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Willy Wonka star Gene Wilder dead at 83

Gene Wilder will be best remembered for his role as Willy Wonka.

Gene Wilder will be best remembered for his role as Willy Wonka. Photo: Getty

Hollywood star Gene Wilder, who delighted audiences with his comic turns in Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory and several Mel Brooks classics including Blazing Saddles and The Producers, has died age 83.

Wilder died at his home in Stamford, Connecticut, from complications of Alzheimer’s disease, his family said, adding the actor had “co-existed” with the disease for the past three years.

“It is with indescribable sadness and blues, but with spiritual gratitude for the life lived that I announce the passing of husband, parent and universal artist Gene Wilder,” read the statement, penned by nephew Jordan Walker-Pearman.

“The decision to wait until this time to disclose his condition wasn’t vanity, but more so that the countless young children that would smile or call out to him ‘there’s Willy Wonka’ would not have to be exposed to an adult referencing illness.”

Wilder’s barely contained hysteria made him a go-to lead for director-writer Brooks, who cast him in Blazing Saddles, Young Frankenstein and The Producers in the 1960s and ’70s.

“Gene Wilder – one of the truly great talents of our time. He blessed every film we did with his magic & he blessed me with his friendship,” Brooks said on Twitter.

Gene Wilder at the US Open in 2014. Photo: AAP.

Gene Wilder at the US Open in 2014. Photo: AAP.

Besides his classic collaborations with Brooks, the two-time Oscar nominated Wilder paired memorably with comedian Richard Pryor in hits Silver Streak and Stir Crazy.

But his most cherished role would come in 1971, as the title character in the timeless musical Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory.

The film would transcend generations, and Wilder’s trademark physical comedy and expressive blue eyes would bring the character first introduced in Roald Dahl’s Charlie and the Chocolate Factory to life.

“It wasn’t a success when it came out. And I heard some talk about mothers who thought it was cruel to the children,” Wilder said of the original Willy Wonka film.

“What they and everyone else found out later on was that maybe some mothers felt that way, but the children didn’t feel that way. The children understood the movie very well.”

Wilder was openly critical of the 2005 remake of the film, starring Johnny Depp, which he described as a “mistake”.

“I think it’s an insult. It’s probably Warner Brothers’ insult. Johnny Depp, I think, is a good actor, but I don’t care for that director [Tim Burton]. He’s a talented man, but I don’t care for him doing stuff like he did,” he said.

Wilder got his break in Bonnie and Clyde

Born Jerome Silberman to Russian immigrants in Milwaukee, Wilder studied at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre in Bristol, England, and then studied method acting at the Actors Studio.

A leading role in a play that also starred Anne Bancroft, who was dating her future husband Brooks, led to Wilder becoming a top member of Brooks’ stock company of crazies, some of whom branched out with Wilder into other film ventures.

Wilder’s first movie role was a small part as a terrified undertaker who was abducted by Bonnie and Clyde in Arthur Penn’s 1967 film of the same name.

The following year he was panic-stricken Leo Bloom to Zero Mostel’s conniving Max Bialystock in The Producers, picking up an Oscar nomination for best supporting actor.

While it initially got a tepid response, the movie with its over-the-top song Springtime for Hitler went on to become a cult favourite and, years later with a different cast, a monster hit on Broadway.

Wilder was a last-minute fill-in as the Waco Kid in Brooks’ Blazing Saddles in 1974, and with Brooks wrote the screenplay for Young Frankenstein released later that year, also to big box office returns.

The two were nominated for best screenplay Oscars, but lost to Francis Ford Coppola and Mario Puzo for The Godfather Part II.

With Brooks alumni Madeline Kahn and Marty Feldman, Wilder made his directorial debut with 1975’s The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes’ Smarter Brother, and directed several other movies with uneven results.

Wilder’s title role in Willy Wonka earned him a Golden Globe nomination in 1971, and he was nominated again in that category in 1976 for Silver Streak.

He won an Emmy in 2003 for outstanding guest actor in a comedy series for appearances on Will and Grace.

Actor promoted cancer awareness

Wilder also was active in promoting ovarian cancer awareness and treatment after his wife, Saturday Night Live comedian Gilda Radner, whom he married in 1984, died of the disease in 1989.

He helped found the Gilda Radner Ovarian Cancer Detection Centre in Los Angeles and co-founded Gilda’s Club, a support group that has branches throughout the country.

Wilder was hospitalised in 1999 with non-Hodgkin lymphoma but was said to be in complete remission in 2005.

Wilder lived in Stamford in a house built in 1734 that he had shared with Radner, writing and painting watercolours with his wife Karen Boyer, whom he married in 1991.

https://twitter.com/JimCarrey/status/770358316966879232

https://twitter.com/DebraMessing/status/770355516090572800

-with agencies

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