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Gene Wilder

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Gene Wilder

Wilder at a book signing in May 2007

Birth name

Jerome Silberman

Born

June 11 1933 (age 74)
Milwaukee, Wisconsin, U.S.

Other name(s)

Gene Wilder

Occupation

Comedic actor

Years active

1961–Present

Spouse(s)

Mary Mercier (1960–1965)
Mary Joan Schutz (1967–1974)
Gilda Radner (1984–1989; her death)
Karen Boyer (1991–present)

Children

Katharine Anastasia Wilder (adopted with Schutz)(b. 1960)

Official site

www.genewilder.net

Awards
Emmy Awards
Outstanding Guest Actor - Comedy Series 2003 Will & Grace

Gene Wilder (born Jerome Silberman on June 11, 1933) is an Academy Award-nominated American actor who is best known for his role as Willy Wonka, his collaborations with Mel Brooks in Blazing Saddles, The Producers, and Young Frankenstein, and his four movies with Richard Pryor: Silver Streak, Stir Crazy, See No Evil, Hear No Evil, and Another You.

1 Biography
2 Personal life
3 Filmography
4 Stage appearances
5 References
6 External links

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 Bristol Old Vic Theatre School in the UK. He served in the United States Army from 1956 to 1958 where he served as a Medic in the Department of Psychiatry and Neurology at Valley Forge Army Hospital in Phoenixville, Pennsylvania. After the Army he got a scholarship to the HB studio, supporting himself, at first, with unemployment insurance and some savings, and afterwards with odd jobs such as 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. Around 1961 he became a member of The Actors Studio and gained notoriety in the Broadway scene with the plays "The Complaisant Lover" and "Roots", for which he received the Clarence Derwent Award. It was several years later the movie Mother Courage and Her Children featuring actress Anne Bancroft was being cast in 1964 that Wilder's 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 his best known roles are as Willy Wonka in Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory, Dr. Frederick Frankenstein in Young Frankenstein and as Leo Bloom in The Producers. During this time he also worked as the voice of "Letterman" on the children's educational television series The Electric Company from 1972 to 1977. 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. He said that his troubled co-star's drug addiction made him very difficult and unpleasant to work with. However, he also maintains that he felt he had a better chemistry with Pryor as a co-star than with anyone else he has worked with. In all, they made four movies together: Silver Streak (1976), Stir Crazy (1980), See No Evil, Hear No Evil (1989) and Another You (1991). In 1979 Wilder starred alongside Harrison Ford in the comedy The Frisco Kid. He also 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.

Personal life

Wilder in 1984

Wilder was married to Saturday Night Live actress Gilda Radner from 1984 until her death from ovarian cancer in 1989. On September 8, 1991, Wilder married Karen Webb (née Boyer), whom he met in 1988 while preparing for his role as a deaf man in the film See No Evil, Hear No Evil (1989). Webb was at the time a clinical supervisor for the New York League for the Hard of Hearing. Since the death of his first wife, Wilder has remained active in promoting cancer awareness and treatment and has retired from acting. He is the co-founder of Gilda's Club, a support group to raise awareness of cancer. One branch of Gilda's Club is in Wilder's hometown of Milwaukee. In 1998 he collaborated on the book "Gilda's Disease" for which he shared personal experiences of Radner's struggle with ovarian cancer. Wilder himself was hospitalized with non-Hodgkin lymphoma in 1999 but confirmed in March 2005 that his cancer was in complete remission following a stem cell transplant and chemotherapy. 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 to his wife's death. In early 2007 Wilder published his first novel, set during World War I, entitled My French Whore. Wilder is a Democrat. He opposed the Vietnam War and the war in Iraq.^[1] He resides in Stamford, Connecticut.