I had lunch with Burton Gilliam today! What a really nice guy, who is basically just like the guy he plays in movies and on TV. He also looks like he hasn’t aged a day since Blazing Saddles. He apparently got his start in show business purely by accident - he was a fireman, like his dad, and decided to sign up for a class to teach him how to go around and give fire prevention lectures. The instructor of the class asked him if he ever thought about being a thespian and he answered no, he never even looked at another guy. Okay, old joke that I’m sure he uses often. He said he was offered $12,000 to play his part in Blazing Saddles (he wouldn’t do it for less than his annual pay as a fireman) and thought he would get thrown out for asking so much. He realized later that Mr. Brooks agreed too quickly, so he left a lot of money on the table there.
How did you come to meet him? He was very important to the plot in a small role in Paper Moon.
In the movie, Addie says that Trixie thinks Floyd is “better looking than Dick Powell.” But in the book, it was “Warner Baxter.”
That was his first movie role. He went to a casting call for extras in Dallas, mostly just hoping to catch a glimpse of Ryan O’Neal. Bogdanovich saw (and heard) him and asked him to read for the desk clerk role. He said he felt like that part was written just for him (the Blazing Saddles part actually was!) and he memorized and read it effortlessly. I think Madeline Kahn is the reason he got the part in Blazing Saddles.
A friend of mine is a Rotarian and Gilliam, who lives here locally, was invited to give a talk at their weekly luncheon. I got invited along since he knew I would be excited to meet Gilliam. My friend also writes a column for the local newspaper and wanted to be sure to sit next to him so that he could interview him for the column. We got there early grabbed a seat at his table and chatted.
“Tell 'em I said ‘OW!’ Gotcha.”
One of the funniest lines ever, made even better by Gilliam’s delivery. Did you get any interesting info about filming Blazing Saddles?