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| FILE - In a Dec. 9, 1977 file photo, actor Gene Wilder is shown during an interview with Jean Claude Bouis at his New York City Hotel. Wilder’s nephew said Monday, Aug. 29, 2016, that the actor and writer died late Sunday at his home in Stamford, Connecticut, from complications from Alzheimer’s disease. He was 83. |
LOS ANGELES
(AP) -- Gene Wilder, the frizzy-haired actor who brought his deft
comedic touch to such unforgettable roles as the neurotic accountant in
"The Producers" and the mad scientist of "Young Frankenstein," has died.
He was 83.
Wilder's nephew said Monday that
the actor and writer died late Sunday at his home in Stamford,
Connecticut, from complications from Alzheimer's disease.
Jordan
Walker-Pearlman said in a statement that Wilder was diagnosed with the
disease three years ago, but kept the condition private so as not to
disappoint fans.
"He simply couldn't bear the idea of one less smile in the world," Walker-Pearlman said.
Wilder
started his acting career on the stage, but millions knew him from his
work in the movies, especially his collaborations with Mel Brooks on
"The Producers," ''Blazing Saddles" and "Young Frankenstein." The last
film - with Wilder playing a California-born descendant of the mad
scientist, insisting that his name is pronounced "Frahn-ken-SHTEEN" -
was co-written by Brooks and Wilder.
"Gene
Wilder, one of the truly great talents of our time, is gone," Brooks
wrote in a statement Monday. "He blessed every film we did together with
his special magic and he blessed my life with his friendship. He will
be so missed."
With his unkempt hair and big,
buggy eyes, Wilder was a master at playing panicked characters caught up
in schemes that only a madman such as Brooks could devise, whether
reviving a monster in "Young Frankenstein" or bilking Broadway in "The
Producers." Brooks would call him "God's perfect prey, the victim in all
of us."
But he also knew how to keep it cool
as the boozing gunslinger in "Blazing Saddles" or the charming candy man
in the children's favorite "Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory." His
craziest role: the therapist having an affair with a sheep in Woody
Allen's "Everything You Wanted to Know About Sex."
"The
greatest comedic mind of my childhood is now gone," actor Josh Gad
wrote on Twitter. "#RIP #GeneWilder & thank you 4 your pure
imagination. This one hits hard."
Tweeted Jim
Carrey: "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."
Wilder
was close friends with Richard Pryor and their contrasting personas -
Wilder uptight, Pryor loose - were ideal for comedy. They co-starred in
four films: "Silver Streak," ''Stir Crazy," ''See No Evil, Hear No Evil"
and "Another You." 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."
But
Wilder would insist in a 2013 interview that he was no comedian. He
told interviewer Robert Osborne it was the biggest misconception about
him.
"What a comic, what a funny guy, all that
stuff! And I'm not. I'm really not. Except in a comedy in films,"
Wilder said. "But I make my wife laugh once or twice in the house, but
nothing special. But when people see me in a movie and it's funny then
they stop and say things to me about 'how funny you were.' But I don't
think I'm that funny. I think I can be in the movies."
In
1968, Wilder received an Oscar nomination for his work in Brooks' "The
Producers." He played the introverted Leo Bloom, an accountant who
discovers the liberating joys of greed and corruption as he and Max
Bialystock (Zero Mostel) conceive a Broadway flop titled "Springtime For
Hitler" and plan to flee with the money raised for the show's
production. Matthew Broderick played Wilder's role in the 2001 Broadway
stage revival of the show.
Though they
collaborated on film, Wilder and Brooks met through the theater. Wilder
was in a play with Brooks' then-future wife, Anne Bancroft, who
introduced the pair backstage in 1963.
Wilder,
a Milwaukee native, was born Jerome Silberman on June 11, 1933. His
father was a Russian emigre, his mother was of Polish descent. When he
was 6, Wilder's mother suffered a heart attack that left her a
semi-invalid. He soon began improvising comedy skits to entertain her,
the first indication of his future career.
He
started taking acting classes at age 12 and continued performing and
taking lesson through college. In 1961, Wilder became a member of Lee
Strasberg's prestigious Actor's Studio in Manhattan.
That
same year, he made both his off-Broadway and Broadway debuts. He won
the Clarence Derwent Award, given to promising newcomers, for the
Broadway work in Graham Greene's comedy "The Complaisant Lover."
He
used his new name, Gene Wilder, for the off-Broadway and Broadway
roles. He lifted the first name from the character Eugene Gant in Thomas
Wolfe's "Look Back, Homeward Angel," while the last name was clipped
from playwright Thornton Wilder. A key break came when he co-starred
with Bancroft in Bertolt Brecht's "Mother Courage," and met Brooks, her
future husband.
"I was having trouble with one
little section of the play, and he gave me tips on how to act. He said,
'That's a song and dance. He's proselytizing about communism. Just skip
over it, sing and dance over it, and get on to the good stuff.' And he
was right," Wilder later explained.
Before
starring in "The Producers," he had a small role as the hostage of
gangsters in the 1967 classic "Bonnie and Clyde." He peaked in the
mid-1970s with the twin Brooks hits "Blazing Saddles" and "Young
Frankenstein."
He went on to write several
screenplays and direct several films. In 1982, while making the
generally forgettable "Hanky-Panky," he fell in love with co-star Gilda
Radner. They were married in 1984, and co-starred in two Wilder-penned
films: "The Woman in Red" and "Haunted Honeymoon."
After
Radner died of ovarian cancer in 1989, Wilder spent much of his time
after promoting cancer research and opened a support facility for cancer
patients. In 1991, he testified before Congress about the need for
increased testing for cancer.
That same year, he appeared in his final film role: "Another You" with Pryor.
Wilder
worked mostly in television in recent years, including appearances on
"Will & Grace" - including one that earned him an Emmy Award for
outstanding guest actor - and a starring role in the short-lived sitcom
"Something Wilder." In 2015, he was among the voices in the animated
"The Yo Gabba Gabba! Movie 2."
As for why he
stopped appearing on the big screen, Wilder said in 2013 he was turned
off by the noise and foul language in modern movies.
"I
didn't want to do the kind of junk I was seeing," he said in an
interview. "I didn't want to do 3D for instance. I didn't want to do
ones where there's just bombing and loud and swearing, so much
swearing... can't they just stop and talk instead of swearing?"
Wilder
is survived by his wife, Karen, whom he married in 1991, and his
daughter from a previous marriage, Katherine, from whom he was
estranged.
---
This
story has been corrected to show that Gene Wilder was born in 1933, not
1935. Also Gilda Radner and Wilder co-starred in "The Woman in Red," not
"The Lady in Red."
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