Gene Wilder

So what were some of the points of commonality and difference between the two of you and your sense of theater and showbiz?

Well, when I was still in school and I saw your show of shows, which was my favorite television show with Sid Caesar, Mel Brooks was one of the writers.

At first, he started out as...

low man on the totem pole until he advanced to head writer.

But I had a feeling for what he had written.

I wasn't sure if I was right.

And then when I met him, there was a closeness because I loved that kind of humor, his kind of humor.

It wasn't any part of my life in my humor, but I just appreciated it.

There was an affinity there somewhere.

And in so many ways, we're not at all alike, and in some ways, we're very much alike.

When people, especially from France, would ask me to talk about, so they could write about New York Jewish humor...

I'd say, I don't know anything about New York Jewish humor.

I know who Zero Mostel was, and I know Mel Brooks, but that's about all I could tell you about New York Jewish humor.

And I certainly didn't have New York Jewish humor, but I was in three Mel Brooks films, so people thought I was a connoisseur of New York Jewish humor.

My humor was quite different.

Mine was Sherlock Holmes' smarter brother and the world's greatest lover and haunted honeymoon, the woman in red, see no evil, hear no evil, but his was much broader and I think much funnier, too.

I'd like you to meet my assistants, Inga and Igor.

This is my financier, Elizabeth.

Finance.

But I... What?