The legendary actor, Gene Wilder, was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, with his original name Jeroma Silberman, in 1933. His father was migrated from Russia.
His mother, Jeanne had a heart disease that called, rheumatic heart disease, and he remembers that his mother was mostly feeling ill, in his childhood.
As he recalled, a doctor of his mother had said to Wilder that, “Don’t ever argue with your mother, you might kill her. Try to make her laugh.”
This might gave him the spark of his wonderful career, as an actor. He had acted to his mother first, to make her laugh. He had acted in different characters, to make her smile.
Wilder had stated that his mother had supported him to pursue a career as an actor, as he said, “When your mother gives you confidence about anything that you do, you carry that confidence with you,”
“She made me believe that I could make someone laugh.”
He first went to California to join the army, but then moved to Milwaukee to pursue a career on theaters. He then attended to the University of Iowa.
Later on, he wanted to move further in the theater, therefore, he went to the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School, to U.K.
After he served for two years in the army, he moved to the New York City, to make his dreams come true.
He was 26 years old when he joined to the Actor’s Studio. He felt that he needed a better name to shine, and choose Gene from Look Homeward’s Eugene Grant, and Wilder from Our Town’ author, Thornton Wilder.
When he was 33, he had acted on many Broadway shows, and received his first movie offer with Bonnie and Clyde.
After the his first movie, he had his breakthrough and in 1968, he had acted in The Producers, by Mel Brooks. With the movie, he was nominted for Best Actor in a Supporting Role.
After three years, he had the opportunity to give life to the character, Willy Wonka, from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.
It was his first lead role, and today, we all remember him with his role in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, as Willy Wonka.
As he first saw the script of the movie, he was in, but he demanded some chances regarding his character.
As he felt, his character was lacking information, as introduction. He stated that Willy Wonka needed a better enterance to the screens of the viewers.
“When I make my first entrance, I’d like to come out of the door carrying a cane and then walk toward the crowd with a limp. After the crowd sees Willy Wonka is a cripple, they all whisper to themselves and become deathly quiet,” he had stated in his letter to the director, Mel Stuart.
“As I walk toward them, my cane sinks into one of the cobblestones I’m walking on and stands straight up, by itself; but I keep on walking, until I realize that I no longer have my cane. I start to fall forward, and just before I hit the ground, I do a beautiful forward somersault and bounce back up, to great applause.” Wilder added.
With his directions on his character, we got the chance to see the legendary, iconic Willy Wonka, thanks to Wilder.
He stated that the enterance of Willy Wonka was important because, “from that time on, no one will know if I’m lying or telling the truth.”
Wilder also had added some details in the clothing of Willy Wonka too. He had changed the colors, pants of his character, the hat Wonka is wearing and many more things.
“The hat is terrific, but making it 2 inches shorter would make it more special,” Wilder had stated.
He stated that Woody Allen is his favorite, as he said, “I don’t love Woody Allen’s [films] all the time, but when they’re good, they’re just sensational, I love them,”
“I mean, just seeing ‘Midnight in Paris,’ how could you do better than that?”
He also made some comments on the Charlie and the Chocolate Factory remake that happened on 2005, with whom Tim Burton directed, and Johhny Depp had played the role of Willy Wonka.
“I think it’s an insult,” Wilder had commented about the movie, and added, “Johnny Depp, I think, is a good actor, but I don’t care for that director. He’s a talented man, but I don’t care for him doing stuff like he did.”
After Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, he had starred on Blazing Saddles, and nominated for an Oscar again. Later on, he created Young Frankenstein with Mel Brooks, and both of them were nominated for Best Writing, Screenplay Adapted From Other Material, on Oscar.
He then continued to his career with writing and directing, The Adventure of Sherlock Holmes’ Smarter Brother, which was not a success.
As he failed on his next projects, he decided to retire from acting, and started his career as an author. He had published two novels, and some short stories along with his memoir that published in 2005, Kiss Me Like a Stranger: My Search for Love and Art.
“Once in a while, there was a nice, good film, but not very many. If something comes along that’s really good and I think I would be good for it, I’d be happy to do it. But not too many came along,” Wilder said.
“I mean, they came along for the first, I don’t know, 15, 18 films, but I didn’t do that many. But then I didn’t want to do the kind of junk I was seeing. I didn’t want to do 3D, for instance. I didn’t want to do ones where it’s just bombing and loud and swearing. So much swearing going on. If someone says ‘Ah, go f— yourself,’ well, if it came from a meaningful place, I’d understand it. But if you go to some movies, can’t they just stop and talk, just talk, instead of swearing? That put me off a lot.” Gene Wilder said in an interview.
Wilder was unsuccessful in terms of relationships as he had lived through a major tragedy with one of his relationship.
Wilder was married to Mary Mercier between 1960 to 1965. After two years from their divorce, Wilder married Mary Joan Schutz. Wilder also adopted Schutz’s daughter, Katherine. After their divorce, he got separated from his adopted daughter too.
“I had a daughter and lost her a long while ago. That’s too sad a story to go into,” Wilder had stated in one of his interviews.
When it was 1984, Wilder married with Gilda Radner. They were married when they started their relationship, and both of them got divorced to be together.
They were happily married until it was 1989, which was when Radner had passed away due to cancer.
“I had one brave contribution to make to Gilda. I was so incredibly dumb, it was hard to believe, because I thought she was going to pull through until three weeks before she died,” Wilder said.
“Two-and- three-quarters years, I thought that she would make it. And I would say that to her, and she said, really? And I said I’ll find — right now, I’ll exchange life spans with you. The irony is that I meant it. I thought that she’d pull through and that she would live longer than I would.” he said in his interview and continued;
“I could see that she wasn’t going to make it. And she knew it too. And she recorded her book, It’s Always Something, three weeks before she died because she wanted it to be on record. She’d pull herself out of bed, put a little make-up on, put a skirt and blouse on, be driven to the studio, record her book, come home and get back into bed.”
And again, in 1991, Gene married to Karen Webb, which stayed together until he passed away in 2016, at the age of 83. His diagnosis with Alzheimer’s Disease was kept hidden, until it revealed few years after his passing.
Gene Wilder had wished that people shouldn’t learn about his disease, which stated by his nephew, Jordan Walker-Pearlman.
“He simply couldn’t bear the idea of one less smile in the world.”
“My husband took the news with grief, of course, but also astonishing grace. I watched his disintegration each moment of each day for six years. One day, I saw him struggle with the ties on his drawstring pants. That night, I took the drawstrings out. Then his wrist was bleeding from the failed effort of trying to take off his watch. I put his watch away,” Karen Webb stated.
“Gene died fifteen months ago. I was in the bed next to him when he took his last breaths. By that point, it had been days since he’d spoken. But on that last night, he looked me straight in the eye and said, three times over, ‘I trust you.’”
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