A world of pure imagination

He brought humor, heart to Willy Wonka and the Waco Kid

Hilarity and heart made for sweetest combination.

Willy Wonka. The Waco Kid. Dr. “FRONKen- steen,” if you please. Before he became the face of the “Condescending Wonka” meme for the digital generation, Gene Wilder was a talented comedian who had a way with expressive faces and one- liners and a gift for inhabiting memorable characters that touched the hearts and funny bones of children and adults alike.

For grown- ups of a certain era, there was no comedy team better than Wilder, who died Monday at age 83, and Richard Pryor in their four movies together. The twosome famously donned finefeathered costumes in the 1980 jailbird comedy Stir Crazy, played blind ( Pryor) and deaf ( Wilder) in

See No Evil, Hear No Evil nine years later, and were lying scoundrels in 1991’ s Another You.

The youngsters of that day could see Wilder in what would become his best- known roles: as the eccentric title chocolatier of 1971’ s Willy Wonka & the Choco

late Factory, based on the Roald Dahl novel, and teamed with fellow funnyman Mel Brooks for

Young Frankenstein, a black- andwhite 1974 classic that was many children’s introduction to the horror genre and a 1930s cinema aesthetic. That film also led to an Oscar screenplay nomination for Brooks and Wilder, who first teamed for 1967’ s The Producers, a gig that earned Wilder an Oscar nod for supporting actor opposite Zero Mostel as a couple of guys trying to produce the worst Broadway show ever.

Like the sweets the colorfully clad Wonka peddled, those Wilder hits would hook any young filmgoer — the genius banter alone between Wilder’s crazy doctor Frederick Frankenstein and Marty Feldman’s bug- eyed sidekick Igor was a master class in comedy writing. Those with particularly understanding parents checked out his other films, such as Brooks’ decidedly non- PC Western Blazing Saddles, which cast Wilder as alcoholic outlaw Waco Kid opposite embattled black sheriff Bart ( Cleavon Little)

in 1974. Or Woody Allen’s 1972 comedy Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex* (* But

Were Afraid to Ask), which offered Wilder as a doctor who falls for a sheep.

There was one other frequent collaborator in Wilder’s life: his wife, Gilda Radner. He and the

Saturday Night Live alum made three movies together, including the Wilder- directed The Woman in Red ( 1984) and Haunted

Honeymoon ( 1986). Radner’s battle with ovarian cancer in the late 1980s and death in 1989 ultimately shifted Wilder’s focus toward his personal life and away from Hollywood.

What Wilder did leave pop culture, though, was a string of parts that were undoubtedly humorous but always had a gentle nature. As mad a scientist as his Frankenstein was, there was a distinct sweetness there. So, too, with his Wonka, an odd candyman who had no patience for misbehaving brats but a loving, paternal nature with the goodhearted Charlie.

In that way, Wilder was much more than a meme. He was an icon.

SILVER SCREEN COLLECTION GETTY IMAGES Gene Wilder as the charming, kooky candyman in 1971’ s Willy Wonka & The Chocolate Factory.

WARNER BROS. In the 1974 Mel Brooks comedy Blazing Saddles, Wilder famously teamed with Cleavon Little in the groundbreaking Western spoof.