Gene Wilder, star of 'Willy Wonka,' is dead at 83

[Geee]

Fox News:

Gene Wilder, star of 'Willy Wonka' and several Mel Brooks comedies, is dead at age 83.

 

Wilder's nephew said the comedy legend died late Sunday in Stamford, Connecticut from complications from Alzheimer's disease.

 

The frizzy-haired actor was a master at playing panicked characters in the Mel Brooks classics "Young Frankenstein" and "The Producers."

 

But he also knew how to keep it cool as the boozy sheriff in "Blazing Saddles" and as the candy man in the children's favorite "Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory."

 

Wilder was also part of one the the best comedy tandems in film in the late 1970s and early 1980s, teaming with Richard Pryor on the hits "Sliver Streak" and "Stir Crazy."

[Valin]

 

 

 

[Geee]

@Valin - in the 'you could never say those things today' category

[clearvision]

Just watched Willi, etc. a few months back and thought what an over the top "family" movie they go away for the time.

[Valin]

@Valin - in the 'you could never say those things today' category

 

 

As I recall it was shocking even in those days.

[Valin]

Gene Wilder's Best Joke
David P. Goldman
August 29, 2016

The late Gene Wilder not only played comedy, but wrote it. "Young Frankenstein," for my money Mel Brook's best film, was Wilder's idea, and the script was a joint effort by the two comic geniuses. Cloris Leachman's creepy cameo as Frau Blücher, the housekeeper and apparent mistress of the late monster-maker, qualifies as one of the funniest moments on the American screen. Horses rear in terror at the mention of her name. She gazes at her dead lover's grandson with a perverse lust that would grow fungus on a billiard ball. And she was in the film for a reason.

 

"Frau Blücher" was the married name of the renegade Jewish philosopher Hannah Arendt, the erstwhile mistress of the philosopher and sometime Nazi Party member Martin Heidegger. The most influential Existentialist of the 20th century, Heidegger took over the University of Freiburg the same month that Hitler seized power in 1933, and threw in his lot with the Nazis--after looting Arendt's dissertation on St. Augustine for material in his magnum opus Being and Time. The married Heidegger spent the 1920s sleeping with his Jewish graduate student and borrowing her research, before joining the Nazi Party himself. Arendt was obsessed with Heidegger. After World War II she appeared in public with Heidegger and aided his rehabilitation, even though Heidegger refused to renounce his support for Hitler.

 

(Snip)

 

I do not have direct evidence that Wilder modeled the character on Arendt, but the coincidences seem too close to believe in accidents. In hell, Jew-haters are tormented by Jewish comedians. My understanding of the World to Come is hazy, but I hope that Gene Wilder's talents continue to afflict the departed souls of the enemies of his people.

[WestVirginiaRebel]

Hopefully he, Gilda Radner, and Richard Pryor are making the afterlife a much funnier place now.

 

Also from one of my favorite movies of his:

[Valin]

I'd Forgotten About This One

 

[nickydog]

That was good. I enjoyed it, @Valin. Never saw the movie.