Blue-eyed actor, Gene Wilder, who was best known for his roles in Hollywood classics “Young Frankenstein” and “Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory” amongst others, has died, Bella Naija reported.
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His nephew, Jordan Walker-Pearlman, said that the renowned actor succumbed to complications from his Alzheimer’s condition.
‘He simply couldn’t bear the idea of one less smile in the world’. Mel Brooks, the popular screenwriter. was one of Gene’s frequent and most successful collaborator.
His performances have touched and inspired generations, and they have given the movies in question something of a classic status.
British comedian, actor and writer Stephen Fry thanked Wilder “for all those happy happy hours”, describing him as a “comic genius”, while “Frozen” actor Josh Gad said he was “the greatest comedic mind of my childhood”. People loved their work on screen in the starting form the film The Producers, and then eventually repeating the success with Blazing Saddles and Young Frankenstein. Personally though, it was through his varied roles in collaborations with slapstick maestro Mel Brooks that will always bring me the fondest memories, especially as the cool Waco Kid in Blazing Saddles.
Gene Wilder’s emails even showed the whimsical spirit of Willy Wonka.
The next was The Producers, in which he played the hysterical Leo Bloom, an accountant lured into a money bilking scheme by a theatrical producer. Wilder’s death was announced by his family on Monday, who revealed he had been secretly battling Alzheimer’s for three years.
Gene had gained massive fame for his portrayal of Willy Wonka, in the hit 1971 adaptation of the famous Roald Dahl novel.
A leading role in a play that also starred Anne Bancroft, who was dating her future husband Brooks, led to Wilder becoming a top member of Brooks’ stock company of crazies, some of whom branched out with Wilder into other film ventures.
Maybe that’s why no one has ever attempted to play the role of Willy Wonka ever again, and you can’t convince me otherwise.
Born on June 11, 1933, Wilder spent his formative years trying to keep up the spirits of his ailing mother, who had a heart attack when he was just six and died 17 years later.
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Gene Wilder, star of the original Charlie and the Chocolate Factory movie has sadly passed away at the age of 83. “And clearly one of the great clowns the Chaplin of talkies in some way, I would say”.
