Gene Wilder
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Gene Wilder (born Jerome Silberman on June 11, 1933 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin) is an American actor who has starred in more than thirty movies.
He is best known as the title character from Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, and is also known for his collaborations with writer, producer, director Mel Brooks. 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.
In 1979 he starred alongside Harrison Ford in the comedy The Frisco Kid.
He 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.
He has been married to speech pathologist 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 his wife'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 reboot of the movie (entitled Charlie and the Chocolate Factory), Wilder said the remake 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 remake the original. Wilder has noted that, if the remake "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 "rate[s] 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)
- 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)
- Instant Karma (2006) (voice)
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
- Wilder was the voice of "Letterman" on the children's educational television series The Electric Company from 1972 to 1977.
- Wilder 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 was Willy Wonka.
- Was the voice in a 1960s Alka Seltzer commercial.
- *[}}}] at YouTube
External links
- [Watch Gene Wilder in Thursday's Game]
- [Interview with Wilder] on NPR's Fresh Air (March 16, 2005)
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