Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, has died at the age of 83
Gene Wilder, remembered by many for his lead role in Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, has died at the age of 83, his family has confirmed.
Celeb actor Gene Wilder, we all remembered him by many for his lead role in Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory.
His love on first sight was real with Radner, second wife to be. They met on the set of the Sidney Poitier film Hanky Panky, when the two worked together making the film. She described their first meeting as “love at first sight”.
She was unable to resist her attraction to Wilder as her marriage to guitarist G. E. Smith deteriorated. Radner make a second film with Wilder, The Woman in Red, released in 1984, and their relationship grew. The two were married on September 18 1984, in Saint-Tropez.
Wilder met the Saturday Night Live actress Gilda Radner on August 13, 1981, while filming Sidney Poitier’s Hanky Panky. Radner was married to guitarist G. E. Smith at the time, but Wilder and she became inseparable friends.
When the filming of Hanky Panky ended, Wilder found himself missing Radner, so he called her and theirs relationship grew, and Radner eventually divorced Smith in 1982. She moved in with Wilder, and the couple married on September 14, 1984, in the south of France. By his truly love of his life Gilda Radner, wrote a nice song, also winning Academy Award for Best Original Song performed by Stevie Wonder’s song “I Just Called, to Say I Love You”.
They both wanted to have children, but Radner suffered miscarriages, and doctors could not determine the problem. After experiencing severe fatigue and suffering from pain in her upper legs on the set of Haunted Honeymoon, Radner sought medical treatment.
Following a number of false diagnoses, she was found to have ovarian cancer in October 1986. Over the next year and a half, Radner battled the disease, receiving chemotherapy and radiotherapytreatments. The disease finally went into remission, giving the couple a respite, during which time Wilder filmed ‘See No Evil’, ‘Hear No Evil’. By May 1989, the cancer returned and had metastasized. Radner died on May 20, 1989. Wilder later stated, “I always thought she’d pull through.”
Her funeral was held in Connecticut on May 24, 1989. In lieu of flowers, her family requested that donations be sent to The Wellness Community.
Following Radner’s death, Wilder became active in promoting cancer awareness and treatment, helping found the Gilda Radner Ovarian Cancer Detection Center in Los Angeles and co-founding Gilda’s Club, a support group to raise awareness of cancer that began in New York City and now has branches throughout the country.
While preparing for his role as a deaf man in See No Evil, Hear No Evil, Wilder met Karen Webb (née Boyer), who was a clinical supervisor for the New York League for the Hard of Hearing. Webb coached him in lip reading. Following Gilda Radner’s death, Wilder and Webb reconnected, and on September 8, 1991, they married. The two lived in Stamford, Connecticut, in the 1734 Colonial home that he shared with Radner.
Wilder collaborated with writer and director Mel Brooks as well as stand-up comedian Richard Pryor.
In 1980 Wilder teamed up again with Richard Pryor in Stir Crazy, directed by Sidney Poitier. Pryor was struggling with a severe cocaine addiction, and filming became difficult, but once the film premiered, it became an international success.
Wilder performed in one final movie with Pryor, the 1991 feature Another You, in which Pryor’s physical deterioration from multiple sclerosiswas clearly noticeable. It was Pryor’s last starring role in a film, appeared in a few cameos before he died in 2005.
The comic actor also starred in classic films such as The Producers, Blazing Saddles and Young Frankenstein.
In 1971, he took on the role of one of his most beloved characters, Willy Wonka, in Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory.
Wilder’s other well-known roles included the Waco Kid in the 1974 cult classic Blazing Saddles and Doctor Ross in Woody Allen’s 1972 film, Everything You Wanted to Know About Sex* But Were Afraid to Ask.
Wilder has died on Sunday Aug.27.2016 in Stamford, Connecticut, due to complications from Alzheimer’s disease, his family announced.
“It is almost unbearable for us to contemplate our life without him,” his nephew Jordan Walker-Pearlman said.
