Wilder succumbed Sunday to complications from Alzheimer’s disease at his home in Stamford, Connecticut while music from one of his favorite performers, Ella Fitzgerald, played in the background, his nephew confirmed to NBC News.
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According to Wilder’s family, he battled Alzheimer’s for the last three years, but chose to keep the illness private.
Wilder himself came up with the idea for this comedy based on the classic horror novel by Mary Shelley.
He could be nerdy and needy, as he was in his first two notable screen roles, the diffident newlywed undertaker in 1967’s “Bonnie and Clyde” and the explosively neurotic accountant in 1968’s “The Producers”. Teri Garr, Gene Wilder, Marty Feldman, Mel Brooks and Peter Boyle as Young Frankenstein.
He soon teamed with Brooks, and Wilder’s comic skills tended to overshadow his work as a director, writer and championship fencer, all of which he displayed in “The Adventure of Sherlock Holmes’ Smarter Brother” (1975). And they created several memorable scenes, particularly when Pryor provided Wilder with directions on how to “act black” as they tried to avoid police in “Silver Streak”.
Born Jerome Silberman in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Wilder began acting at the age of 12.
Wilder was previously married to Saturday Night Live star Gilda Radner, and in the wake of her death in 1989, he became a leading proponent of ovarian cancer screening and research. He was 83 years old.
In 1961 he became a member of the Actors Studio in NY, studying with Lee Strasberg.
Gene Wilder got his showbiz break in 1963 when he was cast in the production “Mother Courage and Her Children, starring Anne Bancroft”.
The 1974 movie shot down the myths perpetuated about the American West, pouring light on closeted racism, but it is also stacked full of gags and is often listed among critics’ top 10 comedy films. He won an Emmy in 2003 for a guest role on “Will & Grace”.
Actor Jim Carrey made reference to the 1971 hit in a tweet, writing: ” Gene Wilder was one of the funniest and sweetest energies ever to take a human form.
He then went on to release his memoir “Kiss Me Like a Stranger: My Search for Love and Art”, the same year.
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Wilder met his fourth wife, Karen Boyer, while doing research for his role as a deaf man in “See No Evil, Hear No Evil”.
