As You Wish: Inconceivable Tales from the Making of The Princess Bride

by Cary Elwes

  After dinner, when everyone was about to go their separate ways, André asked if I wanted to go out for a nightcap. Why not? I thought. Who knew when we would get to see each other again, and I always enjoyed his company.

  So I joined him as he squeezed into the large chauffeured van he had and set off in search of . . . well, when you’re with André, you know it’s always going to be an adventure.

  ROB REINER

  I was really happy with what we had done because we achieved exactly what we set out to do. And I was also happy with the reaction. I mean, we had test screenings that were, like the cliché, “through the roof.” With something like 94 percent of viewers saying they would definitely recommend the movie. The thing that was frustrating for me is that Fox, who was releasing the film domestically, didn’t know how to market it. They had no idea what to do with it. They couldn’t cut a suitable trailer. They couldn’t get a one-sheet newspaper ad. So it was really frustrating.

  ANDY SCHEINMAN

  The movie wasn’t as successful from a commercial standpoint as it should have been. I think it’s a very soft title, especially if you don’t know what it’s about. And nobody knew. We couldn’t get three college kids in the whole country to see this movie when it first came out. College kids would say, “Well, it sounds like it’s for little kids.” Even little boys would go, “It’s girly and princesses and brides and all that stuff.” And then when we screened it at UCLA, the audience went crazy. Because, of course, the reality is that the movie is one of the more satirical and adult-sensibility films that kids happen to like, too.

  “I’ll take you to some of my old haunts,” he said, issuing some directions to the driver.

  We drove only a short distance before pulling up in front of the first bar, a perennial favorite of André’s: P. J. Clarke’s on Third Avenue. And, of course, the moment we walked in, the place fell silent. Every head in the room turned to watch as André bent low as he entered through the door.

  “It’s really not possible for you to make a subtle entrance, is it?” I asked.

  He smiled and replied, “Not always. But it’s okay. They know me here.”

  As we sat down at the bar, the bartender immediately wandered over.

  “Hey, André. Good to see you again. The usual?”

  “Yes, please, Frank. And this is my friend, Cary. We just made a movie together and I wanna buy him a drink.”

  “Nice to meet you,” I said, shaking hands with Frank.

  “Any friend of André’s is a friend of ours. What’ll you have?”

  “Just a beer please,” I responded thinking I had better pace myself.

  André’s “usual” turned out to be his drink of choice, “the American,” which he had let me try on location in Derbyshire—a combination of many hard spirits. In hindsight I’m glad I didn’t try a sample of it before getting on his ATV, as I probably would have ended up with a lot worse than a broken toe. The beverage came, as expected, in a forty-ounce pitcher, the contents of which disappeared in a single gulp. And then came another. And they kept coming while I gingerly sipped my beer. We talked about work and movies, about his farm in North Carolina where he raised horses, his relatives back in France and, of course, about life. André was a man unlike any other—truly one of a kind. I remember him saying something quite poignant to me, that he would give anything to be able to spend just one day being regular size so he could go unnoticed.

  “But you know what, boss?” he continued.

  “What?” I asked.

  “I am still grateful for my life.”

  “How come?” I responded.

  “Because I have had an incredible one!” he said with gusto.

  And he was right about that!

  While we were talking, I noticed a man at the bar who seemed never to take his eyes off André. I didn’t think this unusual, since André drew stares and fans wherever he went. Perhaps this guy was a serious fan. Then André gave me a nudge, an indication that it was time to move on. I remember him refusing to let me pay for the drinks. Something André would never let you do.

  “No, no, boss. I got this . . . ,” he said while leaving Frank a hundred-dollar tip.

  We went out to the car, drove a few blocks, and wandered into another of André’s haunts. There was another beer, more Americans, more conversation, more laughs.

  That’s the way it went, barhopping to André’s haunts all over Manhattan for many hours. Thankfully, I realized very early on in the proceedings that I would be in way over my head, which is why I only ordered beer, while André inhaled his Americans three or four at a time in some cases. At one of the establishments I noticed the very same guy from the bar earlier on, sitting at a table, still staring at André. I continued to think nothing of it until we got to the next bar, and there he was again—the same guy! I leaned over to André.

  “Hey, André. I think that guy is following us,” I whispered conspiratorially.

  “Where?” he responded, his large brow suddenly furrowing as he turned his head to look in the direction I had been looking.

  I thought to myself, If this fellow turned out to be a threat, he wasn’t going to remain one for long.

  “Over there . . .”

  I nodded in the direction of the stalker at the table, who chose to look away at that moment.

  André leaned back and looked at the guy. He then turned back and nodded nonchalantly.

  “Oh, don’t worry about him.”

  “Why? Do you know the guy?”

  “It’s a long story.”

  That was enough to pique my interest.

  André downed what appeared to be the last eight ounces of one of his Americans and put the jug back down on the bar. After wiping his mouth, he said, “He’s a cop.”

  “A what?” I responded, clearly confused.

  “A policeman,” he replied.

  It turns out that on one of his nights out barhopping, André had had a bit too much to drink. And while he was waiting for his car from the valet, he slipped and fell over. But he didn’t just fall on his butt, he fell right on top of a very surprised patron. I can only imagine what that felt like for the poor unsuspecting fellow, who must have thought a building had landed on him. It could have turned out to be a major lawsuit, but I think the whole thing was settled fairly quickly and quietly. After that, the NYPD decided that whenever André went out for a drink, they would send one of their finest to follow him and make sure he didn’t fall on anyone again.

  “They said it was for my own safety!” This last comment brought a wry grin from André.

  I certainly didn’t dispute the story because, although André was very tall, he wasn’t prone to telling tall tales. Anything was possible. Once he recognized the undercover cop, he bought the guy a drink at every bar from then on. The cop responded each time by holding up his glass in acknowledgment and continued to tail us for the entire night. Pretty nice gig if you can get it.

  Sadly, André passed away in January of 1993 from congestive heart failure. I was shooting a Mel Brooks comedy at the time and remember being heartbroken upon learning the news. It was very hard to be funny that day. Compounding the tragedy was finding out that he was only forty-six when he died. André knew he wasn’t going to live to a ripe old age and even told Billy Crystal at one point during the shoot, “We don’t get such a good break, the little guys and the big guys. We don’t live so long.”

  I think that is why André carried himself in life with that beatific smile of his. He never took a single day for granted, not knowing if it might be his last. He wanted to share how beautiful life was with everyone he came into contact with. He was as generous-hearted and sweet a person as I ever hope to meet. The kind of guy who would give you the shirt off his back, a shirt big enough for four or five people. He never let anyone pay for a meal or a drink as he wanted to be the one to give instead of receiving. This massive icon of a man taught me a lot about appreciating the small things in life and about living in the mo
ment, and I am more than grateful to have known him . . . I feel honored. And in that vein I am grateful that at least he enjoyed the experience of making the film as much as the rest of us did. I found out from his family and friends that it had been one of the highlights of his life. They told me that after it came out, whatever city he was wrestling in (which was limited to mostly making appearances since his back operation had not been a success) he would sneak into the back of a theater where it was playing, and watch as much as he could without drawing too much attention, and told everyone he just loved it.

  * * *

  That memorable evening I spent with André would be one of my last adventures in making The Princess Bride. What was kind of sad was that it seemed destined back then to be a relatively small movie, seen by only a smattering of people. Or so we all thought.

  Then, out of the blue (I guess if I had to figure out a date, it might have been around Christmas 1988), the movie started to take on a life of its own. It was a booming time for the VHS market and videos had become an enormously popular Christmas gift. And what better movie to share at Christmas than The Princess Bride? That first year, copies flew off the shelves—and they’ve been flying ever since, in one form or another.

  My awareness of this phenomenon began in the strangest way, almost subtly, with the occasional fan coming up to me in public, telling me they had recently rented or bought the movie, and how much it meant to them. Within a year or so, it became commonplace. Waitresses taking my order would invariably engage in a conversation that went something along these lines:

  “And how would you like that cooked?”

  “Medium-rare, please.”

  “As you wish!” Smile. Occasional wink.

  At first I didn’t know how to respond. I had little practice in being in the surreal position of becoming a matinee idol, which is what Westley had suddenly become to millions of young women. It came out of nowhere. And at the time there didn’t seem to be a reason for this. The Princess Bride had disappeared. The movie was “mostly dead,” if not buried. And then, suddenly, it was everywhere. It had come back to life in a gloriously, wonderfully, and deliciously unexpected way.

  The resurgence came as a complete shock to me, as I think it was for the whole cast. But bewilderment quickly gave way to gratitude. A deep, profound appreciation for the good fortune that had come my way. There’s simply no other way to put it: I felt blessed. The resurgence helped to boost my film career and provide me with a truly wonderful life. Once you are recognized from a particular role or film, everything begins to change. And when the movie is as beloved as The Princess Bride, you have bestowed upon you something akin to immortality.

  BILLY CRYSTAL

  It’s been one of the little jewels of my career. Very often, still to this day, in airports or movie theaters, people will walk by and go, “Have fun storming the castle!” Or the really cool ones will whisper to me, “Don’t go swimming for an hour, a good hour,” and then just walk away. Those are the really cool ones.

  Among the acknowledged fans of The Princess Bride are people who have held some of the most prominent and influential positions in the world. On June 1, 1988, I got a chance to visit the Vatican with my mother. Through a series of contacts and connections she arranged a brief audience with His then Holiness Pope John Paul II. I didn’t realize at the time that the pope had a great love of the arts. Moreover, I wouldn’t learn until later when I played him in a TV movie that as a young man in Poland he had been an actor, a poet, and a playwright. He was incredibly literate and well read. In essence, a true Renaissance man. But who would have guessed that his interests extended deep into popular culture as well?

  So imagine my surprise when we posed together for a photo, and the pope turned to me and smiled upon recognizing me.

  “Ah . . . You are the actor!”

  “Yes, Your Holiness.”

  “The one from The Princess and the Bride!” he said, miscalculating the title in a very sweet way that many people still do.

  I was stunned.

  “Your Holiness . . . ,” I stammered. “You’ve . . . you’ve seen the movie?”

  He nodded approvingly.

  “Yes, yes. Very good film. Very funny.”

  As I write this, Pope John Paul II has just been canonized at the Vatican, which I guess means we can literally count a saint among the admirers of our film. Who knew?

  Some years later, on March 5, 1998, I discovered that the film had fans high up in the government as well. I had recently finished filming a few episodes of an HBO miniseries produced by Tom Hanks entitled From the Earth to the Moon. The series, about NASA’s Apollo program, in which I portrayed Michael Collins from Apollo 11, hadn’t yet aired, but luckily for us, it was given a rather spectacular and unprecedented liftoff. One day I got an unexpected call from Tom himself.

  “Please hold for Mr. Hanks,” his assistant said on the phone.

  Then Tom came on the line.

  “Hey, Cary,” he said, jovially. “What are you doing two weeks from Saturday?” he said, getting straight to the point.

  “Not a lot, why?”

  “Well, how do you feel about going to the White House?” he asked in that wonderful playful way only Tom Hanks can.

  “That’s a pretty silly question,” I jokingly responded. “What’s the event?”

  He explained that it just so happened that the Clintons were big fans of the NASA space program, and they wanted to screen one of our episodes, specifically mine dealing with Apollo 11, as part of the White House’s Millennium Series.

  “So get yourself a nice suit, and we’ll see you in a couple of weeks, okay?” he said before signing off.

  Since the series had twelve episodes, I was indeed fortunate that the one the Clintons chose happened to be the one I was in.

  So my then fiancée (now my wife) and I flew to Washington, as part of an entourage that included of course Tom Hanks and his wonderfully talented wife, Rita, fellow producers Ron Howard and Brian Grazer, then HBO chairman Jeff Bewkes, and head of HBO programming Chris Albrecht. All the available Apollo astronauts were invited, which was very cool, along with myself and my cast mates, Bryan Cranston and Tony Goldwyn. It was an amazing evening, during which President Clinton revealed in a speech that Hillary, as a young girl, had once written a letter to NASA expressing an interest in becoming an astronaut—a comment that brought big laughs from the audience. The late John F. Kennedy Jr. was also there with his beautiful fiancée, Carolyn Bessette, and delivered a very moving speech in which he declared the space program to be his father’s “proudest legacy.”

  After the screening there was a big reception in one of the rooms in the West Wing. The place was packed, and in the center of the room, in the middle of this incredible swarm of activity, was the tallest man in the place: President Clinton himself. I remember thinking of it in movie terms—that if you had filmed this scene from above, it would have resembled a whirlpool-like vortex of people, all hoping to get closer to the epicenter where the president stood. All hoping, like ourselves, for a two-minute audience with the most powerful, and maybe the most charismatic, man on the planet. And yet, as strange as this informal meet-and-greet seemed, it all sort of worked.

  My fiancée and I patiently waited in line, and eventually we found ourselves standing in front of the president. I stuck out my hand and began to speak.

  “Mr. President, my name is . . .”

  I got no further than that, when he interrupted me with that wonderful Arkansas accent of his.

  “I know exactly who you are, Cary,” he said warmly, like we were old buddies, rather than two people who had never met before. As he shook my hand, he flashed that million-dollar smile of his. It was like staring into a set of blinding headlights.

  Instantly I wondered whether something had turned up in my background check, the one performed on virtually all White House guests before they can be granted access. The anxiety must have been obvious, as the president quickly put me at
ease.

  “Oh, no, no . . . It’s not what you think,” he said, still smiling broadly. “I just wanted you to know that Chelsea and I are huge fans of The Princess Bride.”

  Chelsea is, of course, Bill and Hillary’s daughter. I tried to picture them together, watching the movie like any other family. It seemed at once sweet and surreal.

  “You were great in this movie tonight,” he added, referring to From the Earth to the Moon. “But you were fantastic as Westley. I just love that movie! Chelsea and I must have seen it over a hundred times. I can quote almost every line.”

  I was, of course, both flattered and speechless. I managed to respond, “Thank you, Mr. President. That means a great deal to me.”

  After introducing my fiancée, who was standing right next to me, she quickly seized the moment.

  “Mr. President, what if Cary sent Chelsea an autographed copy of the script? Do you think she would like that?”

  The president immediately locked eyes with her.

  “You know what, Lisa Marie?” he said. “I think she’d like that a great deal.”

  He then turned back to me. “You think you could do that for her, Cary?”

  “Absolutely, Mr. President. It would be my pleasure,” I quickly responded.

  As soon as we got back to the hotel, I called Rob. I couldn’t wait to share the news.

  “Did you know the president was a fan?” I asked.

  “You’re kidding.”

  He was just as dumbfounded and delighted as I was.

  A few weeks later I sent Chelsea the signed script. And a few days after that, I received a very gracious thank-you letter from President Clinton, which still hangs on the wall of my office.