He was born Jerome Silberman in Milwaukee, Wisconsin on June 11, 1933—he would eventually take his stage name from Eugene Gant, a recurring character in some of the works of Thomas Wolfe, and Thornton Wilder. He developed an interest in acting at an early age and he would eventually study at the Old Vic in England and with the likes of Uta Hagen and Lee Strasberg. He began to make a name for himself on the off-Broadway scene and eventually moved to Broadway. In 1963, he appeared opposite Anne Bancroft in a production of “Mother Courage and Her Children” and through that, he met Bancroft’s boyfriend, comedy writer Mel Brooks. A few months later, Brooks told Wilder that he had a script that he would be perfect for—a comedy entitled “Springtime for Hitler.” Although Wilder would not hear from Brooks again for a few years, he continued working on the stage and did some television as well, including an appearance on the series “The Defenders” and a televised presentation of “Death of a Salesman.”
In 1967, he made his screen debut with a small but pivotal role in what would prove to be one of the landmark American films. The film was “Bonnie and Clyde” and while his role was not especially large in terms of screen time, it could be argued that the entire film turns on it. He plays Eugene Grizzard, a straight-laced young man who, along with his girlfriend (Evans Evans) are taken hostage by Bonnie (Faye Dunaway), Clyde (Warren Beatty) and their gang following a bank robbery. As they bomb their way through the countryside, the mood is surprisingly jovial with everyone joking and laughing until the moment that Eugene lets slip that he is a mortician by trade. This reminder of mortality throws Bonnie for a loop and she demands that they kick the hostages out—it is too late, however, since it is from this point on that their luck indeed begins to slip away. This is a great scene—one of the best in a film chock full of them—and a lot of it comes from the way that Wilder plays it in such an understated manner. Nowadays, one can watch the film and go “Hey, that’s Gene Wilder!” but back then, viewers most likely came away from it wondering who that guy was and where they could see more of him.
Around this time, Mel Brooks finally completed writing “Springtime for Hitler,” now with the more palatable title “The Producers,” and put it into production with Zero Mostel as the craven Broadway producer Max Bialystock and Wilder as Leo Bloom, the neurotic accountant who figures out that a producer could theoretically make more money off of a flop than with a hit. As I will assume that you have some working familiarity with the film and its tumultuous production, I won’t rehash that. What I do want to do is point you to the absolute genius that is Gene Wilder’s performance. In many ways, he is the straight man of the film in that he has to serve as the audience guide through a story that is not only wildly farcical but also traffics in material that most people back then simply felt was simply not humorous at all. Even more challenging, he has to share the screen with Zero Mostel, one of the all-time scenery chewers, without getting completely overwhelmed by him. Amazingly, he more than holds his own against Mostel throughout—while Mostel blusters and rants to get laughs (which he does), Wilder gets laughs just standing there and looking calm and collected while at the same time suggesting that he is also a ticking time bomb himself. The performance earned Wilder an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor—he didn’t win but his work in it would become legend.
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