He had been diagnosed with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma in 1989.
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Mel Brooks, who directed Wilder in a trio of classic comedies – The Producers, Blazing Saddles and Young Frankenstein – called the actor “one of the truly great talents of our time”.
The pair wrote the script and earned an Oscar nomination for the screenplay. As I walk toward them, my cane sinks into one of the cobblestones I’m walking on and stands straight up, by itself; but I keep on walking, until I realize that I no longer have my cane. “And he was such a dear friend”. He was not in good health at the end and it was not unexpected by any means, but when it happens, it hits you like, ‘Gene is gone and there will never be anyone like him again’. He expected his friend to go but said it was still a big shock. I’m still reeling from that.
“I sent him an email asking if he’d come and do a bit in it”, Corden remarked.
With his unkempt hair and big, buggy eyes, Wilder was a master at playing panicked characters caught up in schemes that only a madman such as Brooks could devise, whether reviving a monster in “Young Frankenstein” or bilking Broadway in “The Producers”.
He met Brooks through Anne Bancroft, with whom he starred in the Brecht play “Mother Courage”. And I knew it.
He told talkshow host Jimmy Fallon: “The Chaplain was a great part”. It’s touching, and it can be amusing. So he said, ‘Why are they always laughing at me?’ I said, ‘Look in the mirror – blame it on God’. Brooks, who just turned 90 this summer, remembered his friend and said he’ll miss being able to call him. “You’re going to get the money”.
“I didn’t want to do the kind of junk I was seeing”, he said in an interview.
Wonka’s grand entrance would go on to become one of the most iconic scenes from the 1971 film – and now we know we have Wilder, himself, to thank for it. You are Leo Bloom.’ And I threw it on his makeup table. When, “miracle of miracles”, he finally did get the money and told Wilder, the actor “burst into tears”.
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“I think that’s the thing that I admire him for, because when you’ve got five kids on a movie set it can’t be easy, all bouncing around, especially with all that sugar”.
