Customer Reviews

Kiss Me Like A Stranger: My Search for Love and Art

5 star:		(33)
4 star:		(21)
3 star:		(8)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(6)

 

 

About a month ago, I heard Gene Wilder being interviewed about this book on NPR from a theater in Berkeley, and was fascinated. He had a pleasant way of speaking, said intelligent things, and much to my delight, every time the audience would titter politely in the wrong places to show how hip they were, would ask in a perplexed voice, "What's funny about that?" (Are you listening Garrison Keillor?)

I remembered Wilder from "Young Frankenstein," but other than that, knew little about him, including his marriage to Gilda Radner. This was an advantage, since I approached the book without preconceived expectations.

Having enjoyed the interview, I bought the audio CD version, and listened to it in the evening over several weeks while nursing a bad back. Audio books read by the author are usually a good buy, because the author adds meaning through pronunciation, timing, and inflection. Moreover, Wilder as an actor knows how to deliver his lines.

He has spent his life as an intelligent misfit, and most of the book is taken up with his efforts to adjust to an outside world that proved both friendly and hostile. Thus his use of the psychiatrist Margie as a foil. One reader review suggests that Margie is merely a "hackneyed and lame device." I disagree; it's clear to me that Wilder has undergone psychoanalysis throughout his adult life, and because he prefers women to men, I suspect that the model for Margie actually exists.

The best parts of the book are his descriptions of various movies he worked in and people he has known. He makes a good case for at least some of the people in that world being decent, while excoriating others. I found his descriptions of dealing with racial issues to be particularly thoughtful and moving.

As for other readers' criticisms:

1. The book is not sufficiently serious: Wilder's previous literary experience was writing screenplays, which tend to focus on visual and auditory images, and be lean on intellectual content. So it is with this book, which is why I recommend buying the audio CD version. Anyone who has read novels by Terry Southern (also a screen writer) will recognize this phenomenon.

2. He does not sugarcoat his relationship with Gilda Radner: Sorry folks, but successful actors make their livings pretending to be someone other than the person they really are, and so it appears to have been with Gilda.

Henry James once observed that the only test for a novel is whether the author achieves what he set out to do. Applying that test to this book, I think Wilder meets it. Perhaps most importantly, he at least tried to be honest, and to a large extent, succeeds.

"Be a clown! Be a clown" Comedian Gene Wilder did just that in such hit movies as "The Producers," "Young Frankenstein," "Blazing Saddles," and "Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory." We learn from his touchingly candid autobiography, "Kiss Me Like A Stranger," that there was not always a great deal of laughter in his private life.

As read by the author in the unmistakable Wilder voice, listeners learn of his third marriage to the sometimes volatile, always needy Gilda Radner, his time in psychoanalysis, the joys and pitfalls of working with the incomparable Mel Brooks, and more. His has been an extraordinary life, and he emerges as an extremely likable extraordinary man.

The title is a puzzlement not only to listeners but to Mr. Wilder himself as it came from Gilda Radner - he says he has no idea what it means. However, he does know what life experiences mean.

Leaving Wisconsin Mr. Wilder enrolled at the Actor's Studio where he met and appeared in a play with Anne Bancroft. But, it was her boyfriend, Mel Brooks, who was to have a marked effect upon his career by giving him that landmark role in "The Producers." Together they wrote "Young Frankenstein" - hollering at each other all the way.

In addition to the estimable Mr. Brooks listeners hear about movies made with the likes of Richard Pryor, Woody Allen, and Harrison Ford. And, of course, there is the illness and death of Gilda Radner due to ovarian cancer.

Through it all Mr. Wilder learned, lived, wept, and laughed. Treat yourself and listen to the story of this sweet, wise comic genius.

- Gail Cooke

If someone asked me to sum - up this book in one word, I'd say 'succinct'.

If a friend had given it to me as their autobiography and asked me for an opinion I'd tell them that it needed 'fleshing out'.

That's not to say it's a bad book - it really, really isn't! It's warm, funny, sad and an enjoyable read...but there are gaps: if you weren't a Gene Wilder fan, you'd have thought he'd made no films after 'Hear No Evil' as it's the last movie he mentions. Okay, as GW says, this isn't so much a biog as events in his life which have made an impact on his life (Serendipity?), but a better sense of 'history' would have been appreciated.

Now maybe I'm being a bit picky as I've been a fan of GW's since Young Frankenstein and would have preferred reading a 'proper' sutobiography with all his movies and recent TV work chronicled. I also have no sense of his family during this time: yes, we know how his marriage is failing, his adopted daughter angry...but they almost appear to be 'bit players' in the overall scheme of things. What did they think of his fame? How did they cope with that? What were THEY doing whilst GW made movies, etc.?

This work really ends with him getting over cancer and enjoying life with his current wife, Karen (nice Review Karen, BTW) and that's nice and warm and fuzzy...but it almost comes across as if his life has stopped somehow. And that's not true; even if you didn't know he'd recently worked in Theatre, you'd have seen Gene in Will & Grace, or his TV Movies, all of which garnered praise.

The writing style is easy to read and bounces along nicely, but there seems to me an underlying anger which was never really expressed in the words on the page, and oddly enough that sums up a lot of GW's life.

I only wish he'd told us more...

I read Gilda Radner's book, "It's Always Something" which she completed only weeks before she died. And so when I was recently taking a flight, I picked up Gene Wilder's book to read on the plane. Sadly, I DID need another book on the way back. This one won't take you cross country.

There are two camps in these reviews. People who blindly give this book 5 stars and say they love Gene Wilder. But they never actually tell us what they thought was so great about this book. WHY do they give it five stars?

The other group, generously giving this book 2 stars, comments on his narcissism, his unwillingness to feel needed by anyone in his life, his current wife's greatest asset being that she hangs poetry on her refrigerator reminding her she is on her own.

Here's the thing. Gilda Radner loved Gene Wilder unconditionally, even to the day she died. She loved every thing about him, even his insistence on pushing her away. She loved the way he smelled, his looks, his humor, his mind, his character. She loved him totally. Gene Wilder on the other hand, doesn't seem to have loved her at all. He seems at best to have tolerated her---and that not very well or consistently. In one chapter he describes not having had sex with Gilda for about 6 months, (because she had had a grapefruit sized tumor removed from her body, was undergoing chemotherapy and radiation!) and perhaps as a tribute to what he sees as his own nobility, comments that he didn't ask her to "relieve" him in other ways. He then goes on to describe how, as a result of his deprivation he was of course immediately attracted to the woman who became his fourth wife, when he saw her skirts swishing about her legs.

Gilda was sick in bed having chemotherapy, and he is having dinner in a new woman's apartent. And then, when Gilda dies, he discusses with his therapist whether it's too soon for him to get married again, because the tabloids might make him look like a selfish jerk (Because he IS one!).

Look, I am all in favor of celebrity memoirs. Their artistic and celebrated lives create narratives of experience that we don't normally have access to. I like to read the kinds of books that give insight into famous people and in the circles in which they work and live, and I especially enjoy one person's reactions to them. Shelley Winters' three part autobiography revealed so much about the theatre scene of New York in the 50's, so much about her roommate, Marilyn Monroe, and so much about "the method". I felt as though I learned something in reading those books.

Here I learned that a Gilda Radner was sadly mistaken in whom she chose to love, and maybe the best book to read would have been one from HER therapist. I'd like to understand how someone so consumed with love could have chosen someone so consumed with avoiding it. It's pretty easy to understand why Gene Wilder, one of the greatest narcissists ever, would have chosen Gildan Radner---America's sweetheart who adored HIM above all others. When I put this book down, I felt disgust.

I fully respect the opinions of those who do not have positive reviews of this book - everyone has the right to their opinion and evryone has different perspectives on things but I would like to make some comments on the book and to respond to some of the reviews I've read on here.

First, the fact that Mr. Wilder has chosen to reveal the misatkes he has made to the public and to his fans who are reading this book is something I respect a lot. How many stories about celebraties do we see in which most of what is told about them is how wonderful, kind, heroic, and good they are? More than we can count. Most of the ones we hear reveal very little of the mistakes the person has made - the big mistakes, that is. In response to the review on here that says that Mr. Wilder doesn't care whether or not we will find out how self - absorbed he is and that he seems to WANT us to find out......I say, Yes, I think he does want us to find out that he's not the perfect angel that we would like to see him as. I think he wants to be honest about the fact that, like the rest of us, he can be self - absorbed and make bad choices. I think some - not all - celebraties get sick of being portrayed as this wonderful person that can do no wrong. I, being human, was disappointed when I listened to the book on cd and found that he is not the saint that he is portrayed as....but then I had to think, "Wait a minute, neither am I the nice person that I am expected to be by those around me." And, like what has happned to me when those who had these expectations of me found out that I am not all nice and sweet, people are judging him and saying, "Boy, were we wrong about this guy". None of us are what we seem to others: judging Mr. Wilder for being honest about the bad choices he has made and not chosing to hide them (which is what many people would do) is like saying that we don't have any bad choices to admit to.

Something I noticed in the book is that when talking about his adopted daughter not having any communication with him, he said "my nephew let me know how serious MY problem with Katie was": he didn't say "My nephew let me know how serious KATIE'S problem was". He acknowledges that he has something to do with his adopted daughter not communicating with him. He calls it HIS problem with Katie: he doesn't call it HER problem, which would sound like she just has some kind of issue or that something is wrong with her. In his book, Mr. Wilder has absolutely nothing negative to say about his adopted daughter or her mother (his ex - wife) and he calles his ex - wife "a womderful woman" in his book.

Mr. Wilder's love for Gilda Radner was so evident to me in that while he was honest about the rocky parts of their relationship, he had so many good things to say about her (he said that she was generious, kind, that he loved being around her) and he expressed insight into why she could be difficult sometimes (he saw that she was afraid of her own flaws being seen by others). He was the one who was married to her: I think he has a right to tell his story from his persprctive (the truth about the way he experienced it) whether people like it or not/agree with it or not. He didn't bash Gilda: he told about both the positive and negative things he saw in her. He said, "We didn't get along and that's a fact. But we loved each other and that's a fact". We all have people we love dearly although they can be difficult and get on our nerves: why does Mr. Wilder have to be any different than the rest of us? I agree with the reviewer on here who said that actors spend their lives pretending to be someone else and that they sometiems need to be who they are and tell it like it is.

I don't think Gene Wilder is any more self - absorbed than the rest of us are. Listening to the cd gives a better picture of who he is than reading the book because you hear his tone of voice behind the words and the true meaning of his words. He seems to me to be very genuine, honest, and REAL. I think people could learn a lot from reading/listening to him talk about the successes as weel as the mistakes he has made and the struggles he has had to go through and overcome throughout his life. I know I have.

Gene Wilder is one weird cat.

I'm not sure if it was the attempted rape at military school - where he described in two sentences which most celebrities would write entire volumes about - but I was tipped off pretty early that this would not be the typical celebrity biography.

I don't know that I'd call this a 'good' book, but it's a good read. He keeps most of the gossip about his own personal life, and while some reviews have commented about his somewhat negative descriptions of Gilda Radner, I think it makes her appear as she probably was - highstrung, emotional, a step away from crazy - which made her funny.

The collection of very odd anecdotes about Radner and his other relationships make this an interesting account. He bounces around from story to story, without dwelling on any one thing for very long, which is the main flaw. It's not that I wanted a lot of gossip, but he could have spent a little more time delving into his relationships with Richard Pryor, or Mel Brooks, or anyone...but it's not that kind of book.

If you like Gene Wilder as an actor, and you wonder about the personality behind his quirky performances, then this book offers that. He played some pretty daffy characters on-screen, and that wasn't all an act.

I bought this book in anticipation of a signing Mr. Wilder was going to do. It's a quick read, and I managed to finish it in two days. I wouldn't say it is by any means perfect, but it offers good insights into an interesting persona. Don't expect much "this is what it was like to work on Willy Wonka" type passages, for they are sparse and only used to make other points. Wilder's intention is not to give an overview of his career, but to use that career to discuss some of the lessons he's learned along the way. The title means what it says: expect a good deal of exploration into what "love and art" mean to him.
I would have been happier with the book had he provided a bit more of the "art" aspect--ie, he's considered a great actor, so it would have been nice had he given some insights into technique. But, again, perhaps that was not the point. For those reviewers who seem to think that Wilder is an oversexed chauvinist--that does not show in any way throughout. From what I read in the book, and from what I saw when I finally met him (albeit briefly) at the signing, he's a nice, genuine person. Pick it up!

I have always loved Gene Wilder's work and have followed his career over the years. His memoir is entertaining and he is surprisingly honest about certain aspects of his private life, but I got the feeling that he was being selective in what he shared with the reader. There is an unauthorized Wilder biography being published around November of this year called "Gene Wilder: Funny and Sad" that supposedly is more analytical of Wilder's films and also reveals significant details about his personal life that he chose to omit from his own book. Wilder's book is good but I am waiting to read this other book which I feel will likely be more objective.

After reading this book, I still didn't feel I knew Gene Wilder any better than before. But I did think he had many anecdotes worth telling. I also felt strongly that he held a lot back - he seemed very full of anger and resentment at various points in the book, and he never really deals with several traumatic episodes early in life to the reader's satisfaction. Yet, it's still a compelling read and always captivates. A good autobiography, if not an illuminating one.

I don't pretend to know a lot about literature, but I do know something about people ...my take: This book is an honest expression of his thoughts on important events and people in his life, which one would expect to find in the biography section. Regardless of length, he has found a positive way to communicate his feelings on what he discovered to be important and how he became who he is today. I found it interesting and I have lent my copy to many friends.