ADSactly Comedy: Gene Wilder
Hello dear @adsactly readers,
Last time, we talked about comedy giant Mel Brooks. And as I was writing that post, I kept mentioning Gene Wilder, a favorite of mine and I thought, why not write a post dedicated to him, as well? After all, he did way more than just star in some of Mel Brooks’ movies, even though that was where he got his big break (even got nominated for an Academy Award for the part of Leo Bloom in ‘The Producers’).
Like Brooks, Wilder became interested in acting at a very young age. The story goes he first started performing little comedy numbers when his mother became ill with rheumatic fever and the doctor advised him to make her laugh (Wilder was eight, at the time). Later, when he was eleven, he saw his older sister, who was also studying acting, on stage and begged her teacher to take him on as a student. The teacher told him to come back when he was thirteen, if he was still interested, which Wilder did.
And thank heavens he did, otherwise the world would have been much less funny.
src
For a good first few years, he starred in various plays on and off-Broadway, one of which – Mother Courage and Her Children – would lead to a decades-long collaboration with Mel Brooks, whom Wilder met through his co-star at the time (and later, Brooks’ wife) Anne Bancroft.
As I mentioned, of course, his debut came with The Producers and of course, he scored numerous comedic hits with Blazing Saddles and Young Frankenstein. But as it turns out, Gene Wilder was a prolific writer and director in his own right, even though his films haven’t been remembered so well by history as those of Mel Brooks.
He had his directorial debut in 1975 with ‘The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes’ Smarter Brother’, in which he also starred as the younger Holmes sibling, Sigerson, who’s lived in the shadow of his more well-known brother for years and who sets out to prove his worth by solving the case of a missing royal letter. It’s interesting to note that he co-stars with Brooks alumni, Marty Feldman, Madeline Khan and Dom DeLuise – the first two, also his co-stars in ‘Young Frankenstein’ the year before, the latter, a co-star in ‘Blazing Saddles’.
Wilder and Kahn src
A decade later, he wrote and directed and starred in ‘The Woman in Red’, a film about a woman-obsessed ad man who falls for this woman in a red dress he sees standing on an air grate, recreating the famous Marilyn Monroe incident. In his quest to find a woman he dials a wrong number and talks to a woman who falls in love with his voice. The film featured the famous Stevie Wonder song, ‘I Just Called to Say I Love You’.
Of course, during his long, impressive career, Gene Wilder collaborated with many talented directors, among which Woody Allen, in ‘Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex But Were Afraid to Ask’ in 1972, and even Sidney Poitier in 1980, on ‘Stir Crazy’, a comedy about two best friends wrongfully accused of a robbery. Wilder starred alongside Richard Pryor, with whom he’d first connected on the set of ‘Blazing Saddles’ some five years before.
Wilder and Pryor, both comedy legends, would star together in no less than four films, spanning a period of almost twenty years (and of course, work together on a fifth, ‘Blazing Saddles’, on which Pryor was co-writer). The relationship between the two, however, was tense and ever-so-complicated and a lot of that was to due with Pryor’s substance abuse. He’d originally been set to play the sheriff in ‘Blazing Saddles’ as well, but lost that by showing up high on set, which really foreshadowed the trouble to come.
Still, they had incredible on-screen chemistry and remain a memorable comedy duo.
Willy Wonka
Perhaps unfairly, Gene Wilder remains in our memories as eccentric chocolatier extraordinaire, Willy Wonka, in 1971’s Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. Who can forget Gene Wilder singing ‘Pure Imagination’? Much as I love Johnny Depp and his own portrayal of the character in the early 2000s adaptations, Gene Wilder just was Willy Wonka.
He made Wonka what we know and love today and I believe he deserves almost as much credit for the character as author Roald Dahl himself.
For example, did you know that the famous scene where Willy Wonka appears before the crowd, limping, leading everyone to think he has a walking problem and then magically losing his cane and waking normally – that all came from Gene Wilder. He insisted on doing that scene that way, precisely to show the audience they couldn’t trust him and make sure that no one knew whether what he was saying was truth or lie.
In later years, however, Gene Wilder lost some of his enthusiasm for this role-of-a-lifetime. He became worried that his performance as Willy Wonka would overshadow the rest of his legacy (which it did) and that people would rather remember him as Wonka, than as the grandson of Dr. Frankenstein, in ‘Young Frankenstein’, a film he was reportedly much more proud of. And it is indeed sad to see that most young people today just think of him as ‘the Willy Wonka guy’ or even ‘that meme guy’, knowing what an extraordinary talent he was.
Researching for this, I read a heartbreaking anecdote by Wilder’s widow, saying how even towards the end of his life, when he was struggling with Alzheimer’s disease, he still remembered ‘Young Frankenstein’. Gene Wilder died on August 29th2016 – his diagnosis was only announced after his death.
What’s your favorite Gene Wilder movie?
Authored by @honeydue
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Thank you!
Great post.
Wilder was quite a power force in comedic history.
I watched some of his movies, including Wonka, of course, which I did not like that much. I have never been fan of the story itself, even though I love most of Dahl's stories. I liked Depp's interpretation even less.
My favorite movies are probably The Producers and Woman in Red
When I was reading your article on Mel Brooks, I couldn't help but turn my attention away from Gene Wilder, another of the great comedian actors of cinema. His face (without the exaggeration of Marty Feldman) is unforgettable. As an actor, the film I like the most is Young Frankenstein (I saw it in All I didn't know about sex and..., from Allen, but I don't remember it now). And of the films under his direction, undoubtedly, The woman in red.
Thanks for your post, @honeydue.
I'm between The Woman in Red and Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. Although for me Gene Wilder I always remember him as Willy Wonka, I started to differentiate him by his curls and his particular way of doing comedy. In an industry where face size is important, it's interesting that a man like Wilder has excelled. I find it sad that new generations only know him as the meme man and that his legacy with comedy actor is lost in the memory of his fans. A good tribute to this forgotten actor, @honeydue.
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Hi @honeydue, thank you for this publication dedicated to the great actor Gene Wilder. I will never forget all that I laughed when I saw the movie Young Frankenstein and the song "sweet mystery of youth I finally found you" that made actress Madeline Khan (Elizabeth) her fiancee who ended up marrying the Monster created by Dr. Frankenstein.
Another movie that I have fond memories is The Adventure of Sherlock Holmes’ Smarter Brother.
Regarding his role as director undoubtedly The Woman in Red is his best work. Greetings @honeydue and thanks @adsactly for making possible these spaces dedicated to the cinema