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Young Frankenstein is a 1974 American comedy film directed by Mel Brooks and starring Gene Wilder as the title character, a descendant of the infamous Dr. Victor Frankenstein. The supporting cast includes Teri Garr, Cloris Leachman, Marty Feldman, Peter Boyle, Madeline Kahn, Kenneth Mars, Richard Haydn and Gene Hackman.

The screenplay was written by Brooks and Wilder.
The film is an affectionate parody of the classical horror film genre, in particular the various film adaptations of Mary Shelley’s novel Frankenstein produced by Universal in the 1930s. Most of the lab equipment used as props were created by Kenneth Strickfaden for the 1931 film Frankenstein. To further reflect the atmosphere of the earlier films, Brooks shot the picture entirely in black-and-white, a rarity in the 1970s, and employed 1930s-style opening credits and scene transitions such as iris outs, wipes, and fades to black. The film also features a notable period score by Brooks’ longtime composer John Morris.

\A critical favorite and box office smash, Young Frankenstein ranks No. 28 on Total Film magazine’s “List of the 50 Greatest Comedy Films of All Time”., number 56 on Bravo TV’s list of the “100 Funniest Movies and number 13 on the American Film Institute’s list of the 100 funniest American movies. In 2003, it was deemed “culturally, historically or aesthetically significant” by the United States National Film Preservation Board, and selected for preservation in the Library of Congress National Film Registry.

Plot

Dr. Frederick Frankenstein (Gene Wilder) is a respected lecturer at an American medical school and engaged to the tightly wound Elizabeth (Madeline Kahn). He becomes exasperated when anyone brings up the subject of his grandfather, the infamous mad scientist whose experiments in re-animation led to the creation of a monster. To disassociate himself from his legacy, Frederick insists that his surname be pronounced “Fronk-en-steen”.When a solicitor informs him that he has inherited his family’s estate in Transylvania, Frederick travels to Europe to inspect the property. At the Transylvania train station, he is met by a hunchbacked, bulging-eyed servant named Igor (Marty Feldman), who is there to drive Frederick in a wagon to the Frankenstein estate, but not before mocking Frederick’s pretentions by insisting that his name be pronounced as “eye-gore.” Accompanying Igor in the wagon is another servant, a lovely young woman named Inga (Teri Garr). Upon arrival at the estate, Frederick meets the forbidding housekeeper Frau Blücher (Cloris Leachman), whose name causes horses to rear up in fright. Though his family legacy has brought shame and ridicule, Frederick becomes increasingly intrigued about his randfather’s work, especially after Inga assists him in discovering the secret entrance to his grandfather’s laboratory. Upon reading his grandfather’s private journals, Frederick is so transformed that he decides to resume his grandfather’s experiments in re-animating the dead. He and Igor resort to robbing the grave of a recently executed criminal, and Frederick sets to work experimenting on the large corpse. Matters go awry, however, when Igor is sent to steal the brain of a deceased revered scientist; startled by lightning, he drops the correct brain on the floor and instead returns with an “abnormal” brain (which he subsequently refers to as “A-b (Abby) Normal”), which Frederick unknowingly transplants into the corpse.Soon, Frederick is ready to re-animate his creature (Peter Boyle), who is elevated on a platform to the roof of the laboratory during a lightning storm. Eventually, electrical charges bring the creature to life. With Frederick’s help, the Monster makes its first halting steps, but, frightened by Igor lighting a match, attacks Frederick and must be sedated. Upon being asked whose brain was obtained, Igor confesses that he supplied “Abby Normal’s” brain (the brain he stole had been labeled “abnormal”), whereupon Frederick attempts to strangle him.Meanwhile, the townspeople are uneasy at the possibility of Frederick continuing his grandfather’s work. Most concerned is Inspector Kemp (Kenneth Mars), a police official who sports an eyepatch and monocle over the same eye, a creaky, disjointed wooden arm, and an accent so comically thick even his own countrymen cannot understand him. Kemp visits the doctor and subsequently demands assurance that he will not create another monster. Upon returning to the lab, Frederick discovers that Frau Blücher is setting the creature free. After she reveals the Monster’s love of violin music, and her own romantic relationship with Frederick’s grandfather, the creature is enraged by sparks from a thrown switch, and escapes from the Frankenstein castle.While roaming the countryside, the Monster has frustrating encounters with a young girl and a blind hermit (Gene Hackman); these scenes directly parody the original Frankenstein movies. Frederick recaptures the Monster, calms his homicidal tendencies with flattery, and fully acknowledges his heritage, even shouting out emphatically, “my name is Frankenstein!” (with the normal pronunciation).After a period of training the Monster to function in polite society, Frederick offers the sight of “The Creature” following simple commands to a theater full of illustrious guests . The demonstration continues with Frederick and the Monster launching into the musical number “Puttin’ on the Ritz”, complete with top hats and tails. Although the monster can only shout his song lines in painful high-pitched monotones, he dances impressively with almost perfect timing. The routine ends disastrously, however, when a stage light explodes and frightens the Monster, who becomes enraged and charges into the audience, where he is captured and chained by police.After being tormented by a sadistic jailer, the Monster escapes, then kidnaps and ravishes the not unwilling Elizabeth when she arrives unexpectedly for a visit. Elizabeth falls in love with the creature due to his inhuman stamina and his enormous penis (referred to as Schwanstuker or Schwanzstück—a Yiddish malapropism from Schwanz, “tail”, which also is German slang for “penis”, and Stück, “piece”).

The townspeople, led by Inspector Kemp, hunt for the monster. Desperate to get the creature back and correct his mistakes, Frederick plays the violin to lure his creation back to the castle. Just as the Kemp-led mob storms the laboratory, Frankenstein transfers some of his stabilizing intellect to the creature who, as a result, is able to reason with and placate the mob. (Much of the creature’s plea for understanding is adapted directly from dialogue in Mary Shelley’s novel. In doing so, Brooks’ comedy presents Shelley’s original theme more accurately than perhaps any other “Frankenstein” film.)

The film ends happily, with Elizabeth married to the now erudite and sophisticated Monster, while Inga joyfully learns what her new husband Frederick got in return during the transfer procedure (the Monster’s Schwanzstück)OriginsIn a 2010 interview with the Los Angeles Times, Mel Brooks discussed how the film came about:I was in the middle of shooting the last few weeks of Blazing Saddles somewhere in the Antelope Valley, and Gene Wilder and I were having a cup of coffee and he said, I have this idea that there could be another Frankenstein. I said not another – we’ve had the son of, the cousin of, the brother-in-law, we don’t need another Frankenstein. His idea was very simple: What if the grandson of Dr. Frankenstein wanted nothing to do with the family whatsoever. He was ashamed of those wackos. I said, “That’s funny.”Color scheme Columbia Pictures was very keen on shooting the picture in color, mostly due to the widely spread color television. However, Mel Brooks and the producers held their ground and said it should be filmed in black and white. After seeing a few dailies, the company wholeheartedly agreed with their decision. Filming Disagreements over the budget lead to switching from Columbia Pictures to 20th Century Fox. Mel Brooks wanted at least 2.3 million dollars dedicated to the budget, whereas Columbia Pictures decided that 1.7 million dollars had to be enough. They instead went to 20th Century Fox, who agreed to a higher budget. While shooting, the cast ad-libbed several jokes used in the film. Cloris Leachman improvised a scene in which Frau Blücher offers “varm milk” and Ovaltine to Dr. Frankenstein, while Marty Feldman surreptitiously moved his character’s hump from shoulder to shoulder until someone noticed it, and the gag was added to the film (“Didn’t you used to have that on the other side?”, “What hump?”). Brooks has declared Young Frankenstein his favorite among his own films The brain which Igor is ordered to steal is labeled as belonging to “Hans Delbrück, scientist and saint”. A real-life Hans Delbrück was a nineteenth-century military historian; his son Max Delbrück was a twentieth-century biochemist and Nobel laureate. Every time Frau Blücher’s name is mentioned, horses are heard whinnying as if afraid of her name. Many viewers mistakenly believe that Blücher means “glue” in German; however, Blücher is a well-known German surname.[10] The German term for glue is der Kleber, or tierischer Leim for animal glue. Brooks suggested in a 2000 interview that he had based the joke on the erroneous translation, which he had heard from someone else. In an interview, Cloris Leachman said that Mel had told her that that is why he named her character Blücher. In the audio commentary, Mel Brooks explains that the horses are whinnying to show us that Frau Blücher is an ominous character: “They’re terrified of her; God only knows what she does to them when nobody else is around.” CarTalk makes reference to this in their closing credits, referring to producer Catherine Fenollosa as “Frau Blücher”, along with horse whinny and trotting shortly thereafter. The US AMC cable network broadcast a 2007 “DVD TV” version of the film with commentary in subtitles. Among other information, it stated that Inga was based on Ulla from Brooks’ earlier film The Producers. When the film was in theaters, the band Aerosmith was working on its third studio album, Toys in the Attic. The members of the band had written the music for a song but couldn’t come up with any lyrics to go with it. After a while, they decided to take a break and see a late night showing of Young Frankenstein, where the “Walk This Way” gag provided the basis (or phrase) for the Aerosmith hit “Walk This Way”.Dr. Frederick FrankensteinI am not a Frankenstein. I’m a Fronkensteen.From that fateful day when stinking bits of slime first crawled from the sea and shouted to the cold stars, “I am man!,” our greatest dread has always been the knowledge of our mortality. But tonight, we shall hurl the gauntlet of science into the frightful face of death itself. Tonight, we shall ascend into the heavens. We shall mock the earthquake. We shall command the thunders, and penetrate into the very womb of impervious nature herself.[When reminded of his grandfather’s story while holding a scalpel] My grandfather’s work was doo-doo! I am not interested in death! The only thing that concerns me is the preservation of life! [As he screams the last word, Frederick drives the scalpel into his leg. He releases his hand, looks at the scalpel, and covers it with his other leg.] Class… is… dismissed.MY NAME IS FRANKENSTEIN!!![Seeing his monster move] Alive! It’s alive! IT’S ALIVE!!![Trying to make his monster live] LIFE, DO YOU HEAR ME?! GIVE MY CREATION LIFE!!!!SedaGIVE?!!?![Giving a demonstration of voluntary and reflex movements with Mr, Hilltop] Reflex movements are those made independently of the will, and are carried out along pathways [puts arm around Mr. Hilltop’s shoulder] that pass between the periphral nervous system and the central nervous system… you filthy rotten yellow son of a bitch! [Swiftly starts to knee Mr. Hilltop in the privates, but is instinctly blocked by him]
Igor[When called “eee-gore”] No, it’s pronounced, “Eye-gore”.Blücher!! [horses whinny], as a running gag in the movie I heard the strangest music from the upstairs kitchen and I just… followed it down. Call it… a hunch. Inspector Kemp All lines are read in a very heavy Romanian accent]A riot is an ugly thingk, undt vonce you get vun shtarted, there is little shance of shtopping it, short of bluudshet. I think, before we go around killing peeple, we had better made DAMN sure of our evidence, undt… [As the crowd around him recovers from the loudness of his statement, he breathes on his monocle, wipes it, and puts it back over his eyepatch.] Ve had better confeerm the fect that Yungk Frankenstein is, indeed, vollowing in his grandfather’s vootshtops! [His audience, confused, collectively shout “What?!”] Vollowing in his grandfather’s vootshtops. Vootshtops, vootshtops! [After pantomiming the act of “footsteps”, the audience finally understands] I think vhat is in order is for me to pay a little visit on ze good doctor undt to have a nice, quiet shet.A riot is an ungly thingk… undt, I tink, that it is chust about time ve had vun.Frankenstein’s MonsterFor as long as I can remember, people have hated me. They looked at my face and my body and they ran away in horror. In my loneliness I decided that if I could not inspire love, which was my deepest hope, I would instead cause fear! [looks down at the unconscious Dr. Frankenstein] I live because this poor, half-crazed genius has given me life. He alone held an image of me as something beautiful. And then, when it would have been easy enough to stay out of danger, he used his own body as a guinea pig to give me a calmer brain and a somewhat more sophisticated way of expressing myself.DialogueDr. Frankenstein: You must be Igor.Igor: No, it’s pronounced “eye-gor.”Dr. Frankenstein: But they told me it was “ee-gor.”Igor: Well, they were wrong then, weren’t they? Inga: Werewolf!
Dr. Frankenstein: Werewolf?Igor: There.Dr. Frankenstein: What?Igor: There, wolf. There, castle.Dr. Frankenstein: Why are you talking that way?Igor: I thought you wanted to.Dr. Frankenstein: No, I don’t want to.Igor: [shrugs] Suit yourself. I’m easy.
Dr. Frankenstein: You know, I’m a rather brilliant surgeon. Perhaps I can help you with that hump.Igor: What hump?
Dr. Frankenstein: For the experiment to be a success, all of the body parts must be enlarged.Inga: His veins, his feet, his hands, his organs vould all have to be increased in size.Dr. Frankenstein: Precisely.Inga: [her eyes get wide] He vould have an enormous schwanzschtücker.Dr. Frankenstein: [ponders this a moment] That goes without saying.Inga: Voof.Igor: He’s going to be very popular.
Dr. Frankenstein: [To Igor] Igor!Igor: [To Dr. Frankenstein] Frodrick!Dr. Frankenstein: [To Igor] Igor, may I speak to you for a moment?Igor: Of course.Dr. Frankenstein: Sit down, won’t you?Igor: Thank you. [sits on the floor]Dr. Frankenstein: No no, up here.
Igor: Thank you. [sits on a chair]Dr. Frankenstein: Now… that brain that you gave me… was it Hans Delbruck’s?Igor: [Crosses arms] No.Dr. Frankenstein: [Holds up hand] Ah. Good. Uh… would you mind telling me… whose brain… I did put in?Igor: And you won’t be angry?Dr. Frankenstein: I will not be angry.Igor: [Shrugs] Abby…someone.Dr. Frankenstein: Abby someone? Abby who?
Igor: Abby Normal.Dr. Frankenstein: [takes a deep breath] Abby Normal?Igor: I’m almost sure that was the name. [He and Dr. Frankenstein laugh]Dr. Frankenstein: Are you saying… [Stands] that I put an abnormal brain… [Puts hand on Igor’s hump] into a 7 and a half foot long… 54- inch wide… [Grabs Igor by throat] GORILLA?!?!?! [Strangling Igor] IS THAT WHAT YOU’RE TELLING ME!?!Igor: You know, I’ll never forget my old dad. When these things happened to him, the things he’d say to me…
Dr. Frankenstein: What would he say?Igor: “What the hell are you doing in the bathroom day and night!? Why don’t you get out of there, give someone else a chance!” [goes back to eating]Dr. Frankenstein: Love is the only thing that can save this poor creature, and I am going to convince him that he is loved even at the cost of my own life. No matter what you hear in there, no matter how cruelly I beg you, no matter how terribly I may scream, do not open this door or you will undo everything I have worked for. Do you understand? Do not open this door!Inga: Yes, Doctor.Igor: [sarcastically] Nice workin’ with ya.[Dr. Frankenstein enters the Monster’s cell, accidentally bumping into a table. The Monster awakens, roaring with rage. Panicking, Dr. Frankenstein turns back to the door.]
Dr. Frankenstein: Let me out. Let me out of here. Get me the hell out of here. [Turns to the Monster, then back to the door] What’s the matter with you people? I WAS JOKING! Don’t you know a joke when you hear one? [Sarcastically] HA HA HA! [Begins pounding on the door; outside, Frau Bl?cher stops Inga and Igor from trying to open the cell.] Jesus Christ, let me out of here! Open this goddamn door or I’ll kick your rotten heads in! MOMMY!!!Frau Blucher: [blocking the door as Inga and Igor again try to open the cell] Nein![The Monster roars, shrugging off its chains. Dr. Frankenstein turns back to the Monster, deciding a different approach…]
Dr. Frankenstein: Hello, handsome! [The Monster looks momentarily wrong-footed] You’re a good looking fellow, do you know that? People laugh at you, people hate you, but why do they hate you? Because… they are JEALOUS! Look at that boyish face. Look at that sweet smile. Do you wanna talk about physical strength? Do you want to talk about sheer muscle? Do you want to talk about the Olympian ideal? You are a GOD! And listen to me, you are not evil. You… are… GOOD! [The Monster starts to cry, and Dr. Frankenstein hugs him] This is a nice boy. This is a good boy. This is a mother’s angel. And I want the world to know once and for all, and without any shame, that we love him! I’m going to teach you. I’m going to show you how to walk, how to speak, how to move, how to think. Together, you and I are going to make the greatest single contribution to science since the creation of fire!
Inga: [from outside] Dr. Fronkensteen! Are you all right?Dr. Frankenstein: MY NAME IS FRANKENSTEIN!!!Gene Wilder (born Jerome Silberman; June 11, 1933) is an American stage and screen actor, director, screenwriter, author and activist.Wilder began his career on stage, making his screen debut in the film Bonnie and Clyde in 1967. His first major role was as Leopold Bloom in the 1968 film The Producers. This was the first in a series of collaborations with writer/director Mel Brooks, including 1974’s Young Frankenstein, a script which garnered the pair an Academy Award nomination for Best Adapted Screenplay. Wilder is known for his portrayal of Willy Wonka in Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory (1971) and for his four films with Richard Pryor: Silver Streak (1976), Stir Crazy (1980), See No Evil, Hear No Evil (1989), and Another You (1991). Wilder has directed and written several of his films, including The Woman in Red (1984).He was married to actress Gilda Radner. Her death from ovarian cancer led to his active involvement in promoting cancer awareness and treatment, helping found the Gilda Radner Ovarian Cancer Detection Center in Los Angeles and co-founding Gilda’s ClubSince his most recent contribution to acting in 2003, Wilder has turned his attention to writing, producing a memoir in 2005, Kiss Me Like A Stranger: My Search for Love and Art, and the novels My French Whore (2007), The Woman Who Wouldn’t (2008), and What Is This Thing Called Love (2010).Born Jerome Silberman in Milwaukee, Wisconsin on June 11, 1933, Gene Wilder is the son of William J. and Jeanne (Baer) Silberman. He adopted “Gene Wilder” for his professional name at the age of 26, later explaining, “I had always liked Gene because of Thomas Wolfe’s character Eugene Gant in Look Homeward, Angel and Of Time and the River. And I was always a great admirer of Thornton Wilder.” Wilder first became interested in acting when at age 8, his mother was diagnosed with rheumatic fever and the doctor told him to “try and make her laugh.” When Jeanne Silberman felt that her son’s potential was not being fully realized in Wisconsin, she sent him to Black-Foxe, a military institute in Hollywood, where he wrote that he was bullied and sexually assaulted, primarily because he was the only Jewish boy in the schoolAfter an unsuccessful short stay at Black-Foxe, Wilder returned home and became increasingly involved with the local theatre community. At age fifteen, he performed for the first time in front of a paying audience, as Balthasar (Romeo’s manservant) in a production of Shakespeare’s Romeo and JulietGene Wilder graduated from Washington High School located in Milwaukee, Wisconsin in 1951.Acting careerEarly starts: Old Vic and ArmyWilder studied Communication and Theatre Arts at the University of Iowa, where he was a member of the Alpha Epsilon Pi FraternityFollowing his 1955 graduation from Iowa, he was accepted at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School in Bristol, England. After six months of studying fencing, Wilder became the first freshman to win the All-School Fencing Championship Desiring to study Stanislavski’s system, he returned to the U.S., living with his sister and her family in Queens. Wilder enrolled at the HB Studio. Wilder was drafted into the Army on September 10, 1956. At the end of recruit training, he was assigned to the medical corps and sent to Fort Sam Houston for training. He was then given the opportunity to choose any post that was open, and wanting to stay near New York City to attend acting classes at the HB Studio, he chose to serve as paramedic in the Department of Psychiatry and Neurology at Valley Forge Army Hospital, in Phoenixville, Pennsylvania.[10] In November 1957, his mother died from ovarian cancer. He was discharged from the army a year later and returned to New York. A scholarship to the HB Studio allowed him to become a full-time student. At first living on unemployment insurance and some savings, he later supported himself with odd jobs such as a limousine driver and fencing instructor. Wilder’s first professional acting job was in Cambridge, England, where he played the Second Officer in Herbert Berghof’s production of Twelfth Night. He also served as a fencing choreographer. After three years of study with Berghof and Uta Hagen at the HB Studio, Charles Grodin told Wilder about Lee Strasberg’s method acting. Grodin persuaded him to leave the Studio and begin studying with Strasberg in his private class. Several months later, Wilder was accepted into the Actors Studio. Feeling that “Jerry Silberman in Macbeth” did not have the right ring to it, he adopted a stage name. He chose “Wilder” because it reminded him of Our Town author Thornton Wilder, while “Gene” came from Thomas Wolfe’s first novel, Look Homeward, Angel. He also liked “Gene” because as a boy, he was impressed by a distant relative, a World War II bomber navigator who was “handsome and looked great in his leather flight jacket.” He later said that he couldn’t see Gene Wilder playing Macbeth, either. After joining the Actors Studio, he slowly began to be noticed in the Off Broadway scene, thanks to performances in Sir Arnold Wesker’s Roots and in Graham Greene’s The Complaisant Lover, for which Wilder received the Clarence Derwent Award for “Best Performance by an Actor in a Nonfeatured Role.”Mel BrooksIn 1963, Wilder was cast in a leading role in Mother Courage and Her Children, a production starring Anne Bancroft, who introduced Wilder to her boyfriend Mel Brooks. A few months later, Brooks mentioned that he was working on a screenplay called Springtime for Hitler, for which he thought Wilder would be perfect in the role of Leo Bloom. Brooks elicited a promise from Wilder that he would check with him before making any long-term commitment Months went by, and Wilder toured the country with different theatre productions, participated in a televised CBS presentation of Death of a Salesman, and was cast for his first role in a film—a minor role in Arthur Penn’s 1967 Bonnie and Clyde. After three years of not hearing from Brooks, Wilder was called for a reading with Zero Mostel, who was to be the star of Springtime for Hitler and had approval of his co-star. Mostel approved, and Wilder was cast for his first leading role in a featured film, 1968’s The Producers. The Producers eventually became a cult comedy classic, with Mel Brooks winning an Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay and Wilder being nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. Nevertheless, Mel Brooks’ first directorial effort did not do well at the box office and was not well-received by all critics; New York Times critic Renata Adler reviewed the film and described it as “black college humor.” In 1969, Wilder relocated to Paris, accepting a leading role in Bud Yorkin’s Start the Revolution Without Me, a comedy that took place during the French Revolution. After shooting ended, Wilder returned to New York, where he read the script for Quackser Fortune Has a Cousin in the Bronx and immediately called Sidney Glazier, who produced The Producers. Both men began searching for the perfect director for the film. Jean Renoir was the first candidate, but he would not be able to do the film for at least a year, so British-Indian director Waris Hussein was hired.
Willy Wonka, Young Frankenstein, and Richard PryorIn 1971, Mel Stuart offered Wilder the lead role in his film adaptation of Roald Dahl’s Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Wilder was initially hesitant, but finally accepted the role under one condition:
“When I make my first entrance, I’d like to come out of the door carrying a cane and then walk toward the crowd with a limp. After the crowd sees Willy Wonka is a cripple, they all whisper to themselves and then become deathly quiet. As I walk toward them, my cane sinks into one of the cobblestones I’m walking on and stands straight up, by itself… but I keep on walking, until I realize that I no longer have my cane. I start to fall forward, and just before I hit the ground, I do a beautiful forward somersault and bounce back up, to great applause” When Stuart asked why, Wilder replied, “because from that time on, no one will know if I’m lying or telling the truth. All three films Wilder did after The Producers were box office failures: Start the Revolution and Quackser seemed to audiences poor copies of Mel Brooks films, while Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory seemed, to many parents, a moral story “too cruel” for children to understand, thus failing to attract family audiences. After hearing that Wonka had been a commercial failure, Woody Allen offered Wilder a role in one segment of Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex* (*But Were Afraid to Ask). Wilder accepted, hoping this would be the hit to put an end to his series of flops. Everything… was a hit, grossing over $18-million in the United States alone against a $2-million budget. After Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex* (*But Were Afraid to Ask), Wilder began working on a script he called Young Frankenstein. After he wrote a two-page scenario, he called Mel Brooks, who told him that it seemed like a “cute” idea but showed little interest. A couple of months later, Wilder received a call from his agent, Mike Medavoy, who asked if he had anything where he could include Peter Boyle and Marty Feldman, his two new clients. Having just seen Feldman on television, Wilder was inspired to write a scene that takes place at Transylvania Station, where Igor and Frederick meet for the first time. The scene was later included in the film almost verbatim. Medavoy liked the idea and called Brooks, asking him to direct. Brooks was not convinced, but having spent four years working on two box office failures, he decided to acceptWhile working on the Young Frankenstein script, Wilder was offered the part of the Fox in the musical film adaptation of Saint Exupéry’s classic book, The Little Prince. When filming was about to begin in London, Wilder received an urgent call from Mel Brooks, who was filming Blazing Saddles, offering Wilder the role of the “Waco Kid” after Dan Dailey dropped out at the last minute, while Gig Young became too ill to continue. Wilder shot his scenes for Blazing Saddles and immediately afterwards filmed The Little Prince.[ After Young Frankenstein was written, the rights were to be sold to Columbia Pictures, but after having trouble agreeing on the budget, Wilder, Brooks and producer Michael Gruskoff went with 20th Century Fox, where both Brooks and Wilder had to sign five-year contracts. Young Frankenstein was a commercial success, with Wilder and Brooks receiving Best Adapted Screenplay nominations at the 1975 Oscars, losing to Francis Coppola and Mario Puzo for their adaptation of The Godfather Part II. While filming Young Frankenstein, Wilder had an idea for a romantic musical comedy about a brother of Sherlock Holmes. Marty Feldman and Madeline Kahn agreed to participate in the project, and Wilder began writing what became his directorial début, 1975’s The Adventure of Sherlock Holmes’ Smarter Brother. In 1975, Wilder’s agent sent him a script for a film called Super Chief. Wilder accepted, but told the film’s producers that he thought the only person who could keep the film from being offensive was Richard Pryor. Pryor accepted the role in the film, which had been renamed Silver Streak, the first film to team Wilder and Pryor. While filming Silver Streak, Wilder began working on a script for The World’s Greatest Lover, inspired by Fellini’s The White Sheik. Wilder wrote, produced, and directed The World’s Greatest Lover, which premièred in 1977 but was a commercial and critical failure. The Frisco Kid (1979) would be Wilder’s next project. The film was to star John Wayne, but he dropped out when the Warner Brothers executives tried to dissuade him from charging the studio his usual $1-million fee. Harrison Ford, then an up-and-coming actor, was hired for the role.Sidney Poitier and Gilda RadnerIn 1980, Sidney Poitier and producer Hannah Weinstein persuaded Wilder and Richard Pryor to do another film together. Bruce Jay Friedman wrote the script for Stir Crazy, with Poitier directing, for Columbia Pictures. Pryor was struggling with a heavy cocaine addiction, and filming became difficult; but once the film premiered, it became an international success. New York magazine listed “Skip Donahue” (Wilder) and “Harry Monroe” (Pryor) # 9 on their 2007 list of “The Fifteen Most Dynamic Duos in Pop Culture History,” and the film has often appeared in “best comedy” lists and rankings. Poitier and Wilder became friends, with the pair working together on a script called Traces—which became 1982’s Hanky Panky, the film where Wilder met comedienne Gilda Radner. Through the remainder of the decade, Wilder and Radner worked in several projects together. After Hanky Panky, Wilder directed his third film, 1984’s The Woman in Red, which starred Wilder, Radner, and Kelly LeBrock. The Woman in Red was not well-received by the critics, nor was their next project, 1986’s Haunted Honeymoon, which failed to attract audiences.TriStar Pictures wanted to produce another film starring Wilder and Pryor, and Wilder agreed to do See No Evil, Hear No Evil only if he was allowed to rewrite the script. The studio agreed, and See No Evil, Hear No Evil premiered on May 1989 to mostly negative reviews. Many critics praised Wilder and Pryor, and even Kevin Spacey’s performance, but they mostly all agreed that the script was terrible. Roger Ebert called it “a real dud” the Deseret Morning News described the film as “stupid,” with an “idiotic script” that had a “contrived story” and too many “juvenile gags”;while Vincent Canby called it “by far the most successful co-starring vehicle for Mr. Pryor and Mr. Wilder,” also acknowledging that “this is not elegant movie making, and not all of the gags are equally clever.” 1990s–2000s After starring as a political cartoon writer who falls in love in the 1990 flop Funny About Love, Wilder did one final film with Richard Pryor, the 1991 box office flop Another You, in which Pryor’s physical deterioration from multiple sclerosis was clearly noticeable The film marked both Pryor’s last starring role in a film (he would appear in a few cameos until his death in 2005) and also marked Wilder’s last appearance in a feature film. His remaining work consisted of television movies and guest appearances in TV shows. In 1994, Wilder starred in the NBC sitcom Something WilderThe show received poor reviews and lasted only one season. He went back to the small screen on 1999, appearing in three television movies, one of which was the NBC adaptation of Alice in Wonderland. The other two were mystery movies for A&E television in which Wilder played Larry “Cash” Carter, a theater director turned private eye (those two films were also co-written by Wilder). Three years later, Wilder guest-starred on two episodes of NBC’s Will & Grace, winning a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actor on a Comedy Series for his role as Mr. Stein, Will Truman’s boss.[Personal lifeRelationships Wilder met his first wife, Mary Mercier, while studying at the HB Studio in New York. Although the couple had not been together long, they married on July 22, 1960. They spent long periods of time apart, eventually divorcing in 1965. A few months later, Wilder began dating Mary Joan Schutz, a friend of his sister. Schutz had a daughter, Katharine, from a previous marriage. When Katharine started calling Wilder “Dad,” he decided to do what he felt was “the right thing to do,” marrying Schutz on October 27, 1967 and adopting Katharine that same year. Schutz and Wilder separated after seven years of marriage, with Schutz thinking that Wilder was having an affair with his Young Frankenstein co-star, Madeline Kahn. After the divorce, he briefly dated his other Frankenstein co-star, Teri Garr. Wilder would eventually become estranged from Katharine. Wilder met Saturday Night Live actress Gilda Radner on August 13, 1981, while filming Sidney Poitier’s Hanky Panky. Radner was married to G.E. Smith at the time, but she and Wilder became inseparable friends. When the filming of Hanky ended, Wilder found himself missing Radner, so he called her. The relationship grew, and Radner eventually divorced Smith in 1982. She moved in with Wilder, and the couple married on September 14, 1984, in the south of France. The couple wanted to have children, but Radner suffered miscarriages, and doctors could not determine the problem. After experiencing severe fatigue and suffering from pain in her upper legs on the set of Haunted Honeymoon, Radner sought medical treatment. Following a number of false diagnoses, it was determined that she had ovarian cancer in October 1986. Over the next year and a half, Radner battled the disease, receiving chemotherapy and radiotherapy treatments. The disease finally went into remission, giving the pair a respite, during which time Wilder filmed See No Evil, Hear No Evil. By May 1989, the cancer returned and had metastasized. Radner died on May 20, 1989. Wilder later stated, “I always thought she’d pull through.” Following Radner’s death, Wilder became active in promoting cancer awareness and treatment, helping found the Gilda Radner Ovarian Cancer Detection Center in Los Angeles and co-founding Gilda’s Club, a support group to raise awareness of cancer that began in New York City and now has branches throughout the country. Semi-retirement and authorshipWhile preparing for his role as a deaf man in See No Evil, Hear No Evil, Wilder met Karen Webb (née Boyer), who was a clinical supervisor for the New York League for the Hard of Hearing. Webb coached him in lip reading. Following Gilda Radner’s death, Wilder and Webb reconnected, and on September 8, 1991, they married. The two live in Stamford, Connecticut, in the 1734 Colonial home that he shared with Radner. The Wilders spend most of their time painting watercolors, writing, and participating in charitable efforts. In October 2001, he read from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory as part of a special benefit performance held at the Westport Country Playhouse to aid families affected by the September 11 attacks.[14][41] Also in 2001, Wilder donated a collection of scripts, correspondences, documents, photographs, and clipped images to the University of Iowa Libraries. In 1998, Wilder collaborated on the book Gilda’s Disease with oncologist Steven Piver, sharing personal experiences of Radner’s struggle with ovarian cancer. Wilder himself was hospitalized with non-Hodgkin lymphoma in 1999, but confirmed in March 2005 that the cancer was in complete remission following chemotherapy and a stem cell transplant. On March 1, 2005, Wilder released his highly personal memoir, Kiss Me Like a Stranger: My Search for Love and Art, an account of his life covering everything from his childhood up to Radner’s death. Two years later, in March 2007, Wilder released his first novel, My French Whore, which is set during World War I His second novel, The Woman Who Wouldn’t, was released in March 2008. In 2010, he released a collection of stories called What is This Thing Called Love?. In a 2008, Turner Classic Movies special Role Model: Gene Wilder, where Alec Baldwin interviewed Wilder about his career, Wilder said that he was basically retired from acting for good. “I don’t like show business, I realized,” he explained. “I like show, but I don’t like the business.”An unauthorized biography of Wilder entitled Gene Wilder: Funny and Sad by Brian Scott Mednick was published in December 2010 by BearManor Media.Martin Alan “Marty” Feldman (8 July 1934-2 December 1982) was an English comedy writer, comedian and actor who starred in a series of British television comedy shows, including At Last the 1948 Show, and Marty, which won two BAFTA awards and was the first Saturn Award winner for Best Supporting Actor for his role in Young rankenstein.Early lifeFeldman was born in the East End of London, the son of Jewish immigrants from Kiev He recalled his childhood as “solitary”. A BBC documentary also explained that an operation due to his Graves’ disease resulted in his eyes being more protruded, together with a squint (strabismus). Leaving school at 15, he worked at the Dreamland fun fair in Margate By the age of 20, he had decided to pursue a career as a comedian.CareerIn 1954, Feldman formed a writing partnership with Barry Took They wrote situation comedies such as The Army Game and Bootsie and Snudge for British television, and the BBC radio show Round the Horne, which starred Kenneth Horne and Kenneth Williams. This put Feldman and Took “in the front rank of comedy writers” (Denis Norden) The television sketch comedy series At Last the 1948 Show featured Feldman’s first screen performances. The other three performers – Graham Chapman, Tim Brooke-Taylor (later of The Goodies comedy trio) and John Cleese – needed a fourth and had Feldman in mind. In one sketch on 1 March 1967, Feldman’s character harassed a patient shop assistant (played by Cleese) for a series of fictitious books, achieving success with Ethel the Aardvark Goes Quantity Surveying. The sketch was revived as part of the Monty Python stage show and on Monty Python’s Contractual Obligation Album (both without Feldman).Feldman was co-author, along with Cleese, Chapman and Brooke-Taylor of the “Four Yorkshiremen” sketch, which was also written for At Last the 1948 Show The “Four Yorkshiremen” sketch was performed during Amnesty International concerts (by members of Monty Python — once including Rowan Atkinson in place of Python member Eric Idle), as well as during Monty Python Live at the Hollywood Bowl and other Monty Python shows and recordings. This association has led to the common misconception that the “Four Yorkshiremen” sketch was a Python sketch, with the origin and co-authorship by non-Python writers Marty Feldman and Tim Brooke-Taylor overlooked or forgottenFeldman was also script editor on The Frost Report with future members of Monty PythonHe co-wrote the much-repeated Class sketch with John Law, in which Cleese, Ronnie Barker and Ronnie Corbett faced the audience, with their descending order of height suggesting their relative social status as upper class (Cleese), middle class (Barker) and working class (Corbett) Following his At Last the 1948 Show, Feldman was given his own series on the BBC called Marty (1968); it featured Brooke-Taylor, John Junkin and Roland MacLeod, with Cleese as one of the writers. Feldman won two BAFTA awards. The second series in 1969 was renamed It’s Marty (the second title being retained for the DVD of the show); in 1971 he was signed to a series co-produced by ATV and ABC TV entitled The Marty Feldman Comedy Machine; this show lasted one season. In 1974, Dennis Main Wilson (producer for the UK television show Till Death Us Do Part) produced a short sketch series for Feldman on the BBC entitled Marty Back Together Again — a reference to reports about the star’s health. But this never captured the impact of the earlier series. The Marty series proved popular enough with an international audience (the first series won the Golden Rose Award at Montreux) to launch a film career. His first feature role was in 1970’s Every Home Should Have One. Feldman spent time in Soho jazz clubs He found a parallel between “riffing” in a comedy partnership and the improvisation of jazz.In 1971 Feldman gave evidence in favour of the defendants in the Oz trial. He would not swear on the Bible, choosing to affirmThroughout his testimony he was disrespectful to the judge after it was implied that he had no religion for not being Christian. Feldman’s performances on American television included The Dean Martin Show and Marty Feldman’s Comedy Machine. On film, he was Igor (pronounced “EYE-gore”) in Young Frankenstein where many lines were improvised. Gene Wilder says he had Feldman in mind when he wrote the part. At one point, Dr Frankenstein (Wilder) scolds Igor with the phrase, “Damn your eyes!” Feldman turns to the camera, points to his misaligned eyes, grins and says, “Too late!”Feldman met American comedy writer Alan Spencer on the set of Young Frankenstein when Spencer was a teenager. Spencer was a fan of Feldman as a writer and performer. Feldman offered Spencer guidance that led him to create the television show Sledge Hammer! He also made one LP, I Feel a Song Going Off (1969), re-released as The Crazy World of Marty Feldman. The songs were written by Dennis King, John Junkin and Bill Solly (a writer for Max Bygraves and The Two Ronnies). It was re-released as a CD in 2007.In 1976, Feldman ventured into Italian cinema, starring with Barbara Bouchet in 40 gradi all’ombra del lenzuolo (Sex with a Smile), a sex comedy. He appeared in The Adventure of Sherlock Holmes’ Smarter Brother and Mel Brooks’ Silent Movie, as well as directing and starring in The Last Remake of Beau Geste. He guest-starred in the “Arabian Nights” episode of The Muppet Show with several Sesame Street characters.Personal lifeFeldman was married to Lauretta Sullivan (29 September 1935 – 12 March 2010) from January 1959 until his death in 1982. She died at age 74 in Studio City, California, according to a story published in the Los Angeles Times on April 15, 2010.Marty Feldman had a younger sister, Pamela Contrary to certain rumours he was not related to actress Fenella Fielding (née Feldman).DeathFeldman died from a heart attack in a hotel room in Mexico City on 2 December 1982, during the making of the film Yellowbeard. On the DVD commentary of Young Frankenstein, Mel Brooks cites factors that may have contributed to Feldman’s death:He smoked sometimes six packs of cigarettes daily, drank copious amounts of coffee, and ate a diet rich in eggs and dairy products. Michael Mileham, who made the behind-the-scenes movie Group Madness about the making of Yellowbeard, said he and Feldman swam to an island where a local was selling lobster and coconuts. Mileham and Feldman used the same knife on their lobsters. Mileham claimed he got shellfish poisoning the next day, and theorised that as Feldman had used the same knife he also could have been poisoned.In an anecdotal story, cartoonist Sergio Aragonés was also filming nearby in a different production. While dressed for his role as an armed policeman, Aragonés abruptly encountered Feldman and, in introducing himself, frightened Feldman. Aragonés speculates that this possibly induced Feldman’s fatal heart attack later in the evening. Aragonés has recounted the story with the punchline, “I killed Marty Feldman”. The story was converted into a strip in Aragonés’s issue of DC Comics’ Solo. He is buried in Forest Lawn – Hollywood Hills Cemetery near his idol, Buster Keaton, in the Garden of Heritage.Peter Lawrence Boyle, Jr. (October 18, 1935 – December 12, 2006) was an American actor, best known for his role as Frank Barone on the sitcom Everybody Loves Raymond, and as a comical monster in Mel Brooks’ film spoof Young Frankenstein (1974).Boyle, who won an Emmy Award in 1996 for a guest-starring role on the science-fiction drama The X-Files, won praise in both comedic and dramatic parts following his breakthrough performance in the 1970 film Joe.Early life and careerBoyle was born in Norristown, Pennsylvania of Irish descent, the son of Alice and Peter Boyle Sr. He moved with his family to nearby Philadelphia. His father was a Philadelphia TV personality from 1951–1963 who, among many other things, played the Western-show host Chuck Wagon Pete, and hosted the afterschool children’s program Uncle Pete Presents the Little Rascals, which showed vintage Little Rascals, Three Stooges comedy shorts and Popeye cartoons. He was raised Roman Catholic and he attended St. Francis de Sales School and West Philadelphia Catholic High School For Boys. After high school Boyle spent three years as a novice of the Institute of the Brothers of the Christian Schools, or De La Salle Brothers, a Catholic teaching order. He lived in a house of studies with other novices and earned a BA from La Salle University in Philadelphia in 1957, but left the order because he did not feel called to religious life. While in Philadelphia, he worked as a cameraman on the cooking show Television Kitchen, hosted by Florence Hanford. After graduating from Officer Candidate School in 1959, he was commissioned as an ensign in the United States Navy, but his military career was shortened by a nervous breakdown.[ In New York City, Boyle studied with acting coach Uta Hagen while working as a postal clerk and a maitre d’. He went on to play Murray the cop in a touring company of Neil Simon’s The Odd Couple, leaving the tour in Chicago, Illinois and joining The Second City improv comedy ensemble there. He had a brief scene as the manager of an indoor shooting range in the critically acclaimed 1969 film Medium Cool, filmed in Chicago.Screen and theaterBoyle gained acclaim for his first starring role, playing the title character, a bigoted New York City factory worker, in the 1970 movie Joe. The film’s release was surrounded by controversy over its violence and language. It was during this time that Boyle became close friends with actress Jane Fonda, and with her he participated in many protests against the Vietnam War. After seeing people cheer at his role in Joe, Boyle refused the lead role in The French Connection (1971), as well as other movie and TV roles that he believed glamorized violence. His next major role was as the campaign manager for a U.S. Senate candidate (Robert Redford) in The Candidate (1972). He also played an Irish mobster opposite Robert Mitchum in The Friends of Eddie Coyle (1973).Boyle had another hit role as Frankenstein’s monster in the 1974 Mel Brooks comedy Young Frankenstein, in which, in an homage to King Kong, the monster is placed onstage in top hat and tails, grunt-singing and dancing to the song “Puttin’ on the Ritz”. Boyle said at the time, “The Frankenstein monster I play is a baby. He’s big and ugly and scary, but he’s just been born, remember, and it’s been traumatic, and to him the whole world is a brand new alien environment. That’s how I’m playing it”.Boyle met his wife, Loraine Alterman, on the set of Young Frankenstein while she was there as a reporter for Rolling Stone. He was still in his Frankenstein makeup when he asked her for a date. Through Alterman and her friend Yoko Ono, Boyle became friends with John Lennon, who was the best man at Boyle and Alterman’s 1977 wedding. Boyle and his wife had two daughters, Lucy and Amy.Boyle received his first Emmy nomination for his acclaimed dramatic performance in the 1977 television film Tail Gunner Joe, in which he played Senator Joseph McCarthy. Yet he was more often cast as a character actor than as a leading man. His roles include the philosophical cab driver “Wizard” in Martin Scorsese’s Taxi Driver (1976), starring Robert De Niro; the private detective hired in Hardcore (1979); the attorney of gonzo journalist Hunter S. Thompson (played by Bill Murray) in Where the Buffalo Roam (1980); a corrupt space mining-facility boss in the science-fiction film Outland (1981), opposite Sean Connery; Boatswain Moon in the 1983 pirate comedy Yellowbeard, also starring Cheech and Chong, Madeline Kahn, and members of the comedy troupe Monty Python’s Flying Circus; a psychiatric patient who belts out a Ray Charles song in the comedy The Dream Team (1989), starring Michael Keaton; a boss of unscrupulous corporation in the sci-fi Solar Crisis (1990) along Charlton Heston and Jack Palance; the title character’s cab driver in The Shadow (1994), starring Alec Baldwin; the father of Sandra Bullock’s fiancee in While You Were Sleeping (1995); the corporate raider out to buy Eddie Murphy’s medical partnership in Dr. Dolittle (1998); the hateful father of Billy Bob Thornton’s prison-guard character in Monster’s Ball (2001); Muta in The Cat Returns (2002); and Old Man Wickles in the comedy Scooby Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed (2004). In cameo roles, he can be seen as a police captain in Malcolm X (1992), and as a drawbridge operator in Porky’s Revenge (1985). In 1992, he starred in Alex Cox’s Death and the Compass, an adaptation of Jorge Luis Borges’ La Muerte y la Brujula. However, the film was not released until 1996.His New York theater work included playing a comedian who is the object of The Roast, a 1980 Broadway play directed by Carl Reiner. Also in 1980 he co-starred with Tommy Lee Jones in an Off Broadway production of playwright Sam Shepard’s acclaimed True West. Two years later, Boyle played the head of a dysfunctional family in Joe Pintauro’s less well-received Snow Orchid, at the Circle Repertory. In 1986, Boyle played the title role of the acclaimed but short-lived TV series Joe Bash, created by Danny Arnold. The comedy-drama followed the life of a lonely, world-weary, and sometimes compromised New York City beat cop whose closest friend was a rostitute, played by actress DeLane Matthews. Later life and careerIn 1990, Boyle suffered a near-fatal stroke that rendered him completely speechless and immobile for six months. After recovering, he went on to win an Emmy Award in 1996 as Outstanding Guest Actor in a Drama Series for his appearance on The X-Files. In the episode, “Clyde Bruckman’s Final Repose”, he played an insurance salesman who can see selected things in the near future, particularly others’ deaths. Boyle also guest starred in two episodes as Bill Church in Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman. He appears in Sony Music’s unaired Roger Waters’ music video “Three Wishes” (1992) as a scruffy genie in a dirty coat and red scarf, who tries to tempt Waters at a desert diner. Boyle was perhaps most widely known for his role as the deadpan, cranky Frank Barone in the CBS television sitcom Everybody Loves Raymond, which aired from 1996 to 2005. The show was shot in Los Angeles, to which Boyle commuted from his New York City home. He was nominated for an Emmy seven times for this role, but never won (beaten out multiple times in the Supporting Actor category by his co-star Brad Garrett), though fellow co-stars Garrett, Ray Romano, Patricia Heaton, and Boyle’s TV wife Doris Roberts won at least one Emmy each for their performances.In 1999, he had a heart attackon the set of Everybody Loves Raymond. He soon regained his health and returned to the series. After the incident, Boyle was drawn back to his Catholic faith, and resumed attending Mass. In 2001, he appeared in the film Monster’s Ball as the bigoted father of Billy Bob Thornton’s character.Introduced by comedian Carlos Mencia as “the most honest man in show business”, Boyle made guest appearances on three episodes of the Comedy Central program Mind of Mencia — one of which was shown as a tribute in a segment made before Boyle’s death — in which he read hate mail, explained the “hidden meanings” behind bumper stickers, and occasionally told Mencia how he felt about him.Starting in late 2005, Boyle and former TV wife Doris Roberts appeared in TV commercials for the 75th anniversary of Alka-Seltzer, reprising the famous line, “I can’t believe I ate that whole thing!” Although this quote has entered into popular culture, it is often misquoted as, “…the whole thing.” Boyle had a role in all three of The Santa Clause films. In the original, he plays Scott Calvin’s boss. In the sequels, he plays Father Time.Death and legacyOn December 12, 2006, Boyle died in New York City at New York Presbyterian Hospital after suffering from multiple myeloma and heart disease. He was 71 years old. At the time of his death, Boyle had completed his role in the film All Roads Lead Home and was scheduled to appear in The Golden Boys. The end credits of The Santa Clause 3 and All Roads Lead Home include a dedication to his memory.Newspapers and magazines reported on Boyle’s death and reflected on his lifetime accomplishments, while numerous tribute pages and videos can be found on the Internet in commemoration of him and his career. The familiarity of Boyle’s grouchy but lovable character on Raymond could easily allow the audience to develop a seemingly intimate parasocial relationship with the actor. Since his death, fans have been quoted saying such remarks as “It was like we lost a family member ourselves”.Boyle’s death also had a tremendous effect on his Raymond co-stars, who worked alongside him for the entire nine seasons of the popular CBS sitcom. When asked to comment on Boyle’s death, his cast members had nothing but positive things to say. Ray Romano was personally affected by the loss, saying, “He gave me great advice, he always made me laugh, and the way he connected with everyone around him amazed me.” Boyle’s death also saddened Patricia Heaton who stated, “Peter was an incredible man who made all of us who had the privilege of working with him aspire to be better actors.”[On October 18, 2007, which would have been Boyle’s 72nd birthday, his friend Bruce Springsteen, during a Madison Square Garden concert with the E Street Band in New York, dedicated “Meeting Across the River”, segueing into “Jungleland”, in memory of Boyle, stating: “An old friend died a while back – we met him when we first came to New York City… Today would have been his birthday.” After he lost his battle to multiple myeloma in late 2006, Boyle’s wife Loraine Alterman Boyle established the Peter Boyle Memorial Fund in support of the International Myeloma Foundation. Boyle’s closest friends, family and co-stars have since gathered yearly for a comedy celebration fundraiser in Los Angeles. Acting as a tribute to Boyle, the annual event is hosted by Ray Romano and has included performances by many comedic veterans including Dana Carvey, Fred Willard, Richard Lewis, Kevin James, Jeff Garlin and Martin Short. Performances typically revolve around Boyle’s life, recalling favorite and hysterical moments with the late actor. The comedy celebration has been noted as the most successful fundraiser in IMF history, as the first event held in 2007 raised over $550,000, while the following year over $600,000 was raised for the Peter Boyle Memorial Fund in support of the IMF’s research programs Terry Ann “Teri” Garr (born December 11, 1947) is an American film and television actress Early lifeGarr was born in Lakewood, Ohio in 1947. Her father, Eddie Garr (born Edward Leo Gonnoud), was a vaudeville performer, comedian and actor whose career peaked when he briefly took over the lead role in the Broadway drama Tobacco Road. Her mother, Phyllis Lind (née Emma Schmotzer), was a dancer, a Rockette, wardrobe mistress, and model. Her father was of Irish descent and her maternal grandparents were Austrian immigrants. CareerEarly in her career, she was credited, variously, as Terri Garr, Terry Garr, Teri Hope, or Terry Carr. Garr’s movie debut was as an extra in 1963’s A Swingin’ Affair. At the end of her senior year, Garr auditioned for the cast of the Los Angeles Road Company production of West Side Story, where she met one of the most important people in her early career David Winters, who became her friend, her dance teacher and her mentor and who cast her in many of his early movies and projects. Noticed by David Winters, Garr started out as a background dancer in uncredited roles for youth-oriented films and TV shows, which were choreographed by Winterslike Pajama Party, a beach party film, the T.A.M.I. Show, Shindig!, Hullabaloo, Movin’ with Nancy (a Nancy Sinatra / Frank Sinatra Special), and nine Elvis Presley features (many of which were also choreographed by Winters including Presley’s most profitable film Viva Las Vegas). Teri Garr gave the following answer to a question in a magazine interview about how she landed the job in a Presley film: “One of the dancers in the road show of West Side Story, (David Winters) started to choreograph movies and whatever job he got, I was one of the girls he’d hire. So he was chosen to do Viva Las Vegas. That was my first movie.” Her first speaking role in a motion picture was a one-line appearance as a damsel in distress in the 1968 Monkees film Head written by Jack Nicholson. In 1974, she got her first significant motion-picture role in Francis Ford Coppola’s critically acclaimed film The Conversation. Her career breakthrough came in Mel Brooks comedy Young Frankenstein (1974) as Inga. She went on to appear in a string of highly successful films, often playing a housewife. Her most popular films include Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977), Oh, God! (1977), The Black Stallion (1979), One From The Heart (1982), Mr. Mom (1983) and After Hours (1985). In 1982, she was nominated for an Academy Award for her supporting role as Dustin Hoffman’s actress friend in Tootsie.Since the late 1960s, she has also appeared frequently on television. She, along with friend Toni Basil, began as a go-go dancer on several musical variety shows such as Shindig! and Hullabaloo. In 1967, Garr made two appearances on Batman and one appearance on The Andy Griffith Show. In 1968, she was in two episodes of It Takes a Thief and appeared as Roberta Lincoln, secretary for Gary Seven in the Star Trek: The Original Series episode “Assignment: Earth”, which was intended to be a backdoor pilot episode for a spinoff TV series of the same name in which she would co-star opposite Robert Lansing, who played Seven, though the proposed new series did not sell. In the early 1970s, she was a regular cast member on The Sonny and Cher Comedy Hour dancing and acting in comedy sketches. She also had a recurring role as a ditzy policewoman on McCloud, and appeared on M*A*S*H, The Bob Newhart Show, and Barnaby Jones. She hosted Saturday Night Live in 1980, 1983, and 1985 and was a frequent visitor on The Tonight Show starring Johnny Carson. As a recurring guest on Late Night with David Letterman, she was renowned for her unscripted banter with personal friend David Letterman, who once goaded her into showering in his office while the camera rolled. She landed a role as recurring character Phoebe Abbott in Friends, playing the estranged birth mother of Phoebe Buffay (Lisa Kudrow).Personal lifeIn October 2002, Garr publicly confirmed that she was battling multiple sclerosis. After years of uncertainty and secrecy surrounding her diagnosis, Garr explained her reasons for deciding to go public: “I’m telling my story for the first time, so I can help people. I can help people know they aren’t alone, and tell them there are reasons to be optimistic because today treatment options are available”. In recent interviews, she has commented that she first started noticing symptoms while in New York filming Tootsie. For the next few years, as acting jobs brought her to various locations around the world, she continued to see different doctors in different cities, until she finally found a doctor who correctly diagnosed her as having MS.Since Garr announced that she has MS, she has become a leading advocate in raising awareness for the condition and the latest treatments for it. She is a National Ambassador for the National Multiple Sclerosis Society and National Chair for the Society’s Women Against MS program (WAMS). In November 2005, Garr was honored as the society’s Ambassador of the Year. This honor had been given only four times since the society was founded.On December 21, 2006, she suffered a brain aneurysm in her home. Her 13-year-old daughter called 911 when she could not wake her mother up. After therapy to regain her motor skills and speech, she appeared on Late Show with David Letterman on June 19, 2008, without the need of a wheelchair. She was on the show to promote Expired, a 2007 film in which she played a set of twinsMadeline Kahn (September 29, 1942 – December 3, 1999) was an American actress. Kahn was known primarily for her comic roles in films such as Paper Moon, Young Frankenstein, Blazing Saddles, What’s Up, Doc?, and Clue.Early lifeKahn was born Madeline Gail Wolfson in Boston, the daughter of Paula Kahn and Bernard B. Wolfson, who was a garment manufacturer. She was raised in a non-observant Jewish family. Her parents divorced when Kahn was two, and she and her mother moved to New York City. Several years later her parents remarried others and gave Kahn two half-siblings: Jeffrey (from her mother) and Robyn (from her father).In 1948, Kahn was sent to a progressive boarding school in Pennsylvania and stayed there until 1952. During that time, her mother pursued her acting dream. Kahn soon began acting herself and performed in a number of school productions. In 1960, she graduated from Martin Van Buren High School in Queens, where she earned a drama scholarship to Hofstra University on Long Island. At Hofstra, she studied drama, music, and speech therapy. After changing her major a number of times, Kahn graduated from Hofstra in 1964 with a degree in speech therapy. She was a member of a local sorority on campus, Delta Chi Delta.CareerKahn began auditioning for professional acting roles shortly after her graduation from Hofstra; on the side, she briefly taught public school in Levittown, New York. Just before adopting the professional name Madeline Kahn (Kahn was her mother’s maiden name), she made her stage debut as a chorus girl in a revival of Kiss Me, Kate, which led her to join Actors’ Equity. Her part in the flop How Now, Dow Jones was written out before the 1967 show reached Broadway, as was her role as Miss Whipple in the original production of Promises, Promises. She earned her first break on Broadway with New Faces of 1968. That same year, she performed her first professional lead in a special concert performance of the operetta Candide in honor of Leonard Bernstein’s 50th birthday. In 1969, she appeared Off Broadway in the musical Promenade. She appeared in two Broadway musicals in the 1970s: a featured role in Richard Rodgers’ 1970 Noah’s Ark-themed show Two by Two (her silly waltz “The Golden Ram,” capped by a high C, can be heard on the show’s cast album) and a leading lady turn as Lily Garland in 1978’s On the Twentieth Century. She left (or was fired from) the latter show early in its run, yielding the role to her understudy, Judy Kaye, whose career it launched. She also starred in a 1977 Town Hall revival of She Loves Me (opposite Barry Bostwick and original London cast member Rita Moreno).Kahn’s film debut was in the 1968 short De Düva (The Dove). Her feature debut was as Ryan O’Neal’s hysterical fiancée in Peter Bogdanovich’s screwball comedy What’s Up, Doc? (1972) starring Barbra Streisand. Her film career continued with Paper Moon (1973), for which she was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. Kahn was cast in the role of Agnes Gooch in the 1974 film Mame, but star Lucille Ball fired Kahn due to artistic differences. (Note: several of Ball’s biographies note that Kahn was eager to be released from the role so that she could join the cast of Blazing Saddles, a film about to go into production; whether Kahn was fired or left Mame under mutual agreement is undetermined. However, Kahn stated in a 1996 Charlie Rose interview that she had indeed been fired from Mame. )A close succession of Kahn comedies — Blazing Saddles (1974), Young Frankenstein (1974), and High Anxiety (1977) — were all directed by Mel Brooks, who many Hollywood observers claimed was able to bring out the best of Kahn’s comic talents. Their last collaboration was 1981’s History of the World, Part I. For Blazing Saddles, she was again nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. In the April 2006 issue of Premiere magazine, her performance as Lili von Shtupp in Saddles was selected as #74 on its list of the 100 greatest performances of all time. In 1978, Kahn’s comic screen persona reached another peak with Neil Simon’s The Cheap Detective (1978), a spoof of both Casablanca and The Maltese Falcon, directed by Robert Moore. In the film she befuddles Peter Falk’s gumshoe with an array of fake identities.Kahn’s roles were primarily comedic rather than dramatic, though the 1970s found her originating roles in two plays that had both elements: 1974’s In the Boom Boom Room and 1977’s Marco Polo Sings a Solo. After her success in Brooks’ films, she played in a number of less successful films in the 1980s (perhaps most memorably as Mrs. White in the 1985 film Clue). She also performed in the movie The Adventure of Sherlock Holmes’ Smarter Brother (1975) opposite Gene Wilder, the animation film My Little Pony: The Movie (1986), the holiday farce Mixed Nuts (1994) and a cameo in 1978’s The Muppet Movie.In 1983, she starred in her own short-lived TV sitcom, Oh Madeline, which ended after only one season due to poor ratings. In 1986 she starred in ABC Comedy Factory’s pilot episode of Chameleon, which never aired on the fall schedule; it co-starred Nina Foch. In 1987, Kahn won a Daytime Emmy award for her performance in the ABC Afterschool Special, Wanted: The Perfect Guy.Late in her career, Kahn returned to the stage, first in Judy Holliday’s role in a 1989 revival of Born Yesterday, then as Dr. Gorgeous in Wendy Wasserstein’s 1993 play The Sisters Rosensweig, a role that earned her a Tony Award. She played the corrupt mayor (Angela Lansbury’s role) in a concert performance of Anyone Can Whistle that was released on CD. She also continued to appear in movies.In the early 1990s, Kahn recorded a voice for the animated movie The Magic 7. Her most notable role at that time was on the sitcom Cosby (1996–2000) as Pauline, the eccentric neighbor. She also voiced Gypsy the moth in A Bug’s Life (1998). Kahn received some of the best reviews of her career for her Chekhovian turn in the 1999 independent movie Judy Berlin, her final film.Illness and deathMadeline Kahn was diagnosed with ovarian cancer in early 1999. She underwent treatment and continued to work, continuing her role on Cosby. Kahn married her long-time companion, John Hansbury, in October 1999 However, the disease progressed very rapidly and she died December 3, 1999 in New York City. She was 57 years old. In Central Park, there is a bench erected by her husband and her brother, dedicated in her memory.