Gene Wilder, the Hollywood actor who starred as Willy Wonka, Dr. Frankenstein and the Waco Kid among dozens of roles, had died at the age of 83. The star finally succumbed to complications of Alzheimer’s Disease at his Connecticut home, his family said in a statement.An image of the wild-haired star from “Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory” is one of the most-used on meme generators.With Mel Brooks, Wilder was nominated for an Academy Award for best adapted screenplay for the 1974 movie, “Young Frankenstein,” in which he plays a descendant of the monster-creating scientist who goes on to make his own creature. Among his other roles with Brooks, Wilder played Leopold Bloom in “The Producers” and the Waco Kid in “Blazing Saddles.”To each character, Brooks brought depth as well as humor: Willy Wonka is a complex mix of nasty egotist and sweet philanthropist; the new Frankenstein hilariously tries to distance himself from his family, even changing the pronunciation of his name to “Fronken-steen”; the Waco Kid goes from alcoholic loser to sure- shot legend; and Bloom is the mild-mannered accountant who wants to stage a “love letter to Hitler.” Wilder was nominated for an Oscar as best supporting actor for the last.Brooks will also be remembered for his films with Richard Prior, especially for their chemistry that resulted in the box-office hit “Stir Crazy.” This may trump the Waco Kid - memorable for his sharp-shooting wisecracks and his desire to forget his past (“Well, my name is Jim, but most people call me... Jim.”) But nothing trumps Willy Wonka, one of the greatest screen interpretations – too dark for some, though one that has spawned remakes such as the Tim Burton version with Johnny Depp in 2005, titled “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory” after the original book of the same name by Roald Dahl. As Wonka tells us: “Invention, my dear friends, is 93 percent perspiration, 6 percent electricity, 4 percent evaporation and 2 percent butterscotch ripple.”
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