The late Gene Wilder wasn’t the original Waco Kid in the comedy “Blazing Saddles.” Veteran actor Gig Young got the role of the drunken gunfighter.
But Young was a drunk in real life, and director Mel Brooks says he showed up for the first day of shooting and began throwing up, unable to do the job. Brooks sent Young to a hospital and called Wilder, who flew out the next day.

True West March/April 2025
In This Issue:
Western Books & Movies
More In This Issue
- Truth Be Known
- What Has Taught Me: Deb Goodrich
- Earp, Cowboy Songs & Prairie Hygiene
- Trails of the Old West
- The Frontier Characters of South Dakota
- The Bowie Knife
- The Kindled Flame 1835
- King of the Scatterguns
- Selling the Mythic West and the Real West
- A Gut Punch Turns into a Miracle Reprieve
- The Beginnings of the Bird Cage
- Frontier Colossus