Gene Wilder

• Date of birth:June 11, 1933
• Place of birth:Milwaukee, Wisconsin
• Date of death:August 29, 2016
• Place of death:Stamford, Connecticut

Actor and writer

Gene Wilder was best known for his comedic roles in film, particularly his starring role in the 1971 film Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. He also wrote and starred in the 1974 cult classic Young Frankenstein.

Early Life

Gene Wilder was born Jerome Silberman on June 11, 1933, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, to William and Jeanne Silberman. Wilder’s father was a Jewish immigrant from Russia. Wilder had a sister, Corinne. Wilder’s mother was diagnosed with rheumatic fever when he was eight, and the doctor told him to try to make her laugh. It was the first time he consciously tried to make anyone laugh. His parents sent him to the Black-Foxe Military Institute, where he was abused and discriminated against as the only Jewish student at the school. His parents pulled him out after they discovered the abuse. He started taking acting lessons when he was thirteen. He went to the University of Iowa, which had one of the top theater departments at that time.

Wilder graduated from college and from Iowa went to the Old Vic Theatre School in London. Soon, he returned to the United States to learn the Stanislavsky method. He enrolled at the HB Studio in New York City. Wilder was drafted in 1956 and trained in the medical corps at Fort Sam Houston in Texas. He chose the Valley Forge Army Hospital because it was close to New York. He moved to New York City after his discharge from the Army and got a scholarship to the HB Studio. He married Mary Mercier in July 1960. The marriage lasted only five years, and the couple divorced in 1965.

Wilder was one of two people selected from an audition pool of twelve hundred at the Actors Studio. He chose the stage name Gene Wilder. The name Wilder was inspired by the playwright Thornton Wilder. He acted with Anne Bancroft in a play and met her boyfriend, Mel Brooks, who asked Wilder if he would play the part of Leo Bloom in his screenplay Springtime for Hitler. Wilder had worked on Broadway multiple times, but he had never performed comedic roles.

Life’s Work

Wilder got his first film role with a small part in Bonnie and Clyde in 1967. The director commented that he never thought of Wilder’s role as comedic, but he liked Wilder’s interpretation. Brooks finally secured funding for his screenplay. The title was changed to The Producers (1968) and Wilder costarred with Zero Mostel. They started filming in 1967, and Wilder married his second wife, Mary Joan Schultz. Six months later, he adopted Schultz's daughter, Katie. Although The Producers did not do well at the box office or with the critics, Brooks won an Academy Award for best original screenplay and Wilder was nominated for best supporting actor.

Wilder starred in two more films, neither of which fared well, and he took a lead role in Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory (1971). The film was only modestly successful at the box office, and Wilder worried about his career since his last four films had done poorly. Woody Allen offered Wilder a role in the 1972 film Everything You Always Wanted to Know about Sex but Were Afraid to Ask, which had very good returns.

Wilder’s agent at the time was representing Peter Boyle and Marty Feldman and suggested that the trio do a film together. Wilder ended up writing Young Frankenstein (1974). Brooks agreed to direct. Brooks was working on Blazing Saddles (1974) and wanted Wilder to play the part of Hedley Lamar, but Wilder turned him down, believing he was better suited for the role of the Waco Kid. Wilder accepted another role and received a last-minute call from Brooks before leaving to shoot the film. He needed Wilder to play the role of the Waco Kid after two other actors had washed out of the part. Blazing Saddles was a success.

Young Frankenstein was over budget, and Columbia Pictures ordered those in charge of the movie to cut the budget or find another studio. Twentieth Century-Fox picked up the film. Wilder says that of all the films he has worked on, Young Frankenstein made him the happiest. Wilder divorced Schultz in 1974, the same year that Young Frankenstein opened. The film was very successful, and Brooks and Wilder received Academy Award nominations for best adapted screenplay.

Wilder followed with his directorial debut, The Adventure of Sherlock Holmes’ Smarter Brother (1975), which he also wrote and in which he starred. He began a string of collaborations with Richard Pryor, with the successful Silver Streak (1976). He wrote, directed, produced, and starred in The World’s Greatest Lover (1977) and followed with The Frisco Kid (1979).

He costarred with Pryor again in Stir Crazy (1980), directed by Sidney Poitier. There were some rough times shooting, since Pryor was using drugs at the time. Poitier wanted to work with Wilder again, so they undertook Hanky Panky (1982), where Wilder met Gilda Radner. Radner divorced her husband, and then she and Wilder married in 1984. Radner appeared in The Woman in Red (1984) and Haunted Honeymoon (1986). Wilder did two more films with Pryor: See No Evil, Hear No Evil (1989) and Another You (1991).

Radner died from cancer in 1989. Wilder was devastated and did public service announcements on ovarian cancer and pushed for earlier testing in the medical community. He helped to cofound Gilda’s Club, a community to help support all those living with cancer. In 1991, he married Karen Boyer Webb, whom he had met while working on See No Evil, Hear No Evil.

Wilder tried his hand at a television series, Something Wilder, in 1994, but the show was canceled after one season. He appeared in three television films and won an Emmy Award for his guest role on Will and Grace in 2003. After retiring from acting, Wilder turned to writing; he published three novels, My French Whore (2007), The Woman Who Wouldn't (2008), and Something to Remember You By (2013); a collection of stories, What Is This Thing Called Love? (2010); a memoir, Kiss Me like a Stranger: My Search for Love and Art (2005); and a collaborative book with oncologist Steven Piver dealing with ovarian cancer and its treatment. He was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma in 1999; he underwent intensive stem cell treatment, and the cancer went into remission by 2005. In 2013 he was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease, but he never spoke publicly about his diagnosis. He died on August 29, 2016, at his home in Stamford, Connecticut, at the age of eighty-three.

Significance

Wilder’s career spanned stage, film, television, and print. He was successful in every area, starting with his work on Broadway. The comedic films of the 1970s and early 1980s are classics, and three of them were nominated for Academy Awards or Golden Globes. His talents also extended to other aspects of film-making: screenwriting, directing, and producing. Later in his acting career, he won an Emmy Award for outstanding guest actor in a comedy series for his role in Will and Grace. His fiction and nonfiction writing was praised by reviewers. His range of talents expressed in his career has been matched by few others in the entertainment industry.

Bibliography

Lewis, Daniel. "Gene Wilder Dies at 83; Star of 'Willy Wonka' and 'Young Frankenstein.'" The New York Times, 29 Aug. 2016, www.nytimes.com/2016/08/30/movies/gene-wilder-dead.html. Accessed 21 Mar. 2017.

Lyman, Darryl, and Barbara Black. Great Jews in Entertainment. Jonathan David, 2005.

Piver, M. Steven, and Gene Wilder. Gilda’s Disease: Sharing Personal Experiences and a Medical Perspective on Ovarian Cancer. Prometheus Books, 1996.

Segal, David. "Gene Wilder: It Hurts to Laugh." The Washington Post, 28 Mar. 2005, www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A5809-2005Mar27.html. Accessed 21 Mar. 2017.

Wilder, Gene. Kiss Me like a Stranger: My Search for Love and Art. St. Martin’s Press, 2005.