Theaters nationwide are bringing a few of Gene Wilder’s most beloved films back to theaters this weekend.
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Both AMC Theaters and Regal Entertainment Group plan to hold showings. Willy Wonka & The Chocolate Factory will play at 5 p.m.at every participating location and Blazing Saddles will play at 7:30 p.m.
Brooks said that he first told Wilder that if they ever got the money to make The Producers, the actor could play the accountant Leo Bloom, but Wilder didn’t quite believe it would happen.
Nomination The part earned Wilder an Academy Award nomination for best supporting actor. Apart from reconfirming Wilder’s genius to me, I also discovered the world of writer, director and actor Mel Brooks. “Except in a comedy in films”, Wilder said.
For the time being, however, Wilder continued to work onstage, in “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” in 1963 and “Dynamite Tonight” and “The White House” the following year.
Here are ten things you probably didn’t know about that lovely life.
Married By his account, Radner was needy, obsessed with getting married and, once they married in 1984, desperate to have a child, a project that ended in miscarriage just months before she learned she had ovarian cancer in 1986. It was followed by 1977’s “The World’s Greatest Lover”, which he also produced. I discovered that the song was on the soundtrack of The Woman In Red, a film starring in and directed by Wilder. Since no CT theaters appear to be participating, you would have to travel out of state to see the movie at a Regal theater.
The death of Gene Wilder wasn’t just the acceptance of another loss of someone that I didn’t know but who was profoundly important to me, but became a reason to revisit some of Wilder’s work with friends and family.
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And that’s what made Gene Wilder such a captivating performer.
