Friday, April 02, 2010
A reverie, shared by the incomparable Mr. Wilder:
“Do you remember my telling you earlier about that rooming house I lived in when I first was trying to get into the movies in Berlin? Well, next to my room was the can, and in it was a toilet that was on the blink. The water kept running all night long. I would lie there and listen to it, and since I was young and romantic, I’d imagine it was a beautiful waterfall — just to get my mind off the monotony of it and the thought of its being a can.
“Now we dissolve to 25 years later, and I am finally rich enough to take a cure at Bad Gastein, the Austrian spa, where there is the most beautiful waterfall in the whole world. There I am in bed, listening to the waterfall. And after all I have been through, all the trouble and all the money I’ve made, all the awards and everything else, there I am in that resort, and all I can think of is that goddamned toilet.
“That, like the man says, is the story of my life.”(Playboy, June 1, 1963, via Shooting Down Pictures)
