Gene Wilder

Overview

Born
June 11, 1933 · Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA
Died
August 29, 2016 · Stamford, Connecticut, USA (complications from Alzheimer's disease)
Birth name
Jerome Silberman
Height
6′ (1.83 m)

When he was 11, he wanted to be a comedian like Sid Caesar. Then, when he was 15 and saw Lee J. Cobb in 'Death of a Salesman,' he decided he would be a comedy actor and found that Mel Brooks was a great influence on his screen writing. He combined both talents with directing in The World's Greatest Lover (1977), followed by The Adventure of Sherlock Holmes' Smarter Brother (1975).
- IMDb mini biography by: Tonyman 5

One of his all-time favorite songs was "Over the Rainbow", and particularly the version sung by Ella Fitzgerald. According to his family, as Wilder laid on his deathbed, the music player (which was set to random) changed to this song. Wilder then smiled, closed his eyes, and peacefully passed away.
His performance as Willy Wonka in Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory (1971) is ranked #38 on Premiere magazine's 100 Greatest Movie Characters of All Time.
While serving in the United States Army from 1956-1958, he was assigned as a Medic to the Department of Psychiatry and Neurology at Valley Forge General Hospital in Phoenixville, Pennsylvania. He worked in treating psychiatric patients.
In October 2001, he read from "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" as part of a special benefit performance held at the Westport Country Playhouse to support families affected by the September 11 attacks. Also in 2001, Wilder donated a collection of scripts, correspondences, documents, photographs, and clipped images to the University of Iowa Libraries.
Appeared in four of the American Film Institute's 100 Funniest Movies: Blazing Saddles (1974) at #6, The Producers (1967) at #11, Young Frankenstein (1974) at #13 and Silver Streak (1976) at #95.

[on Mel Brooks] A loud kind of Jewish genius--maybe that's as close as you can get to defining him.
Woody [Woody Allen] makes a movie as if he were lighting 10,000 safety matches to illuminate a city. Each one is a little epiphany: topical, ethnic or political.
[on the movie Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (2005) to the Daily Telegraph] It's all about money. It's just some people sitting around thinking, "How can we make some more money?" Why else would you remake "Willy Wonka" [Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory (1971)]?
[on his role in Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex * But Were Afraid to Ask (1972)] And that's not an easy task, being in bed with a sheep, especially if you make the sheep nervous. I'm not going to go on, if you know what I'm talking about.
I'm not so funny. Gilda [Gilda Radner] was funny. I'm funny on camera sometimes. In life, once in a while. Once in a while. But she was funny. She spent more time worrying about being liked than anything else.