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BW: No. I graduated from the worst high school in Vienna. The
students were either retarded, or they were crazy geniuses,
absolutely. And the sad thing was that when I came to Vienna the
last time, three years ago, I told the newspaper people, "Please
write, anybody who went to school with me, please call me, I am at
the Bristol Hotel." Not one called me all day. Five years before that,
when I was in Vienna, I had a big lunch, and I told the concierge, "If
somebody asks for me, I'm not here. I'm going to bed." Fifteen
minutes later, the phone rings, and he says, "I'm very sorry, Mr.
Wilder, but there is a man who went to school with you — his name
is Martini." And I said, "Martini, of course! Martini! Have him
come up!" Then the guy comes there. Bowed forward. Bald-headed.
"Hello, Mr. Wilder." And I say, "Martini! Do you remember this
guy, this professor? . . . Do you remember these things!?" [Quietly:]
And he looks at me and says, "I think you are talking about my
father. He died four years ago." He had the son that looked like him.
So the guys are gone, you know.
CC: Did you have a sense that you would live a long life?
BW: Not at all. No. I've had so many crazy things happen in my life.
But it would not have ended by suicide. It would not have been
being caught with somebody's wife, or something like that. This is
not my style. I'm too clever for that. I wrote that too often.
CC: You think to yourself, I could be a dentist and live twenty years
longer.
CC: I had that thought when Tom Cruise signed on for Jerry
Maguire. My first thought was that if there were a serious problem, I
would be gone and he would still be there. I would wake up on a
desert island, someone would put a drink with an umbrella in my
hand, and I would say, "Excuse me, but wasn't I directing a movie
with Tom Cruise yesterday?" [We laugh.]