Gene Hackman Signed Up Over Tennis
Gene Wilder played tennis every Saturday with Gene Hackman, who was red-hot after his Best Actor Oscar win for 1971’s The French Connection. When Wilder told him about Young Frankenstein, Hackman asked for a role, saying, “I’m dying to do some comedy,” according to Brooks. Wilder had a small but perfect role in mind.
Hackman played a lonely old hermit, who was so unrecognizable under his beard that “nobody knew the blind man was Gene Hackman until they saw his name at the end of the credits.”
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