Willy Wonka dead at 83
STARS LEAD TRIBUTES TO GENE WILDER 1933-2016
THE Hollywood actor Gene Wilder who brought Roald Dahl’s beloved Willy Wonka to life died yesterday, aged 83.
Announcing his death, nephew Jordan Walker-Pearlman said he died of complications from Alzheimer’s disease at his home in Stamford, Connecticut.
He said the star had hidden his illness to protect young fans, who used to call out to him with glee “there’s Willy Wonka”.
Mr Walker-Pearlman said: “He simply couldn’t bear the idea of one less smile in the world.”
He added: “It is with indescribable sadness and blues, but with spiritual gratitude for the life lived that I announce the passing of husband, parent and universal artist Gene Wilder at his home.
“It is almost unbearable for us to contemplate our life without him.”
Wilder was known as a comic genius whose timing made him a favourite with Hollywood directors.
As well as Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory in 1971, Wilder starred in Mel Brooks comedies The Producers, Blazing Saddles and Young Frankenstein. He also formed a hit partnership with Richard Pryor in Silver Streak, Stir Crazy and See No Evil, Hear No Evil.
Brooks said: “Gene Wilder – one of the truly great talents of our time. He blessed every film we did with his magic and he blessed me with his friendship.”
Rob Lowe wrote, “Gene Wilder as one of my earliest heroes. Blazing Saddles, Willy Wonka, are CLINICS on comic acting.”
Russell Crowe said: “I saw Blazing Saddles seven times at the cinema with my school friends. Gene Wilder, you were a genius. Rest in Peace.”
Ricky Gervais simply used one of the star’s most famous quotes from Willy Wonka writing on Twitter: “Good Day Sir!’ RIP Gene Wilder.”
The frizzy-haired actor was often cast as characters who showed signs of neurotic or hysteric behaviour. “My quiet exterior used to be a mask for hysteria,” he told Time magazine in 1970. After seven years of analysis, it just became a habit.”
Twice nominated for an Oscar, his glittering career faltered after the death of his third wife Gilda Radner, who had starred alongside him and Kelly LeBrock in The Woman in Red, which left him devastated.
Friends say he never really got over her passing from ovarian cancer in 1989 and Wilder only worked infrequently after she died. He married again in 1991 to Karen
Boyer, when he starred in Another You, also with Richard Pryor.
After that, he returned briefly to TV in the US with the sitcom Something Wilder, in 1994 and won an Emmy in 2003 for a guest role on Will & Grace.
Born Jerome Silberman in Milwaukee, Wisconsin in June 1933, he began acting at the age of eight when his mother was diagnosed with rheumatic fever. The family’s doctor told the then schoolboy to “try and make her laugh” to take her mind off the pain she suffered.
After studying drama for two years, when he turned 13 his mother Jeanne sent him to Black-Foxe, a military institute in Hollywood.
Following his graduation after studying Communication and Theatre Arts at the University of Iowa, he was accepted at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School in Bristol in 1955. But his time in the UK, where he also learned fencing, was short lived after he was drafted into the army the next year.
He adopted Gene Wilder for his professional name at the age of 26.
In 1961 Wilder won critical acclaim in Graham Greene’s comedy The Complaisant Lover. He won the Clarence Derwent Award as most promising newcomer and more importantly, the attention of Mel Brooks. When Wilder performed with the director’s future wife Anne Bancroft in Mother Courage it became the start of a long friendship between the men.
It led to the actor being cast in the 1967 film The Producers, in which he played the hysterical accountant Leo Bloom, lured into a scam.
Directed and written by Brooks, the film brought Wilder an Oscar nomination as best supporting actor springboarding him into more roles.
In 1971 he stepped into the shoes of Willie Wonka. Based on the children’s book by Roald Dahl, it was not an immediate hit but became a children’s favourite over the years.
The same year, he starred with a sheep in Woody Allen’s Everything You Ever Wanted To Know About Sex (But Were Afraid To Ask).
In 1980, Stir Crazy became the biggest grossing movie of its time earning more than $100 million.
Wilder is survived by daughter, Katharine adopted in 1967 when he married her mother Mary Joan Schute.