Gene Wilder
In memory of a wonderful human being.
By Jeff Boulter
“For what we are about to see next, we must enter quietly into the realm of genius.” (as Dr. Frankenstein, Young Frankenstein, 1974)
On August 28, 2016, Gene Wilder passed away at the age of 83 due to complications from Alzheimer’s disease. As per his family’s statement, he was surrounded by family and was taken away just as Ella Fitzgerald’s rendition of “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” played. Gene exited this world exactly just as he walked through it — blanketed with love, solemn and quiet.
“I never used to believe in fate. I used to think you make your own life and then you call it fate. That’s why I call it irony.” (Newsweek, 2005)
Born Jerome Silberman on June 11, 1933, his father was a Russian Jewish immigrant who made and sold novelty items. His mother was often sick from a rheumatic fever. And there came the first time young Jerome would flirt with acting, as the doctor once told him,
“Don’t ever argue with your mother…you might kill her. Try to make her laugh.”
Humor to stave off mortality. A somber yet warm advice by a man to a kid, this sense of melancholy would always lie beneath each of his performances.
His formal training began at 11 when he saw his sister perform on stage. Her teacher wouldn’t take him on as a student until 13. After college in Iowa, he went to Bristol, England to study theater acting. He was later drafted into the army in 1956, whereby he chose to serve as a paramedic at Valley Forge to stay close to New York. 3 years he spent studying under Herbert Berghof and Uta Hagen, two of the most respected acting coaches at the time. He then moved onto Lee Strasberg’s studio to learn method acting. The name Jerry Silberman didn’t seem to have a stage ring to it, so he adopted a stage name: Gene Wilder. Gene came from both the main character of Thomas Wolfe’s novel Look Homeward, Angel, and from a far distant relative who was a WWII bomber navigator that impressed Jerry. Wilder was from the author Thornton Wilder.
“I’m in pain and I’m wet and I’m still hysterical!” (as Leo Bloom, The Producers, 1967)
A few roles in Broadway earned him acclaim, enough to attract attention off of it. By chance, he met Mel Brooks. And a wonderful relationship bloomed. His biggest break at the time was a co-starring role in The Producers, written and directed by Mel Brooks himself. Mel and Gene earned Oscar nominations for the movie, for writing and best supporting role respectively. Three movies after and he notches one of film’s most iconic roles, the titular character of Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory. There he beat out Peter Sellers and Fred Astaire for the role. The lasting image of a Wilder performance, he acted wonderfully as a mad candy man. It was a character he made so much to be in his image, a dynamite of joy and humor that’s belied by something somber and at times sinister.
Just a couple years later, in 1974, he would find himself in a role playing a drunken cowboy named Jim, or in some circles known as the Waco Kid, this comedic cult classic was another of Mel Brooks movies and touched on race relations in the western frontier called Blazing Saddles.
Mel Brooks tapped Gene for this defining role as the Waco Kid in Blazing Saddles, to create a direct satire of Hollywood and its racism in the context of a Western, this movie also features the first indirect pairing of then-writer Richard Pryor and Gene Wilder, Pryor was supposed to have played the role of Bart but that role went to another great actor, Cleavon Jake Little. But in 1975, with the film Silver Streak, the two of them became the first successful interracial comedy duo.
For a man with such an ability to fill the screen with his body and words, Gene took a simple element of comedy and used it to great effect. The comedic pause. Vacillating between deadpan, straight man, and stooge, he effortlessly seamed through roles to deliver the punchline. But it was those few seconds before reacting to what his co-stars said, those few seconds he held longer that showed his brilliance as an actor. Those ellipses in the script he filled with emotion, all through a subtle look.
Robin Williams once said,
“If you just listen, there’s a great power to that.”
And with a pause Wilder listened, he added an extra beat to the rhythm of the dialogue to add anticipation. It gave witty dialogue weight, room to breathe so that the audience could be knocked out cold with the punchline.
“What is essential is invisible to the eye.” (as the Fox, The Little Prince, 1974)
In Stamford, Connecticut, there was a room full of crying family members. Blanketed with love, Gene Wilder passed just as that Ella Fitzgerald song hung in the air. That day we all lost a brilliant man, a thespian whose performance was always teetering on a balance: a balance between a pensive soul and a hectic mania, the fundamental sadness of life and the utter humor of it. Somewhere over this rainbow, he’s about to see what’s next. With a pause to take it in, he’ll enter the realm of genius.
