This loving tribute to Gene Wilder celebrates his life and legacy as the comic genius behind an extraordinary string of film roles, from his first collaboration with Mel Brooks in 'The Producers', to the enigmatic title role in the original 'Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory', to his inspired on-screen partnership with Richard Pryor in movies like 'Silver Streak'.
03-15-2024
1h 33m
THIS
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Main Cast
Movie Details
Production Info
Director:
Ron Frank
Writer:
Glenn Kirschbaum
Production:
Heath Point Productions
Revenue:
$166,179
Key Crew
Editor:
Ron Frank
Executive Producer:
Julie Nimoy
Executive Producer:
David Knight
Locations and Languages
Country:
US
Filming:
US
Languages:
en
Main Cast
Gene Wilder
Gene Wilder (born Jerome Silberman; June 11, 1933 – August 29, 2016) was an American actor, director, screenwriter, producer, singer-songwriter, and author.
He began his career on stage, 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.
He is known for his iconic portrayal of Willy Wonka in Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory (1971) 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), as well as starring in Woody Allen's Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex* (*But Were Afraid to Ask) (1972). He 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 – he 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).
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
Melvin Brooks (né Kaminsky, born June 28, 1926) is an American filmmaker, comedian, actor and composer. He is known as a creator of broad film farces and comic parodies. Brooks began his career as a comic and a writer for the early TV variety show Your Show of Shows. He became well known as part of the comedy duo with Carl Reiner in the comedy skit The 2000 Year Old Man. He also created, with Buck Henry, the hit television comedy series Get Smart, which ran from 1965 to 1970.
In middle age, Brooks became one of the most successful film directors of the 1970s, with many of his films being among the top 10 moneymakers of the year they were released. His best-known films include The Producers, The Twelve Chairs, Blazing Saddles, Young Frankenstein, Silent Movie, High Anxiety, History of the World, Part I, Spaceballs and Robin Hood: Men in Tights. A musical adaptation of his first film, The Producers, ran on Broadway from 2001 to 2007.
In 2001, having previously won an Emmy, a Grammy and an Oscar, he joined a small list of EGOT winners with his Tony award for The Producers. He received a Kennedy Center Honor in 2009, the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2010, the 41st AFI Life Achievement Award in June 2013, a British Film Institute Fellowship in March 2015, a National Medal of Arts in September 2016, and a BAFTA Fellowship in February 2017. Three of his films ranked in the American Film Institute's list of the top 100 comedy films of the past 100 years (1900–2000), all of which ranked in the top 15 of the list: Blazing Saddles at number 6, The Producers at number 11, and Young Frankenstein at number 13.
Brooks was married to Oscar-winning actress Anne Bancroft from 1964 until her death in 2005.
Joseph Harry Fowler Connick, Jr. (born September 11, 1967) is an American singer, actor, composer and pianist. Connick has sold over 25 million albums worldwide. He is ranked among the top 60 best-selling male artists in the United States by the Recording Industry Association of America, with 16 million certified albums. He has seven top-20 U.S. albums, and ten number-one U.S. jazz albums, earning more number-one albums than any other artist in the US jazz chart history.
Connick's best selling album in the United States is his 1993 Christmas album When My Heart Finds Christmas, which also is one of the best selling Christmas albums in the United States. His highest charting album, is his 2004 release Only You which reached #5 in the U.S. and #6 in Britain. He has won three Grammy awards and one Emmy Award. He played Grace's husband Dr. Leo Markus on the TV sitcom Will & Grace from 2002 to 2006.
Connick began his acting career as a tail gunner in the World War II film Memphis Belle in 1990. He played a serial killer in Copycat in 1995, before being cast as jet fighter pilot in the 1996 blockbuster Independence Day. Connick's first role as a leading man was in 1998's Hope Floats with Sandra Bullock. His first thriller film since Copycat came in 2007, when he played the violent ex-husband in Bug, before two romantic comedies, 2007's P.S. I Love You, and the leading man in New in Town with Renée Zellweger in 2009.
Description above from the Wikipedia article Harry Connick Jr., licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
Benjamin Frederick Mankiewicz is an American television personality, progressive political commentator, and film critic. He is a host on Turner Classic Movies and has been a commentator on The Young Turks and What the Flick?!
Carolyn Laurie Kane (born June 18, 1952) is an American actress and comedian.
She became known in the 1970s in films such as Hester Street (for which she received an Oscar nomination) and Annie Hall. She appeared on the television series Taxi in the early 1980s, as Simka Gravas, the wife of Latka, the character played by Andy Kaufman, winning two Emmy Awards for her work. She has played the character of Madame Morrible in the musical Wicked, both in regional productions and on Broadway from 2005 to 2014. From 2015 to 2018 she was a main cast member on the Netflix original series Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, in which she played Lillian Kaushtupper.
Burton Gilliam (born August 9, 1938) is an American actor. He is best known for memorable roles in several popular 1970s movies, such as Blazing Saddles and Paper Moon, as well as comedic cameos in Back to the Future, Part III and Honeymoon in Vegas.
Alan Alda (born January 28, 1936) is an American actor, director, screenwriter, and author. A six-time Emmy Award and Golden Globe Award winner, he is best known for his role as Hawkeye Pierce in the TV series MAS*H. He is currently a visiting professor at the Stony Brook University School of Journalism.
Eric James McCormack (born April 18, 1963, height 5' 11" (1,80 m)) is a Canadian American actor, musician, writer and producer. Born in Toronto, he began his acting career performing in school plays at Stephen Leacock Collegiate Institute High School. He left Ryerson University in 1985, in order to accept a position with the Stratford Shakespeare Festival, where he spent five years performing in numerous play productions.
For much of the late 1990s, he lived in Los Angeles and had minor roles. He made his feature film debut in the 1992 science fiction The Lost World. McCormack appeared in multiple television series roles, including Top Cops, Street Justice, Lovesome Dove: The Series, Townies, and Ally McBeal. McCormack later gained worldwide recognition for playing Will Truman in the American sitcom Will & Grace, which premiered in September 1998. His performance earned him an Emmy Award in the category for Best Actor in a Comedy Series in 2001.
Aside from appearing in television, he made his Broadway debut in the 2001 production of The Music Man and starred in the 2005 film The Sisters. Following the series conclusion of Will & Grace in 2006, McCormack starred as the leading role in the New York production of Some Girl(s). He starred in the television mini-series The Andromeda Strain (2008) and returned to television in 2009 in the TNT drama Trust Me, which was cancelled after one season. Also in 2009, McCormack was cast in the science fiction movie Alien Trespass.
Description above from the Wikipedia article Eric McCormack, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
Sample some of the best American films over the past forty years and there's a good chance Mike Medavoy played a role in the success of many of them. From agent to studio chief to producer, he has been involved with over 300 feature films, of which 17 have been nominated and 7 have won Best Picture Oscars®, as well as numerous international film festival awards.
Medavoy began his career at Universal Studios in 1964. He rose from the mail room to become a casting director. In 1965, he became an agent at General Artist Corporation and then vice-president at Creative Management Agency. Joining International Famous Agency as vice-president in charge of the motion picture department in 1971, he worked with such prestigious clients as Steven Spielberg, Francis Ford Coppola, Terrence Malick, Jane Fonda, Donald Sutherland, Gene Wilder, Jeanne Moreau, and Jean-Louis Trintignant.
Richard Franklin Lennox Thomas Pryor was an American stand-up comedian, actor, film director, social critic, satirist, writer, and MC. Pryor was known for uncompromising examinations of racism and topical contemporary issues, which employed colorful vulgarities, and profanity, as well as racial epithets. He reached a broad audience with his trenchant observations and storytelling style. He is widely regarded as one of the most important and influential stand-up comedians of all time: receiving praise from notable comedians such as Jerry Seinfeld, Bob Newhart, and Bill Cosby. His body of work includes the concert movies and recordings starting in the 70s and spanning three decades. He also starred in numerous films as an actor, in both comedic and dramatic roles. He collaborated on many projects with actor Gene Wilder and actor/comedian/writer Paul Mooney. Pryor won an Emmy Award (1973), and five Grammy Awards (1974, 1975, 1976, 1981, and 1982). In 1974, he also won two American Academy of Humor awards and the Writers Guild of America Award. The first ever Kennedy Center Mark Twain Prize for American Humor was presented to him in 1998. Pryor is listed at Number 1 on Comedy Central's list of all-time greatest stand-up comedians.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
Samuel Joel “Zero” Mostel (February 28, 1915 – September 8, 1977) was an American actor of stage and screen, best known for his portrayal of comic characters such as Tevye onstage in Fiddler on the Roof, Pseudolus onstage and onscreen in A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, and Max Bialystock in the original film version of The Producers. He was blacklisted during the 1950s, and his testimony before the House Committee on Un-American Activities was well-publicized. He was a Tony Award and Obie Award winner.
Description above from the Wikipedia article Zero Mostel, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Gilda Susan Radner (June 28, 1946 – May 20, 1989) was an American comedian and actress, best known as one of the original cast members of the NBC sketch comedy show Saturday Night Live, for which she won an Emmy Award in 1978.
Description above from the Wikipedia article Gilda Radner, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.