Gene Wilder

Gene Wilder died while I was in Jerusalem. The only positive I can think of is that he died while listening to Ella Fitzgerald's version of “Over the Rainbow”.

His work as a director was hit and miss. The Adventure of Sherlock Holmes' Smarter Brother is underappreciated brilliance. Haunted Honeymoon, not so much. He was more successful as a writer. Young Frankenstein, The World's Greatest Lover, The Woman in Red. But more than anything else, he will always be remembered for his acting. He played Billy Bibbit, John Quincy Adams, John Tyler, Robert Todd Lincoln, Rutherford Hayes on Broadway, and Sid Caesar in London's West End. On screen, he played Leo Bloom, Willy Wonka, Dr Doug Ross, The Waco Kid, Dr Frederick Frankenstein, Sigerson Holmes, Rudy Valentine, Rabbi Avram Belinski.

He was in the Broadway premieres of Grahame Greene's The Complaisant Lover with Sandy Dennis and Michael Redgrave; Bertolt Brecht's Mother Courage and Her Children, directed by Jerome Robbins and starring Anne Bancroft and Barbara Harris; Ken Kesey's One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, starring Kirk Douglas, Joan Tetzel, William Daniels; AE Hotchner's The White House, starring Helen Hayes and Fritz Weaver; and starred in Murray Schisgal's Luv with Barbara Bel Geddes and Larry Blyden.


Bonnie and Clyde
directed by Arthur Penn
written by Robert Benton & David Newman
produced by Warren Beatty
starring Warren Beatty, Faye Dunaway, Michael J Pollard, Gene Hackman, Estelle Parsons, Gene Wilder

The Producers
Directed & written by Mel Brooks
Music by John Morris
Starring Zero Mostel, Gene Wilder, Dick Shawn, Estelle Winwood, Christopher Hewett, Kenneth Mars, Lee Meredith, Andreas Voutsinas

Start the Revolution Without Me
directed by Bud Yorkin
starring Gene Wilder, Donald Sutherland, Rosalind Knight, Orson Welles

Quackser Fortune Has a Cousin in the Bronx
directed by Waris Hussein
starring Gene Wilder, Margot Kidder

Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory
directed by Mel Stuart
written by Roald Dahl
starring Gene Wilder, Jack Albertson, Peter Ostrum, Julie Dawn Cole, Roy Kinnear

Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex (But Were Afraid to Ask)
directed & written by Woody Allen
“What Is Sodomy?” starring Gene Wilder

Rhinoceros
directed by Tom O'Horgan
starring Gene Wilder, Zero Mostel, Karen Black

Blazing Saddles
Directed by Mel Brooks
Written by Andrew Bergman, Mel Brooks, Richard Pryor, Norman Steinberg
Music by John Morris
Starring Cleavon Little, Gene Wilder, Harvey Korman, Madeline Kahn, Slim Pickens, Mel Brooks, Burton Gilliam, Alex Karras, David Huddleston, Liam Dunn, John Hillerman, George Furth, Jack Starrett, Carol Arthur, Dom DeLuise, Robert Ridgely

The Little Prince
directed & produced by Stanley Donen
written by Alan Jay Lerner
music by Alan Jay Lerner & Frederick Loewe
starring Steven Warner, Richard Kiley, Bob Fosse, Gene Wilder

Young Frankenstein
Directed by Mel Brooks
Written by Gene Wilder & Mel Brooks
Music by John Morris
Starring Gene Wilder, Peter Boyle, Marty Feldman, Cloris Leachman, Teri Garr, Madeline Kahn, Kenneth Mars, Gene Hackman, Liam Dunn, Mel Brooks

The Adventure of Sherlock Holmes' Smarter Brother
Directed & written by Gene Wilder
Music by John Morris
Starring Gene Wilder, Madeline Kahn, Marty Feldman, Dom DeLuise, Leo McKern, Douglas Wilmer, Thorley Walters, Mel Brooks, Albert Finney

Silver Streak
directed by Arthur Hiller
written by Colin Higgins
produced by Thomas Miller & Edward Milkis
starring Gene Wilder, Richard Pryor, Jill Clayburgh, Ned Beatty, Patrick McGoohan, Ray Walston, Scatman Crothers

The World's Greatest Lover
directed, written & produced by Gene Wilder
starring Gene Wilder, Carol Kane, Dom DeLuise, Danny DeVito, Fritz Feld, Ronny Graham

The Frisco Kid
directed by Robert Aldrich
starring Gene Wilder, Harrison Ford, Val Bisoglio, Penny Peyser, Frank De Vol, Vincent Schiavelli

Sunday Lovers
“Skippy” directed & written by Gene Wilder
starring Gene Wilder, Kathleen Quinlan, Luis Ávalos

Stir Crazy
directed by Sidney Poitier
written by Bruce Jay Friedman
starring Gene Wilder, Richard Pryor, Georg Stanford Brown, JoBeth Williams, Craig T Nelson, Luis Ávalos

Hanky Panky
directed by Sidney Poitier
starring Gene Wilder, Gilda Radner, Richard Widmark, Kathleen Quinlan

The Woman in Red
directed & written by Gene Wilder
soundtrack by Stevie Wonder
starring Gene Wilder, Gilda Radner, Kelly LeBrock, Charles Grodin, Joseph Bologna, Judith Ivey

Haunted Honeymoon
directed by Gene Wilder
written by Gene Wilder & Terence Marsh
starring Gene Wilder, Gilda Radner, Dom DeLuise, Jonathan Pryce

See No Evil, Hear No Evil
directed by Arthur Hiller
written by Gene Wilder, Eliot Wald, Andrew Kurtzman, Earl Barret, Arne Sultan
music by Stewart Copeland
starring Gene Wilder, Richard Pryor, Joan Severance, Kevin Spacey

Funny About Love
directed by Leonard Nimoy
written by David Frankel & Norman Steinberg
starring Gene Wilder, Christine Lahti, Mary Stuart Masterson, Wendie Malick, Anne Jackson

Another You
directed by Maurice Phillips
written & produced by Ziggy Steinberg
starring Gene Wilder, Richard Pryor, Mercedes Ruehl, Kevin Pollak