Ask A Word

Encyclopedia: Gene Wilder, Talk:Gene Wilder

Gene Wilder, birth name Jerome Silberman, (born June 11, 1933) is an American actor and comedian who has starred in more than thirty movies.

He is best known for his collaborations with writer, producer, and director Mel Brooks, and is also known as the title character from Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. He also collaborated on many projects with comedian Richard Pryor. Gene Wilder made many movies with Brooks starting with The Producers in 1968, playing the role of accountant Leopold “Leo” Bloom, for which he was nominated for an Academy Award for best supporting actor. He was also nominated for an Academy Award for co-writing Young Frankenstein with Brooks. (Years later, he would spoof himself while guest-starring on Will & Grace as a character named "Frank Stein.")

Biography

Born in Milwaukee, the son of Russian Jewish immigrants, Wilder studied drama at the University of Iowa, where he was a member of the Alpha Epsilon Pi Fraternity, graduated in 1955, and later attended the prestigious Bristol Old Vic Theatre School in the UK. He served in the United States Army from 1956 to 1958.

Returning to the United States, Wilder sought work in the theater, supporting himself by driving a limousine and teaching fencing. His career started with the theater in various off-Broadway shows before making it on the Great White Way. It was on Broadway that he had a particularly good year in 1961 with the plays "The Complaisant Lover" and "Roots", and received the Clarence Derwent Award. It was several years later when casting for Mother Courage and Her Children in 1964 with actress Anne Bancroft when his career received an even greater boost; comedian Mel Brooks, whom Bancroft was dating at the time, took a liking to Wilder and cast him in several films.

Wilder's first big part was in Bonnie and Clyde where he played an undertaker abducted by the couple. Perhaps two of his best known roles are as Willy Wonka in Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory and as Leo Bloom in The Producers.

In the late 1970s and 1980s he appeared in a number of movies with Richard Pryor, making them the most prolific inter-racial comedy double act in movies during the period. However, Wilder later admitted the two were not as close as people believed. In fact, in his autobiography Wilder said many negative things about Pryor. He said that his troubled co-star's drug addiction made him very difficult and unpleasant to work with. However, he also said that when Pryor was not high, he was fun and pleasant to be around. He also maintains that he felt he had a better chemistry with Pryor as a co-star than with anyone else he has worked

In 1979 Wilder starred alongside Harrison Ford in the comedy The Frisco Kid. He also wrote and starred in Murder in a Small Town and its sequel, The Lady in Question as a theater producer turned amateur detective Larry "Cash Carter"

Wilder was married to Saturday Night Live actress Gilda Radner from 1984 until her death from ovarian cancer in 1989. Since then he has remained active in promoting cancer awareness and treatment. Wilder himself was hospitalized with non-Hodgkin's lymphoma in 1999 and made a full recovery in 2000.

right|thumb|175px|Karen Boyer with husband, Gene Wilder
Wilder has been married to speech therapist Karen Boyer since 1991.

On March 1 2005, Wilder released his highly-personal memoir Kiss Me Like A Stranger, an account of his life covering everything from his childhood, when his mother died of heart disease, up through Radner's death.

Controversy with Tim Burton

Gene Wilder is probably best known for his role as Willy Wonka in 1971's Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory. Prior to the release of Tim Burton's 2005 new movie adaptation of the book (entitled Charlie and the Chocolate Factory), Wilder said the new adaptation was "all about money" (though the original version had been produced by the Quaker Oats Company in hopes of selling its new line of Wonka bar chocolates) and that there was no need to make a new movie adaptation of the book. Wilder has noted that, if the new adaptation "has to be done," Johnny Depp is a perfect choice to reprise the role of Willy Wonka. Tim Burton has said he felt that the 1971 version was sappy and that he "rates Chitty Chitty Bang Bang higher ."

Filmography

*Bonnie and Clyde (1967)
*The Producers (1968)
*Start the Revolution Without Me (1970)
*Quackser Fortune Has a Cousin in the Bronx (1970)
*Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory (1971)
*Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex (But Were Afraid to Ask) (1972)
*The Scarecrow (1972)
*Rhinoceros (1974)
*Blazing Saddles (1974)
*The Little Prince (1974)
*Young Frankenstein (1974)
*The Adventure of Sherlock Holmes' Smarter Brother (1975) (also director)
*Silver Streak (1976)
*The World's Greatest Lover (1977) (also producer, director, and writer)
*The Frisco Kid (1979)
*Sunday Lovers (1980) (also director and writer)
*Stir Crazy (1980)
*Hanky Panky (1982)
*The Woman in Red (1984) (also director and writer)
*Haunted Honeymoon (1986) (also director and writer)
*See No Evil, Hear No Evil (1989) (also writer)
*Funny About Love (1990)
*Another You (1991)
*Alice in Wonderland (1999) (the mockturtle)
Upcoming:
*Instant Karma (2006) (cancelled)

Stage appearances

* The Complaisant Lover (Broadway, 1962)
* Mother Courage and Her Children (Broadway, 1963)
* One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (Broadway, 1963)
* The White House (Broadway, 1964)
* Luv (Broadway, 1966)
* Laughter on the 23rd Floor (London, 1996)

Trivia

* Played a man wrongly accused of committing a crime in four movies:
** Silver Streak (1976)
** Stir Crazy (1980)
** Hanky Panky (1982)
** See No Evil, Hear No Evil (1989).

* Starred with Richard Pryor in four movies:
** Silver Streak (1976)
** Stir Crazy (1980)
** See No Evil, Hear No Evil (1989)
** Another You (1991).

* After his wife Gilda Radner died of ovarian cancer, Gene co-founded Gilda's Club, a support group to raise awareness of the disease, one of which in his hometown of Milwaukee.

* When in the Army, he served as a Medic in the Department of Psychiatry and Neurology at Valley Forge Army Hospital in Phoenixville, Pennsylvania. He worked in treating psychiatric patients.

* Has been a Democrat for many years, and opposed the Vietnam War. He now opposes the War in Iraq.

* Played congas on "Life During Wartime" and "I Zimbra", two tracks from the 1979 album Fear of Music by Talking Heads.

*While on Will & Grace, Wilder's character at one point said, "Strike that, reverse it" which was a line from when he portrayed Willy Wonka.

*In 2006, Premiere Magazine placed two of his performances on its list of 100 Greatest Performances:
** Ranked as #9 -- Dr. Frederick Frankenstein (pronounced FRONK-en-steen) in Young Frankenstein.
**Ranked as #38 -- Willy Wonka in Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory.

*Was the voice of "Letterman" on the children's educational television series The Electric Company from 1972 to 1977.

*Was the voice in a 1960s Alka-Seltzer commercial.

Biography

Controversy with Tim Burton

Filmography

Stage appearances

Trivia

External links