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Gene Wilder (born Jerome Silberman on June 11, 1933) is an American actor and comedian who has starred in more than thirty movies. He is best known for his collaborations with writer, producer, and director Mel Brooks, and is also known as the title character from the 1971 film Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. He also collaborated on many projects with comedian Richard Pryor. Gene Wilder made many movies with Brooks starting with The Producers in 1968, playing the role of accountant Leopold “Leo” Bloom, for which he was nominated for an Academy Award for best supporting actor. He was also nominated for an Academy Award for co-writing Young Frankenstein with Brooks.
Biography
Returning to the United States, Wilder sought work in the theater, supporting himself by 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. It was on Broadway that he had a particularly good year in 1961 with the plays "The Complaisant Lover" and "Roots", and received the Clarence Derwent Award. It was several years later when casting for Mother Courage and Her Children in 1964 with actress Anne Bancroft when his 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 two of his best known roles are as Willy Wonka in Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory and as Leo Bloom in The Producers. 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. In fact, in his autobiography Wilder said many negative things about Pryor. He said that his troubled co-star's drug addiction made him very difficult and unpleasant to work with. However, he also said that when Pryor was not high, he was fun and pleasant to be around. 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.[citation needed]
Wilder was married to Saturday Night Live actress Gilda Radner from 1984 until her death from ovarian cancer in 1989. Since then he has remained active in promoting cancer awareness and treatment. Wilder himself was hospitalized with non-Hodgkin's lymphoma in 1999 and made a full recovery in 2000. 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 through Radner's death. Filmography
Stage appearances
Trivia
Additionally, Pryor served as a co-writer (and was originally set to star) in Blazing Saddles with Wilder.
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