Gene Wilder, the star of Willy Wonka & The Chocolate Factory and Mel Brooks comedies, died on Monday, his family announced.
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Wilder, an avid tennis fan who enjoyed spending time with his wife, Karen Boyer, had suffered from Alzheimer’s in recent years and died of complications from the disease.
Everytime children will see Wilder, they would call out him as Willy Wonka, such love he received from his admirers, therefore the news of him suffering through illness was kept low key as he didn’t want to cause worry to anyone. Teri Garr, Gene Wilder, Marty Feldman, Mel Brooks and Peter Boyle as Young Frankenstein. Wilder also worked closely with one of his very close friends, the late Richard Pryor in hit comedy films such as “Stir Crazy”, and “Silver Streak” to name just a couple of the outrageously amusing, and sometimes a bit raunchy comedy hits. “He will be so missed”.
He’s also remembered for his role as a boozing gunslinger in Blazing Saddles or the therapist having an affair with a sheep in Woody Allen’s Everything You Wanted to Know About Sex. That was certainly true of perhaps his most iconic performance apart from his collaborations with Brooks, playing the title character in “Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory”.
“Gene Wilder, one of the truly great talents of our time, is gone”, Brooks said in a statement.
Born Jerome Silberman to Russian immigrants in Milwaukee, Wilder studied at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre in Bristol, England, and then studied method acting at the Actors Studio.
“He blessed every film we did together with his special magic and he blessed my life with his friendship”, Brooks said in a statement. In 1989, the doctors diagnosed him with non-Hodgkins lymphoma.
Oscar-winning actor Russell Crowe added: “I saw Blazing Saddles 7 times at the cinema with my school friends”.
Later on, he got a chance to perform on the silver screen for a brief role as a kidnapped undertaker in Bonnie and Clyde (1967). He also enrolled at the Actors Studio in NY, where he studied the “Method” style that asks performers to draw on personal memories in forming a character. A key break came when he co-starred with Anne Bancroft in Bertolt Brecht’s “Mother Courage” in 1963.
Gene Wilder’s 2002 appearance in sitcom Will & Grace confirmed you don’t lose something as precious as comedic timing.
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In 2005 he published a very personal account of his life, Kiss Me Like a Stranger: My Search for Love and Art.
