![]() On Monday morning, he was in the jail cell and Cleavon said, ‘Are we awake?' And he said, 'I don’t know. “And I told him and he said, ‘I’ll do it for you.’ And he got on a plane and he came out Sunday. “I was crying and Gene was my best friend,” he recalls. I said, ‘He ain’t quite recovered.’”īrooks called Gene Wilder, who’d played Leo Bloom in Brooks’ 1968 The Producers. ![]() “His agents and managers said, ‘Well, he’s a recovered alcoholic.’ And I called them back. “Of course, he was still very sick,” says Brooks of Young. “I turned to my assistant director and I said, ‘Wait a minute, did we sign on to direct The Exorcist? What’s going on?’ ![]() Are we black?’ He can’t believe there’s a black sheriff,” says Brooks, noting that after Little said his line, Young couldn’t get his line out, then began “spewing” green vomit. ![]() “The first scene, he’s hanging upside down in the jail, and Cleavon, as the sheriff, comes over and says, 'Are we awake?’ And he’s supposed to say, 'I don’t know. He sounded great.”īut when Young shot his first scene - in which the Waco Kid, recovering from a bender, wakes up in jail - it became apparent there were still problems. And though Young was known to struggle with alcohol, Brooks says, “I talked to him. For another central role - Jim, the “Waco Kid” - Brooks had hired actor Gig Young, an Oscar-winner for 1969’s They Shoot Horses, Don’t They? Brooks admired Young’s ability to do light comedy and serious drama.
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