{"id":5192,"date":"2006-08-18T14:37:26","date_gmt":"2006-08-18T18:37:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=5192"},"modified":"2022-10-11T20:11:54","modified_gmt":"2022-10-12T00:11:54","slug":"an-ordinary-chap","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=5192","title":{"rendered":"Cary Grant to Gene Wilder: “You Take an Ordinary Chap Like You Or Me …”"},"content":{"rendered":"

Here’s a great anecdote from Kiss Me Like A Stranger: My Search for Love and Art<\/a>\"\"<\/i>, Gene Wilder’s autobiography – which I am REALLY enjoying.<\/p>\n

Silver Streak<\/i> was a big hit and was chosen as the Royal Performance for the queen of England and the royal family. I couldn’t go to London because I was filming The World’s Greatest Love<\/i> at the time, but a month later, when Prince Charles came to visit 20th-Century Fox, I was invited to attend a luncheon in his honor, to be held in the Fox commissary.<\/p>\n

As I was walking along the small street that leads from the office buildings to the commissary, a taxi pulled up and I heard someone shouting, “Oh, Mr. Wilder! … Mr. Wilder!” I turned and saw Cary Grant stepping out of the taxi. My heart started pounding a little faster, but I didn’t throw up this time, as I did when I met Simone Signoret. Cary Grant walked up to me, and after we shook hands, he said, “I was sailing on the QEII to England with my daughter, and on the second day out she said, ‘Dad-dy, I want to see the Silver Streak<\/i> — they’re showing it in the Entertainment Room.’ And I said, ‘No, darling, I don’t go to movies in public.’ And she said, ‘Dad-dy, Dad-dy, please – I want to see the Silver Streak<\/i>.’ So I took her to see your film. And then we saw it again the next day, and the next. Tell me something, will you?”<\/p>\n

“Of course.”<\/p>\n

“Was your film in any way inspired by North by Northwest<\/i>?”<\/p>\n

“Absolutely! Collin Higgins, who wrote the film, loved North by Northwest<\/i>. It was one of his favorites. I think he was trying to do his version of it.”<\/p>\n

“I thought so,” Mr. Grant said. “It never fails! You take an ordinary chap like you or me … (An ordinary chap like you or me? Didn’t he ever see a Cary Grant movie?<\/i>) … put him in trouble way over his head, and then watch him try to squirm out of it. Never fails!”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Yeah, you know.<\/p>\n

\n\"\"<\/p>\n

An ordinary chap.<\/p>\n

Mm-hm. Completely an “Everyman”.<\/p>\n

I actually heard Gene Wilder tell this story in person when he came to my school – and it was hysterical<\/i> because of his spot-on Cary Grant impression (the clipped syllables – “Dad-dy”, etc.) – also the look on Gene Wilder’s face after he said the words “like you or me” – Did Cary Grant just compare himself to me? I love it because part of what made Grant so amazing was his breezy (seeming) obliviousness to his own extra-ordinariness and the fact that he is not, and had never been, an “ordinary chap”!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Here’s a great anecdote from Kiss Me Like A Stranger: My Search for Love and Art, Gene Wilder’s autobiography – which I am REALLY enjoying. Silver Streak was a big hit and was chosen as the Royal Performance for the … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[7],"tags":[120,299],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5192"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5192"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5192\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":179504,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5192\/revisions\/179504"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5192"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5192"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5192"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}