western bar fight?”
And he gave me this memorable piece of advice that stayed with me all through my career: “Mel, if you’re gonna step up to the bell—ring it!”
* * *
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There was a scene that I was kind of afraid of putting in the movie. That’s not like me, but this particular scene was really testing the fates. What I’m referring to is the campfire scene, in which, like they do in every Western, the cowhands sit around a campfire drinking black coffee from tin mugs while they scrape a pile of beans off a tin plate. But you never hear a sound. You never hear the utter reality of breaking wind across the prairie. I had to risk my life and tell the truth. Surely there had to be one little sound from all those beans. But I decided to let the audience hear the real McCoy, no matter what it would cost me.
I remembered John Calley’s motto: “If you’re gonna step up to the bell—ring it!”
And boy did I ring it. The air was filled with the unmistakable sounds of nonstop flatulence. It was the greatest farting scene in cinematic history.
I may have been risking my career, but what good is a career if you don’t risk it from time to time?
* * *