I'm Gretchen Rubin and this is a little happier. I love memoirs and years ago I read

It's Always Something, the terrific memoir by actor and comedian Gilda Radner and I also read Kiss Me Like a Stranger, the equally terrific memoir by actor, comedian, and

writer Gene Wilder.

These two huge stars were married in 1984 and were married until Gilda Radner died from ovarian

cancer in 1989.

You may remember Gilda Radner as Roseanne, Roseanna Dana, or Baba Wawa, on the TV show Saturday Night Live,

where she was one of the seven original cast members.

You may remember Jean Wilder as Willie Wka in the original movie of Willie Wunka

and the chocolate factory or from the movie Young Frankenstein, which he co-wrote and

starred in as Dr Frederick Frankenstein. Reading the two memoirs together was very interesting because at some points, as a reader,

I was able to see both of their perspectives about the same situations.

In particular, the double story of how they came to get married

has stuck with me for more than a decade.

According to Gilda Radner's version,

she'd been a longtime fan of Jean Wilder's work,

and the first time they met,

she fell hard in love. But the situation was complicated. She was married and

Jean had been married and divorced twice and wasn't eager to get married again. She

had just bought a house in Connecticut and he lived in Los Angeles.

Time passed. Gilda got a divorce and the two of them lived together on and off for two and a half years.

Gilda really, really wanted to get married and she did

everything she could to bring that about. At one point they broke up because

...