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In fact, [Gene Wilder] had made a hysteric seem considerably less funny in his film debut as a terrified undertaker in Bonnie And Clyde. And neurotics soon became his stock-in-trade, whether he was playing the weird title character in Willy Wonka And The Chocolate Factory...

Gene Wilder

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Gene Wilder
Age: 83 †
Born: 1933
Born: June 11
Died: 2016
Died: August 29
Actor
Comedian
Diarist
Film Director
Film Producer
Screenwriter
Stage Actor
Television Actor
Writer
Milwaukee City
Wisconsin
Jerome Silberman
Made
Whether
Chocolate
Debut
Less
Titles
Gene
Clyde
Fact
Weird
Factory
Neurotics
Funny
Trade
Factories
Bonnie
Facts
Became
Title
Willy
Film
Soon
Genes
Undertaker
Seems
Seem
Terrified
Considerably
Character
Playing
Stock
Wilder

More quotes by Gene Wilder

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I met Richard Pryor for the first time in Calgary, in Canada. A very quiet, modest meeting.
Gene Wilder
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Great art direction is NOT the same thing as great film direction!
Gene Wilder
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I put out my hand to shake hands with Zero Mostel, and he took my hand [and] he pulled me up to his face, and he gave me a kiss on the lips. And all my nervousness went out the window.
Gene Wilder
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If you're not gonna tell the truth, then why start talking?
Gene Wilder
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I like - it's not that I want to be someone different from me, but I suppose it partly is that. I love creating a character in a fantastical situation, like Dr. Frankenstein, like Leo Bloom, a little caterpillar who blossoms into a butterfly. I love that.
Gene Wilder
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My agent at the time, Mike Medavoy, before he became a movie mogul, called me up and said, how about a movie with you and Peter Boyle and Marty Feldman? And I said, well, what makes you think of that? He said because I now handle you and Peter Marty.
Gene Wilder
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Her business manager said, you know, Gilda [Radner] left you that house. That's when I decided to stay and test it out. And after about a month, the roots grew, and I didn't ever want to live anywhere else for the rest of my life - travel, yes, but not to live anywhere else.
Gene Wilder
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I certainly didn't have New York Jewish humor. But I was in three Mel Brooks films so people thought I was a connoisseur of New York Jewish humor.
Gene Wilder
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If the physical thing you're doing is funny, you don't have to act funny while doing it...Just be real and it will be funnier
Gene Wilder
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On screen, Gene Wilder could often be summed up as an accident waiting to happen, that frizzy, flyaway hair, the eyes darting this way and that and then something would set him off, Zero Mostel, say, in the movie that made Wilder a star, The Producers.
Gene Wilder
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I'm in complete remission. I'm alive and well.
Gene Wilder
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I write funny. If I can make my wife laugh, I know I'm on the right track. But yes, I don't like to get Maudlin. And I have a tendency towards it.
Gene Wilder
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I was miscast in that production [of Mother Courage and Her Children] ... but it was with Anne Bancroft, whose boyfriend at the time was Mel Brooks, and that made my - I can't say my day, it made my life, in a way.
Gene Wilder
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I never thought of it as God. I didn't know what to call it. I don't believe in devils, but demons I do because everyone at one time or another has some kind of a demon, even if you call it by another name, that drives them.
Gene Wilder
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So my idea of neurotic is spending too much time trying to correct a wrong. When I feel that I'm doing that, then I snap out of it.
Gene Wilder
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My basic mistake in 'The World's Greatest Lover' was that I made the leading character a neurotic kook and sent him to Hollywood. I should have made him a perfectly normal, sane, ordinary person, and sent him to Hollywood. The audience identifies with the lead character.
Gene Wilder
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When you please your mother by doing something, it gives you confidence that you can please other people.
Gene Wilder
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Zero Mostel wasn't afraid of authority in any form, and that's the part that influenced me the most.
Gene Wilder
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To match the shoes with the jacket is fey. To match the shoes with the hat is taste.
Gene Wilder
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With Mel [Brooks], only one time and that was later on during Young Frankenstein - never with Zero [Mostel] and never with Mel except I was writing every day, and then Mel would come to the house and read what I'd written. And then he'd say, yeah, yeah, yeah, OK, yeah, OK. But we need a villain or we need whatever it was.
Gene Wilder