Mel Brooks Nearly Convinced John Wayne to Star in ‘Blazing Saddles’
While taking a break from producing the upcoming Spaceballs sequel that somehow exists, this past weekend Mel Brooks presented a special screening of Blazing Saddles in L.A. to celebrate the film’s 50th anniversary. Which might be the best possible way to view Blazing Saddles, other than on horseback in 1974.
Brooks was, according to IndieWire, full of great stories about the making of the film, as one would expect. For example, he described how the head of Warner Bros. once had him dragged by the nape of the neck into an office, at which point he was thrown a legal pad and a Sharpie and told, “Write: No hitting an old lady — out. No hitting a horse — out. No farting — out.”
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So Brooks promptly “crumpled up his notes” and “threw (them) in the waste basket,” reasoning, “Why listen to anything? I would’ve had an 11-minute movie.”
He also informed the audience that his character, the villainous Governor William J. Le Petomane, got his name because “Le Petomane is a French word for farting,” and that when he won his Oscar for Best Screenplay for The Producers, he had nothing prepared because he was up against Stanley Kubrick, who was nominated for 2001: A Space Odyssey and The Battle of Algiers’ Gillo Pontecorvo.
“I said, ‘There’s no chance of my winning, so just go there and wear my tuxedo and enjoy the night,’” Brooks explained. “But when it came to Original Screenplay, Frank Sinatra and Don Rickles, they called, ‘Mel Brooks.’ I was petrified. I didn’t have a speech.”
But perhaps one of the best stories of the night involved the Duke — not some inbred British royal, but John Wayne.
Brooks first thought of the legendary cowboy actor for Blazing Saddles’ the Waco Kid. “I wanted authenticity. I wanted the Waco Kid to actually have been a Western movie actor, so that he would lend a kind of authentic character to the movie,” Brooks told the crowd.
By chance, Brooks spotted Wayne at the cafe in the Warner Bros. lot, just four tables away from his. “So I walked over and I said, ‘Mr. Wayne.’ I made a movie called Blazing Saddles,” Brooks recalled, “It’s a comedy, but it has a lot of heart. There’s a great part in it that I wish you would play.’ He said, ‘Okay. You know what? I know you. I saw The Producers, and I laughed my head off. You are a very funny guy. I’d love to read it.’”
After Brooks obtained a copy of his script — by frantically screaming “Get me a script! Get me a script! Get me a script!” — he gave it to Wayne, who agreed to meet him in the same exact spot in 24 hours’ time. When Brooks and Wayne finally reconnected, the actor told him, “I laughed my ass off, but I couldn’t make it. It’s too dirty.’” The part was later cast with another legit Western actor, Gig Young, who later had to be replaced by Gene Wilder.
Of course, had noted racist John Wayne gotten the part, Blazing Saddles probably would have required an even lengthier contextual preamble on TV.
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