One of the funniest people who ever lived is no longer with us: Gene Wilder, the beloved comedian and star of hit comedies like The Producers, Young Frankenstein and Silver Streak, has died at the age of 83 from complications due to Alzheimer’s disease.
Born Jerome Silberman on June 11, 1933 and after a stint in the Army took to the stage, performing with Anne Bancroft in 1963’s Mother Courage and Her Children, and encountering her boyfriend Mel Brooks as a result. They would form a working relationship that would result in three hit comedies and multiple Oscar nominations.
Indeed, the bulk of Wilder’s most famous roles were for a relatively smaller number of films, most of them in collaboration with either Mel Brooks or his frequent co-star Richard Pryor (who was originally slated to star in Mel Brooks’ Blazing Saddles, before being replaced by Cleavon Little). But children usually recognize Wilder from his performance as the saintly/maniacal candy entrepreneur Willy Wonka in Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory.
Wilder worked consistently in the 1970s and 1980s, but after the death of his third wife, comedian Gilda Radner, in 1989, he chose to work less frequently. He starred in a short-lived sitcom called Something Wilder in 1994, and earned an Emmy Award for his guest-starring role in the hit sitcom Will & Grace. Wilder also wrote a memoir, Kiss Me Like a Stranger: My Search for Love and Art, and three novels: The French Whore, The Woman Who Wouldn’t and Something to Remember You By: A Perilous Romance.
Gene Wilder is survived by his fourth wife, Karen Boyer, to whom he had been married for 25 years. Our hearts go out to his friends and family. Gene Wilder was one of the great comedians, a powder keg of manic energy, held carefully in place by a disarmingly sweet demeanor. Wilder leaves behind him a series of wonderful films that have, in their own ways, made the world a more wonderful and enjoyable place. We would like to take a moment now to look back at nine of the Gene Wilder movie that we will never, ever forget, and which will keep his memory alive for generations to come.
The Unforgettable Films of Gene Wilder:
Top Photo: 20th Century Fox
William Bibbiani (everyone calls him ‘Bibbs’) is Crave’s film content editor and critic. You can hear him every week on The B-Movies Podcast and Canceled Too Soon, and watch him on the weekly YouTube series Most Craved, Rapid Reviews and What the Flick. Follow his rantings on Twitter at @WilliamBibbiani.
The Unforgettable Films of Gene Wilder
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Bonnie and Clyde (1967)
Gene Wilder made his brief but scene-stealing big screen debut in Arthur Penn's sexy, criminal classic. Wilder plays an undertaker who, upon being kidnapped by the notorious outlaws (played by Faye Dunaway and Warren Beatty), develops a strangely affable relationship with them.
Photo: Warner Bros.
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The Producers (1968)
Gene Wilder earned his first Academy Award nomination, for Best Supporting Actor, in Mel Brooks' hilariously offensive farce. Wilder plays the nervous second fiddle to a shyster Broadway producer, who discovers that he could make more money with a flop than with a hit, but only if it's absolutely awful. Surprise! Everyone loves it, and Gene Wilder freaks out in the most glorious ways imaginable.
Photo: MGM
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Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory (1971)
Roald Dahl didn't like this adaptation of his classic children's story, but Gene Wilder captured the spirit of the novel perfectly. Wilder plays a half-angel, half-demon candy vendor who enchants the children touring his factory... even as he condemns them to terrible fates as punishment for their bad behavior. Wilder's kindness shines through, even when Willy Wonka veers into the realm of a horror movie.
Photo: Paramount
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Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex* (*But Were Afraid to Ask) (1972)
Gene Wilder's sole collaboration with Woody Allen was this comedy anthology, about human sexuality in all of its nutty forms. In one of the film's funniest sketches, Wilder plays a doctor who falls deeply in love with a sheep. Allen plays their affair so matter-of-factly that you almost forget how strange it is, and that's the funniest part of the joke.
Photo: United Artists
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Blazing Saddles (1974)
Another outrageous comedy from Mel Brooks. Blazing Saddles stars Cleavon Little as a black sheriff in the old west, who deals with America's vile racism with the all-powerful impishness of a Looney Tune. Wilder plays the alcoholic gunfighter who earns a chance at redemption, and takes plenty of the film's biggest laughs for his own.
Photo: Warner Bros.
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Young Frankenstein (1974)
A spot-on spoof of the old Universal Horror pictures, Young Frankenstein stars Gene Wilder as Dr. Frankenstein's son, who takes up the old family business and resurrects a tap dancing monster. Wilder earned his second Oscar-nomination, this time for co-writing the film's absolutely hilarious screenplay.
Photo: 20th Century Fox
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Silver Streak (1976)
After his successful series of films with Mel Brooks, Gene Wilder starting another long-lasting comedic relationship with fellow comedian Richard Pryor. Together they starred in four comedies, the first of which, Silver Streak, is a hit comedy about murder most foul aboard a speeding train. Their natural chemistry made the film a big box office hit.
Photo: 20th Century Fox
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Stir Crazy (1980)
Directed by the great Sidney Poitier, Stir Crazy reunited Wilder and Pryor as two hapless boobs who get framed for a bank robbery and wind up in a prison rodeo competition. (It makes more sense in the film.) Again, the comic pairing led to tons of laughs and a big financial success: Stir Crazy was the first film directed by an African-American to make more than $100 million at the box office.
Photo: Columbia Pictures
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See No Evil, Hear No Evil (1989)
Gene Wilder and Richard Pryor's collaboration was starting to run out of steam by 1989, but there are still plenty of laughs in this high-concept comedy about a deaf man (Wilder) and a blind man (Pryor) who team up to stop a criminal conspiracy.
Photo: TriStar Pictures
