GENE WILDER, THE MAN WHO WANTED TO START A SMILE

Today, The Grandma is relaxing at home. She has decided to watch some films, and she has decided Gene Wilder's comedies, because she wanted to have fun with one of the best comedians of all time, who was died on a day like today in 2016.

Jerome Silberman (June 11, 1933-August 29, 2016), known professionally as Gene Wilder, was an American actor, writer, and filmmaker.

Wilder is known mainly for his comedic roles, and is remembered for his portrayal of Willy Wonka in Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory (1971), his work with Mel Brooks on the films The Producers (1967), Blazing Saddles (1974) and Young Frankenstein (1974), and for his four films with Richard Pryor: Silver Streak (1976), Stir Crazy (1980), See No Evil, Hear No Evil (1989), and Another You (1991).

Wilder began his career onboard, and made his screen debut in an episode of the TV series The Play of the Week in 1961. Although his first film role was portraying a hostage in the 1967 motion picture Bonnie and Clyde, Wilder's first major role was as Leopold Bloom in the 1967 film The Producers, for which he was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. This was the first in a series of collaborations with writer/director Mel Brooks, including 1974's Blazing Saddles and Young Frankenstein, which Wilder co-wrote, garnering the pair an Academy Award nomination for Best Adapted Screenplay.

Wilder directed and wrote several of his own films, including The Woman in Red (1984). With his third wife, Gilda Radner, he starred in three films, the last two of which he also directed. Her 1989 death from ovarian cancer led to his active involvement in promoting cancer awareness and treatment, helping found the Gilda Radner Ovarian Cancer Detection Center in Los Angeles and co-founding Gilda's Club.

After his last acting performance in 2003 -a guest role on Will & Grace for which he received an Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actor- Wilder turned his attention to writing. He produced a memoir in 2005, Kiss Me Like a Stranger: My Search for Love and Art; a collection of stories, What Is This Thing Called Love? (2010); and the novels My French Whore (2007), The Woman Who Wouldn't (2008), and Something to Remember You By (2013).

More information: NPR

Wilder was born Jerome Silberman on June 11, 1933, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, the son of Jeanne and William J. Silberman, a manufacturer and salesman of novelty items. His father was a Russian Jewish immigrant, as were his maternal grandparents.

Wilder first became interested in acting at age eight, when his mother was diagnosed with rheumatic fever and the doctor told him to try and make her laugh.

At the age of 11, he saw his sister, who was studying acting, performing onstage, and he was enthralled by the experience. He asked her teacher if he could become his student, and the teacher said that if he were still interested at age 13, he would take Wilder on as a student. The day after Wilder turned 13, he called the teacher, who accepted him; Wilder studied with him for two years.

Wilder was raised Jewish, but he held only the Golden Rule as his philosophy. In a book published in 2005, he stated, I have no other religion. I feel very Jewish and I feel very grateful to be Jewish. But I don't believe in God or anything to do with the Jewish religion.

Wilder studied Communication and Theatre Arts at the University of Iowa, where he was a member of the Alpha Epsilon Pi fraternity.

Wilder's first professional acting job was in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where he played the Second Officer in Herbert Berghof's production of Twelfth Night. He also served as a fencing choreographer.

After three years of study with Berghof and Uta Hagen at the HB Studio, Charles Grodin told Wilder about Lee Strasberg's method acting. Grodin persuaded him to leave the studio and begin studying with Strasberg in his private class. Several months later, Wilder was accepted into the Actors Studio.

In 1963, Wilder was cast in a leading role in Mother Courage and Her Children, a production starring Anne Bancroft, who introduced Wilder to her boyfriend and later husband, Mel Brooks.

In 1971, Wilder auditioned to play Willy Wonka in Mel Stuart's film adaptation of Roald Dahl's Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. After reciting some lines, director Mel Stuart immediately offered him the role. Before Wilder was officially cast for the role, Fred Astaire, Joel Grey, Ron Moody, and Jon Pertwee were all considered. Spike Milligan was Roald Dahl's original choice to play Willy Wonka. Peter Sellers even begged Dahl for the role.

When Woody Allen offered him a role in one segment of Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex* (*But Were Afraid to Ask), Wilder accepted, hoping this would be the hit to put an end to his series of flops. The film was a hit, grossing over $18 million in the United States alone against a $2-million budget.

After Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex* (*But Were Afraid to Ask), Wilder began working on a script he called Young Frankenstein.

In 1975, Wilder's agent sent him a script for a film called Super Chief. Wilder accepted, but told the film's producers that he thought the only person who could keep the film from being offensive was Richard Pryor. Pryor accepted the role in the film, which had been renamed Silver Streak, the first film to team Wilder and Pryor. They became Hollywood's first successful interracial film comedy duo.

In 1980 Wilder teamed up again with Richard Pryor in Stir Crazy, directed by Sidney Poitier. Pryor was struggling with a severe cocaine addiction, and filming became difficult, but once the film premiered, it became an international success.

More information: Little White Lies

Poitier and Wilder became friends, with the pair working together on a script called Traces -which became 1982's Hanky Panky, the film where Wilder met comedian Gilda Radner. Through the remainder of the decade, Wilder and Radner worked on several projects together. After Hanky Panky, Wilder directed his third film, 1984's The Woman in Red, which starred Wilder, Radner, and Kelly Le Brock. The Woman in Red was not well received by the critics, nor was their next project, 1986's Haunted Honeymoon, which failed to attract audiences. The Woman in Red did win an Academy Award for Best Original Song for Stevie Wonder's song I Just Called to Say I Love You.

After starring as a political cartoonist who falls in love in the 1990 film Funny About Love, Wilder performed in one final film with Pryor, the 1991 feature Another You, in which Pryor's physical deterioration from multiple sclerosis was clearly noticeable.

In 1994, Wilder starred in the NBC sitcom Something Wilder. The show received poor reviews and lasted only one season. He went back to the small screen in 1999, appearing in three television movies, one of which was the NBC adaptation of Alice in Wonderland. The other two, Murder in a Small Town and The Lady in Question were mystery movies for A&E TV that were cowritten by Wilder, in which he played a theatre director turned amateur detective.

Wilder died at the age of 83 on August 29, 2016, at home in Stamford, Connecticut, from complications of Alzheimer's disease. He had been diagnosed 3 years before his death, but kept knowledge of his condition private. According to his family, Wilder died while listening to one of his favourite songs, a rendition of Over the Rainbow sung by Ella Fitzgerald.

More information: The Guardian

Success is a terrible thing and a wonderful thing.
If you can enjoy it, it's wonderful.
If it starts eating away at you,
and they're waiting for more from me,
or what can I do to top this, then you're in trouble.
Just do what you love. That's all I want to do.

Gene Wilder