Mel brooks interview blazing saddles

Mel Brooks seems to never tire of telling the tale about Madeline Kahn’s audition for the role of German saloon chanteuse/seductress-for-hire Lili Von Shtupp in his film Blazing Saddles.

With minimal prompting, he tells it again one recent day.

“She didn’t really understand. I said, 'Madeline, would you raise your skirt? I want to see your legs.’ And she said, ‘Oh, it’s one of those auditions,’” Brooks says on the phone.

Mel brooks interview blazing saddles

Mel brooks interview blazing saddles

Mel brooks interview blazing saddles youtube

Mel brooks interview blazing saddles scene

Mel brooks interview blazing saddles movie

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“I said, ‘No, no. You got me all wrong. We’re doing a takeoff of Western movies and one of the big ones is Destry Rides Again, starring Marlene Dietrich. And [in that movie] she kept straddling a chair with her beautiful netted black stockings and I gotta have good-looking legs.’ So, she said, ‘OK.’ She raised her skirt.

She straddled a chair and showed me her legs. I said, ‘Oh, my God. You’re beautiful.’”

Brooks pauses half a beat, before adding a joke about what later dawned on him and that he now do