Page 22 - The Jewish Voice - October '24

Page 22, The Jewish Voice

Arts & Entertainment from page 20 Adams’s decision to turn Robbins over to Britain—where he from those films was shattered when I realized that he was
was executed by hanging without a trial—Adams’s Federalist actually quite handsome in person, his eyes a piercing blue.)
preferred reading Party’s defense of his decision, and the consequences of Having enjoyed his memoir, when I noted in late August
tastes I was surprised Jefferson’s Republican Party’s national electoral campaign the release of this documentary of his life on Netflix, I was
never to have focused on driving the public’s anger, form the major part of this drawn to it immediately and, sure enough, amid the many
heard of the very compelling story. laughs inspired by brief clips of several of these films I
significant event Eventually—and critical in light of today’s political climate shed a tear or two as well. Despite all the wonderful humor
that is the pivotal and immigration crisis—the American people eventually decided that was his gift to us, for Gene Wilder himself all of life’s
subject of this book: that, whether or not Jonathan Robbins (or Thomas Nash, if that success was nothing to laugh at in the end. With all his
the mutiny aboard was his real name) was in fact an American citizen, anyone fleeing comedic genius, he died on August 29th, 2016 at the age
HMS Hermione. from oppression should be able to find sanctuary in the United of 83 as the result of complications from Alzheimer’s.
Nor, shockingly, was it ever mentioned in any class, even through States and not have to fear being turned away. It is to this day at Interestingly, although one of the most appealing aspects
college. the heart of our nation’s self-image, symbolized by the Statue of this documentary is the fact that Wilder himself narrates the
At the time the mutiny took place—after the United States of Liberty in New York Harbor and the inscription on her base story of his childhood and start in show business. Yet the actual
had already won the Revolutionary War several years earlier addressed to “the huddled masses yearning to be free.” production of the film did not begin until years after Wilder’s
and declared itself an independent nation—one of the most This is the story of how and when that all started. I loved death. It turns out the narration used in the documentary was
objectionable policies of the British crown and its navy was the every word of it. picked up from the one Wilder had made for the audiobook
practice of “impressment”: the stopping and boarding of other version of his 2005 memoir, Kiss Me Like a Stranger, and
nations’ vessels, capturing members of their crews and forcing Film Review: Remembering works seamlessly here together with the film’s scenes of
them to sail and work as seamen on British ships, most likely Wilder’s growing-up years in a middle-class Milwaukee Jewish
never to see their families again. Gene Wilder: A Documentary family and his first big break when Mel Brooks’s wife, Anne
Such was the case of many on the Hermione’s crew as it sailed Bancroft, tells her husband she suggests the young Wilder be
near the island of Puerto Rico on that September day in 1797. By Nils A. Shapiro hired for a role in her Broadway play.
Adding to what was already a tinder box of a situation was the fact Almost 20 years ago Gene Wilder had been born with the last name of Silberman.
that this ship’s captain, Admiral Hugh Pigot, was a disciplinarian I read, and thoroughly As a young boy he was told by his father that his mother
so stern that whipping and other punishments for minor crew enjoyed, Kiss Me Like had a serious heart condition, could not bear any stress, and
offenses became unbearable and sparked the bloody insurrection a Stranger: My Search that it was important for the boy to try instead to make his
that ended in the death of the captain and other officers. for Love and Art, the mother laugh as much as possible. That was the moment and
One of the main leaders of the mutiny was a man whose memoir written by actor, motivation that set the boy on his life path. As he later relates,
name throughout this book varies between Thomas Nash (if writer and director Gene “I didn’t think the name Silberman seemed right for the job.
he was actually Irish) and Jonathan Robbins, depending upon Wilder, who in those I wanted to be wilder!” And that is how the rest of the world
whether his claim to have been an American from Connecticut pages came across as came to know and love him.
was true or not. one of the sweetest, Among those who appear in this film to discuss the Gene
Eventually, after the mutiny Robbins made his way to gentlest and just plain Wilder they knew are his widow, Karen Wilder, Mel Brooks,
the U.S. and was tracked down by the British government, nicest human beings Alan Alda, Carol Kane, Harry Connick Jr., Dick Cavett,
which demanded that President John Adams turn over the ever to have graced the producer Mike Medavoy and Ben Mankiewicz, among others.
“mutineer and murderer” to Britain for punishment. It was American theater and screen. It is all here, in this documentary: his loves—which
awkward timing, for Adams was then in the process of Like millions of others I had for many years enjoyed included an earlier marriage to the Saturday Night Live
ratifying an economic trade treaty with Britain that had just his performances as a vulnerable, zany, hilarious comedian comedienne Gilda Radner, and tragic loss of her to cancer—
been negotiated. in such films as: Young Frankenstein; Blazing Saddles; and his extraordinary successes as an actor, writer and director.
Adams had to weigh the success of the treaty against the The Producers; The Woman in Red; The Frisco Kid; Willy Now this documentary of his life has won numerous awards,
American public’s anger about the British policy and actions Wonka and the Chocolate Factory and others–and paired among the most recent the Best Documentary Feature at the
of impressment on the high seas and the idea of turning over to with Richard Pryor in See No Evil, Hear No Evil and Silver 2024 Boca International Jewish Film Festival.
Britain a claimed American citizen who “had the right to regain Streak. (I should add that after I had moved from New York Remembering Gene Wilder. You won’t forget it for the
his freedom after having been the victim of such impressment” to Los Angeles in 1981 as a magazine publisher and ran many memories it will bring back to you.
and return home. into Wilder in a restaurant the physical image I had of him

“Whether buying or selling a home I will treat you

like I would treat my own mother.”

Andrew Levy

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