Gene Wilder's Greatest Ever Screen Roles

The legendary Gene Wilder has passed away at the age of 83. Born Jerome Silberman in Milwaukee in June, 1933, he took his stage name in his mid-20s from the writer Thomas Wolfe’s character Eugene Gant and the playwright Thornton Wilder. Studying with the revered Lee Strasberg, the father of ‘method acting’, and known for his work with both Mel Brooks and Richard Pryor, Wilder will be remembered as one of the truly great comic actors not only of his generation, but of all time.

Here are some of his finest moments on screen…

Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory

Director Mel Stuart desperately wanted Wilder for the lead in his 1971 adaptation of Roald Dahl’s ‘Charlie And The Chocolate Factory’ from the off, but Wilder himself wasn’t sure. So, he suggested to Stuart the conceit for his big entrance, where he emerges from the factory with a walking stick before tumbling to the floor and landing feet first ‘to great applause’. Stuart asked why. “Because from that time on, no one will know if I’m lying or telling the truth,” he replied. It proved the very essence of Wilder’s iconic portrayal.

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The Producers

The actress Anne Bancroft was working with a promising young actor in a 1963 Broadway production of the Bertolt Brecht play ‘Mother Courage and Her Children’, and told her boyfriend – later her husband – Mel Brooks that she might just have found the very person for his new comedy movie, then called ‘Springtime For Hitler’. It was three years later that Brooks called Gene Wilder in to read for the role of nebbish accountant Leo Bloom, with his lead Zero Mostel already in place and given full approval of his co-star. Needless to say, Mostel approved. Wilder was nominated for the Best Supporting Actor Oscar too.

Silver Streak

Perhaps not as lauded as his other work with Richard Pryor, ‘Silver Streak’ is a star-studded, screwball delight, helmed by Arthur Hiller. As book editor George Caldwell, he witnesses a body being thrown from a train, soon becoming embroiled in skullduggerous plot of art forgery and teaming up with Pryor’s crook on the lam. Hiller also died earlier this month, aged 92.

Blazing Saddles

In his second outing with Mel Brooks, Wilder was scarcely in better form playing the Waco Kid, the recovering alcoholic gunslinger who teams up with Cleavon Little’s scandalous Sheriff Bart. Both Dan Dailey and John Wayne turned it down (it was too blue for Wayne’s family-friendly image), with the role eventually going to Gig Young, Oscar-winning star of ‘They Shoot Horses, Don’t They?’. But when Young collapsed during his first scene due to alcohol withdrawal, a frantic Brooks called Wilder from a payphone near the set and begged him to drop everything. Thank heavens he did.

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Short but gloriously sweet, Wilder’s role as a doctor who falls in love with a sheep – a very pretty one, it has to be said – in Woody Allen’s star-studded sex comedy is a nuanced masterclass is comedy acting.

Young Frankenstein

Back with Brooks, and possibly his greatest comic role, Wilder was Dr. Frederick ‘Fronkensteen’, a physician desperate to shake off the murky reputation of his grandfather, Victor. That proves easier said than done, once he inherits the family estate. His rendition of ‘Puttin’ On The Ritz’ with his monstrous reanimation (played to the hilt by Peter Boyle) still has the power to reduce the viewer to a shuddering wreck. Magnificent.

Stir Crazy

Under the direction of the great Sydney Poitier, Wilder and Pryor’s on-screen chemistry was truly galvanised following their double act in ‘Silver Streak’. After being sacked from their jobs in New York, Pryor and Wilder’s Harry and Skip decide to head west for Hollywood. All does not go to plan, when they are mistakenly thrown into jail after thieves steal the woodpecker outfits given them for an odd job in Arizona to rob a bank with. Their only option is escape, but thankfully, Wilder’s Skip rides a mean rodeo bull. It was a smash, the third highest-grossing movie of the year, behind ‘The Empire Strikes Back’ and ‘9 To 5’.

Image credits: Getty/Embassy Pictures/Paramount/Columbia