Gene Wilder, the comedy actor best known for his collaborations with Mel Brooks, and for playing Willy Wonka, has been remembered at the Academy Awards in Los Angeles.
Wilder died in August 2016, aged 83, from complications from Alzheimer’s. He was twice Oscar nominated, first as best supporting actor for 1969’s The Producers and then for his screenplay for Young Frankenstein in 1975.
Wilder got his start in film with a brief role in the 1967 film Bonnie and Clyde, before his breakout part in The Producers the next year. Brooks’s first film, it revolved around the efforts of Wilder and Zero Mostel to create a Broadway flop as a financial scam. But their tasteless musical about the Nazis unfortunately proves a huge success.
Wilder would go on to to play Doctor Ross, who has an affair with a sheep, in Woody Allen’s cult classic Everything You Wanted to Know About Sex.
