Gene Wilder, ‘Willy Wonka’ Star and Comedic Icon, Dies at 83 http://variety.com/2016/film/news/gene-wilder-dead-dies-willie-wonka-young-frankenstein-1201846745/
Rest peacefully. He had a great long life. Have his Charlie and the Chocolate Factory DVD that I watch all the time. No one can duplicate his role.
He was funny in the flick The Woman In Red. His wife fellow comedian Gilda Radner who played a co worker he stood up paid him in spades.
Gene Wilder was a funny man. He seemed like a gentle good natured person onscreen. He kept your attention even as a Hasidic Jew in the film The Frisco Kid with Harrison Ford. Willy Wonka & The Chocolate Factory was the first film I had scene with Wilder. Then I saw him in Young Frankenstein. When he worked with Richard Pryor in films like Silver Streak, Stir Crazy and others, I thought they worked very well together. Wilder wrote in his memoir that he didn't really like working with Pryor because of Pryor's personal problems. I still think of his singing the song Pure Imagination. What a talent. May he Rest In Peace.
"Tell me something. What's a dazzling urbanite like yourself doing in a place like this?" The Waco Kid Blazing Saddles
I had read about it a few years ago. Pryor's drug problems were a problem on the set during the making of the film Stir Crazy. Pryor co-wrote Blazing Saddles and there was a problem there because Warner Brothers didn't want Pryor around(Pryor wanted to play Sheriff Bart but Warner Brothers said no). Wilder was a professional and I am sure that he was concerned, but I don't think that he could work with anyone who had the problems that Pryor had. Wilder just rolled with it for the sake of the project.
Wilder was a real trooper indeed. He last played with Pryor on See No Evil,Hear No Evil because Pryor had problems with his health and not to volutile like he was in the past.
R.I.P. A great comedic talent. His films with Richard Pryor and Mel Brooks were among the first 'adult' comedies I can remember.
Check him out in The Lady In Red and Hanky Panky. In both films, he was working with Gilda Radner(Saturday Night Live alum), his wife before she died from cancer. Hanky Panky was directed by Sidney Poitier. The Frisco Kid was a funny fish-out-of-water western comedy.
RIP I grew up watching films like See no evil, Hear no evil, Haunted Honeymoon and Willy Wonker and the Chocolate Factory (I am a big Dahl fan and it always surprised me to know that he hated the movie)
