Carol Kane says Gene Wilder gave her a "second chance" to act

Remembering Gene Wilder

At age 23, Carol Kane was fresh off a Best Actress Oscar nomination with no prospects on the horizon.

The phone hadnt rung for a year, she said. Then Gene Wilder called.

Out of the blue I got a call from Gene saying that hed like to meet me about The Worlds Greatest Lover," Kane said Monday. (It) was a comedy, which Id never done before. I have no idea why he thought I could do it, but he was a purist, he was kind of a poet and I met him and he asked me to do this movie with him.

Wilder, who died Sunday at 83, wrote, directed and starred in The Worlds Greatest Lover, about a baker (Wilder) and his wife (Kane) who move to Hollywood during the silent film era to enter a talent search for someone who might compete with Rudolph Valentino.

Remembering the genius that is Gene Wilder

Kane, 64, was only 25 by the time it wrapped, but getting that call from Wilder still felt to her like a second chance, she said.

She remembers Wilder being compassionate and inspirational as a director but serious and sensitive, too.

(He was) clearly one the great clowns the Chaplin of talkies in some ways, she said.

The Worlds Greatest Lover was not particularly well-received when it came out in 1977. Kane thinks it might not have gotten the right publicity.

It was a little under the radar unfortunately, she said. But I think that it holds up beautifully and that its lovely and funny and worth a second look.

Kane would stay in touch with Wilder on and off over the years, and she loved seeing the friendship of Wilder, Mel Brooks and Dom DeLuise (who also starred in The Worlds Greatest Lover as the studio mogul).

Wilder and Kane reunited in 2001 to perform in three classic one-act farces at the Westport Country Playhouse, but shell always remember the great significance of that phone call more than 40 years ago.

He was a gentle man and a gentleman a true, true artist, Kane said. We never saw anyone like him before or after.

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Source: http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/tv/carol-kane-credits-gene-wilder-giving-chance-article-1.2770775