.jpg)
Not everyone in Hollywood was susceptible to his charm, though. Sometime around the late 1950s or early ‘60s, after he’d left the Sid Caesar Show, Mel Brooks was in Hollywood writing a movie. The building he was working in happened to be across the street from Grant’s production company, Granart. He couldn’t believe his luck. The Cary Grant was right next door, and he might even get a chance to see him in person.
One afternoon, Brooks bumped into the actor, and it turned out that the admiration ran both ways. “Mel Brooks,” the North By Northwest star said, “I’ve bought all your albums. You made me poor.” Brooks panicked but managed to strike up a conversation with him. Grant invited him to lunch, and the comedian thought he’d died and gone to heaven.
He remembered thinking it was odd that the actor only ate a hardboiled egg for lunch. They chatted, but the conversation was relegated to the type of small talk that most people – even extroverts – absolutely shudder just thinking about. They discussed their favourite colours (at least in Brooks’s memory). They discussed their favourite cars. For the record, Grant said Rolls Royce, which, if you think about it, was really never a question. They parted ways at their respective buildings, and Brooks assumed that was the end of it.
The next day, Grant called his office and invited him out for lunch again. The process repeated, right down to that single hardboiled egg. The same thing happened the next day. Finally, after a few days of these lunches, Brooks had had enough. The phone rang, and he told his secretary to tell the silver screen legend that he wasn’t there. “I had nothing more to say to him,” he said. “I said my favourite colour. I said my favourite car. There was nothing more to talk about.”
It would have been interesting to have heard Grant’s side of the story. Presumably, he would have had a different perspective on how that friendship blossomed and withered, and he might even have taken issue with the colour Brooks identified as his favourite (yellow). The comedian has told the story many times over the years, including several times on The Johnny Carson Show, but it’s much harder to find instances in which Grant talks about Brooks, positively or otherwise.
He was, it should be noted, not a complete dullard by most accounts. Anyone who has seen any of his movies will notice that he made romantic comedies look easy. He had perfect comic timing and never overplayed his hand as an actor. Even Clint Eastwood was a fan of his work. Sadly, however, it seems that his love for Brooks was unrequited...
He remembered thinking it was odd that the actor only ate a hardboiled egg for lunch. They chatted, but the conversation was relegated to the type of small talk that most people – even extroverts – absolutely shudder just thinking about. They discussed their favourite colours (at least in Brooks’s memory). They discussed their favourite cars. For the record, Grant said Rolls Royce, which, if you think about it, was really never a question. They parted ways at their respective buildings, and Brooks assumed that was the end of it.
The next day, Grant called his office and invited him out for lunch again. The process repeated, right down to that single hardboiled egg. The same thing happened the next day. Finally, after a few days of these lunches, Brooks had had enough. The phone rang, and he told his secretary to tell the silver screen legend that he wasn’t there. “I had nothing more to say to him,” he said. “I said my favourite colour. I said my favourite car. There was nothing more to talk about.”
It would have been interesting to have heard Grant’s side of the story. Presumably, he would have had a different perspective on how that friendship blossomed and withered, and he might even have taken issue with the colour Brooks identified as his favourite (yellow). The comedian has told the story many times over the years, including several times on The Johnny Carson Show, but it’s much harder to find instances in which Grant talks about Brooks, positively or otherwise.
He was, it should be noted, not a complete dullard by most accounts. Anyone who has seen any of his movies will notice that he made romantic comedies look easy. He had perfect comic timing and never overplayed his hand as an actor. Even Clint Eastwood was a fan of his work. Sadly, however, it seems that his love for Brooks was unrequited...
No comments:
Post a Comment