HOLLYWOOD MOURNS WILLY WONKA STAR GENE WILDER AFTER HE DIES AGED 83
‘One of the truly great talents. He blessed every film with his magic”
ACTOR Gene Wilder, the star of Willy Wonka & The Chocolate Factory, has died aged 83.
He had suffered complications from Alzheimer’s, which he had battled for the past three years, his nephew Jordan Walker-Pearlman said.
The twice Oscar-nominated US star of The Producers, Blazing Saddles, Young Frankenstein and Stir Crazy died at his home in Stamford, Connecticut.
He was born Jerome Silberman. But Wilder said he changed his name to Gene because he always liked Thomas Wolfe’s character Eugene Gant in Look Homeward.
And he chose Wilder because he greatly admired the US writer Thornton Wilder.
Wilder began studying acting at the age of 12.
He frequently collaborated with writer and director Mel Brooks as well as stand-up comedian Richard Pryor.
Frantic
Famed for his kinked curls and startled blue eyes, he became known for playing the roles of neurotic, frantic characters in some of the funniest movies of the 1970s and 80s.
Wilder told Time magazine in 1970: “My quiet exterior used to be a mask for hysteria.
“After seven years of analysis, it just became a habit.”
He got his BA from the University of Iowa in 1955 and went on to to enrol in the Old Vic Theatre school in Bristol, where he learned his craft, including acting technique and fencing.
When he returned to the US he taught fencing and did other odd jobs while studying with Herbert Berghof ’s HB Studio and at the Actors Studio under Lee Strasberg.
He was previously diagnosed with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, a form of cancer, in 1989.
He made his stage debut in Off Broadway’s “Roots” back in 1961, which was followed by a stint on Broadway in Graham Greene’s comedy “The Complaisant Lover,” which won him a Clarence Derwent Award as a promising newcomer. His performance in the 1963 production of Brecht’s Mother Courage proved to be career changing.
It was seen by Mel Brooks, whose future wife, Anne Bancroft, was starring in the production, and whose enduring friendship with Wilder lead to some of his most successful film work.
But he continued to star onstage in a variety of productions in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest in 1963 and Dynamite Tonight and The White House the following year.
He went on to become the understudy to Alan Arkin and Gabriel Dell in Luv, and went on to take over the role.
Willy Wonka & The Chocolate Factory producers were recommended to cast either Fred Astaire or Joel Grey in the lead role in the 1971 musical fantasy, based on Roald Dahl’s 1964 book.
But director Mel Stuart wanted Wilder for the iconic role. He said: “He had been in The Producers, but he wasn’t a superstar. I looked at him and I knew in my heart there could only be one person who could play Willy Wonka.
“He walked to the elevator after he read and I ran after him and I said, ‘As far as I’m concerned, you’ve got it’.”
But Wilder also worked less successfully behind the camera.
The best of his directing work was The Woman In Red, in which he co-starred with his then wife Gilda Radner, a Saturday Night Live cast member in the 1980s.
After her death, he was married in 1991 to Karen Webb.
He starred in a sitcom in 1994, entitled Something Wilder, and won an Emmy in 2003 for a guest role on Will & Grace.
His nephew Mr Walker-Pearlman said: “He passed holding our hands with the same tenderness and love he exhibited as long as I can remember.
“As our hands clutched and he performed one last breath the music speaker, which was set to random, began to blare out one of his favourites, Ella Fitzgerald.
“There is a picture of him and Ella meeting at a London Bistro some years ago that is among our cherished possessions.
“She was singing Somewhere Over The Rainbow as he was taken away.”
Stars last night paid their tributes to the star.
Stephen Fry said: “Farewell Gene Wilder, comic genius. Thank you for all those happy happy hours.”
Ricky Gervais tweeted: “Good Day Sir! RIP Gene Wilder”.
Radio host Danny Baker described the actor as: “Probably the greatest comedy actor of my lifetime. Good journey, Gene.”
Actor Russell Crowe posted: “I saw Blazing Saddles 7 times at the cinema with my school friends. Gene Wilder you were a genius. Rest in Peace.”
Comedian Jim Carrey tweeted: “Gene Wilder was one of the funniest and sweetest energies ever to take a human form. If there’s a heaven he has a Golden Ticket.”
And Mel Brooks, said: “One of the truly great talents of our time. He blessed every film with his magic and blessed me with his friendship.”