lit a candle 8 Sept 2026A quiet man who let his work speak. In an age of noise he chose not to make his illness public, and I respect that deeply.
Their story
Gene Wilder was born Jerome Silberman on 11 June 1933 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, to Jeanne (nee Baer) and William J. Silberman, a manufacturer and salesman of novelty items, in a Russian Jewish family. He later said that acting took hold at about eight, when his mother was diagnosed with rheumatic…
Gene Wilder was born Jerome Silberman on 11 June 1933 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, to Jeanne (nee Baer) and William J. Silberman, a manufacturer and salesman of novelty items, in a Russian Jewish family. He later said that acting took hold at about eight, when his mother was diagnosed with rheumatic fever and a doctor told him to "try and make her laugh." After watching his sister onstage he begged for lessons. From thirteen he studied locally, then briefly attended Black-Foxe Military Institute in Hollywood, where he was bullied and sexually assaulted, largely for being the only Jewish boy there, before returning to Milwaukee. He graduated from Washington High School in 1951, earned a B.A. in Communication and Theatre Arts at the University of Iowa in 1955, studied fencing and theatre at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School in England, and trained in New York at the HB Studio with Herbert Berghof and Uta Hagen, later joining the Actors Studio. Drafted into the U.S. Army on 10 September 1956, he served as a medical corps paramedic in psychiatry and neurology at Valley Forge Army Hospital. His mother died of ovarian cancer in November 1957. He took the stage name Gene Wilder: Gene from Thomas Wolfe's Eugene Gant, Wilder from Thornton Wilder. He won a Clarence Derwent Award for The Complaisant Lover and played Billy Bibbit opposite Kirk Douglas in the Broadway One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest.
Anne Bancroft introduced him to Mel Brooks during Mother Courage and Her Children. Brooks held him for the accountant Leo Bloom in what became The Producers (1967), which followed a small film debut in Bonnie and Clyde. Wilder's Bloom earned an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor. In 1971 he created the definitive screen Willy Wonka in Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory, insisting on the cane-fall somersault so that, from then on, "no one will know if I'm lying or telling the truth." The film underperformed on first release, then became a lasting classic, and Wilder received a Golden Globe nomination. A Woody Allen segment in Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex (1972) and a voice turn as Letterman on The Electric Company sat beside the Brooks peak of 1974: Blazing Saddles, as the Waco Kid, and Young Frankenstein, which he co-wrote. The screenplay earned Brooks and Wilder an Oscar nomination for Best Adapted Screenplay and later a Nebula Award. He directed himself in The Adventure of Sherlock Holmes' Smarter Brother (1975) and later features. Pairing with Richard Pryor in Silver Streak (1976, another Golden Globe nomination), Stir Crazy (1980), See No Evil, Hear No Evil (1989), and Another You (1991) made them a landmark interracial comedy team.
Wilder married actress Mary Mercier on 22 July 1960; they divorced in 1965. He then married Mary Joan Schutz on 27 October 1967 and adopted her daughter Katharine. The marriage lasted about seven years, and he and Katharine later became estranged. He married comedian Gilda Radner on 14 September 1984 in the south of France. She died of ovarian cancer on 20 May 1989. On 8 September 1991 he married Karen Boyer, also known as Karen Webb, a hearing specialist he had met while preparing a role that required lip-reading. After Radner's death he helped found the Gilda Radner Ovarian Cancer Detection Center in Los Angeles and co-founded Gilda's Club, and he co-wrote Gilda's Disease with Dr. Steven Piver. He survived non-Hodgkin lymphoma diagnosed around 1999, reporting complete remission by 2005 after chemotherapy and a stem-cell transplant. His last major screen acting was a Primetime Emmy-winning guest turn as Mr. Stein on Will & Grace. He then wrote the memoir Kiss Me Like a Stranger (2005) and novels including My French Whore, The Woman Who Wouldn't, and Something to Remember You By. He told interviewers he liked "show" but not "show business," and lived quietly in Stamford, Connecticut, writing and painting watercolors.
He died at home in Stamford on 29 August 2016, aged 83, from complications of Alzheimer's disease, diagnosed about three years earlier and kept private so children who still called out "Willy Wonka" would not trade delight for worry. His nephew Jordan Walker-Pearlman said he died holding family hands while Ella Fitzgerald's "Over the Rainbow" played, and that he simply could not bear the idea of one less smile in the world. Mel Brooks called him one of the truly great talents of the time. Peers and millions of viewers mourned a performer whose panic, tenderness, and mischief redefined screen comedy. He never won a competitive Oscar. Two nominations, an Emmy, the cane fall, Leo Bloom's anxious arithmetic, and "Pure Imagination" were the record that lasted. The Academy included him in its 2017 In Memoriam. The documentary Remembering Gene Wilder premiered in 2023, and the Gilda's Club network continues the advocacy that followed Radner's death.
Biography adapted from English Wikipedia Gene Wilder: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gene_Wilder (accessed 2026-09-08); The New York Times obituary (Daniel Lewis, 2016-08-29): https://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/30/movies/gene-w. Wikipedia ↗
In their own words
“Try and make her laugh.”
Doctor's instruction to young Jerome after his mother's rheumatic fever diagnosis; he cited it as the start of consciously making people laugh. Memoir, Blank on Blank, and 92Y interviews.
“Because from that time on, no one will know if I'm lying or telling the truth.”
Explaining why he demanded Willy Wonka's cane-fall somersault entrance. 92Y interview with Robert Osborne, 2013.
“I like show, but I don't like the business.”
On retiring from acting. TCM Role Model: Gene Wilder (Alec Baldwin, 2008), via Wikipedia and press.
“I always thought she'd pull through.”
On Gilda Radner's death. Wikipedia citing his accounts and memoir-era interviews.
“He simply couldn't bear the idea of one less smile in the world.”
Nephew Jordan Walker-Pearlman, on keeping Alzheimer's private. Family statement via USA Today, AP, and NPR.
“One of the truly great talents of our time. He blessed every film we did with his magic & he blessed me with his friendship.”
Mel Brooks tribute on Twitter, 29 August 2016. Not a Wilder quotation. @MelBrooks status 770347237280886784; also reported by BBC and Deadline.
Photos
5Gene Wilder publicity still, 1970 (Start the Revolution Without Me)
by People Forever
Gene Wilder, 1970 (Quackser Fortune Has a Cousin in the Bronx)
by People Forever
Gene Wilder at a book signing, May 2007
by People Forever
Gene Wilder, May 2007
by People Forever
That took real strength. Most people would've made it about them.