Gene Wilder died yesterday after a few years of alzheimer's. He was one of the people that filled a space in my growing up that was good. Just the sight of him meant a smile.
Publicity photo of Gene Wilder for film Start the Revolution Without Me (1970)
I think I first watched him in Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory but I became a fan with Blazing Saddles.
ReplyDeleteYep, I think WWatCF was my first encounter with him. Not in the cinema by the way, but on TV.
DeleteI loved many of his films. Stir Crazy with Richard Pryor was a really good one. Young Frankenstein, too. And Blazing Saddles...
ReplyDeleteHe really was the epitome of a 70s actor. And all his later films could be made in the 70s too. He had a range in his voice going to hysterical that was riveting.
DeleteI remember taking a date during High School to see Young Frankenstein. And then there was Silver Streak... I saw Blazing Saddles years later.
ReplyDeleteYes, for a while his output was predigous. But for me it would've been the 80s before I saw them. Our TV was about 10 years behind the release.
DeleteI hadn't realized he was suffering from Alzheimers, terrible. He was a brilliant comedian
ReplyDeleteMost of his well-known stuff came out before I was born or when I was quite young. I first saw Willie Wonka in the 80s and it creeped me out a bit. After reading the book and having watched it with my students since then, it is a wonderful film. Quite clever and not nearly as creepy as I remember it. :)
The family said they kept it very quite. But in a way doesn't it say something about comedy that but for the aging of the cars his films are timeless. And nothing really has come to eclipse them. Eddie Murphy wasn't even close to him, and was way more US.
DeleteI think the writer meant him to be creepy. The 'don't take sweets from strangers' maxim delivered by parents is the source of him I'd say.