The actor’s nephew, Jordan Walker-Pearlman, told the media outlet that Gene Wilder would still be recognized at restaurants by kids and parents even up until two years ago. Wilder was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin lymphoma in 1999.
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Wilder was also in the Mel Brooks’ 1974 cowboy comedy Blazing Saddles alongside Cleavon Little. The latter earned the duo an Academy Award nomination for Best Adapted Screenplay.
Tuesday, on the Tonight Show starring Jimmy Fallon, Mel Brooks was a guest to promote his upcoming book release, “Young Frankenstein: A Mel Brooks Book: The Story of the Making of the Film”.
“He was eighty-three and passed holding our hands with the same tenderness and love he exhibited as long as I can remember”, he said. “And he was such a dear friend. But, when it happens, its still tremendous, it’s still a big shock”, Brooks said. They would break for lunch and Gene and I would always buy a chocolate bar and share it on the way back to the set. “And he was such a wonderful part of my life”.
Brooks had originally planned to appear on Fallon’s show to promote Young Frankenstein: A Mel Brooks Book: The Story of the Making of the Film, as well as a talk at Radio City Music Hall on September 2.
Brooks recalled first meeting Wilder while the actor was working with Brooks’ wife Anne Bancroft on stage in an adaptation of Bertolt Brecht’s Mother Courage and Her Children. “He was the chaplain”.
“He kept saying, ‘Why are they laughing?’ Because the chaplain is a great part, it’s sad and funny, it’s touching and it can be amusing”.
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Brooks and Wilder’s first professional collaboration was 1967’s “The Producers”, of which Wilder was initially skeptical, Brooks said. He was good friends with Wilder and claimed that Wilder was sick and he knew it. Brooks said what he misses is being able to call Wilder up.
