Willy Wonka, Blazing Saddles actor Gene Wilder dead at 83

Gene Wilder, longtime actor, screenwriter, director, author and popular movie star of Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory fame, has died, according to his family.

Wilder’s nephew said the actor and writer died late Sunday from complications with Alzheimer’s disease. Take our quiz and find out.

Wilder’s last major role was in a TV film version of Alice in Wonderland in the late 1990s, which also starred Ben Kingsley and Martin Short.

His father was a Russian immigrant who imported and sold miniature beer and whiskey bottles.

– Dane Cook (@DaneCook)I saw Blazing Saddles 7 times at the cinema with my school friends. It was his longtime collaboration with Brooks that catapulted him to stardom, however, starting with The Producers in 1967, where he played a neurotic accountant-turned-theater-producer named Leopold Bloom. His mother had a heart attack when he was six, leaving her an invalid.

He started taking acting classes at age 12 and continued performing and taking lesson through college. In 1982, while making the generally forgettable “Hanky-Panky”, he fell in love with co-star Gilda Radner.

Wilder is survived by his wife Karen Boyer, whom he married in 1991, along with their nephew.

Wilder is survived by wife Karen Boyer, who he Wednesday in 1991, after third wife Gilda Radner passed away in 1989. He worked as a voice actor past year on “Yo Gabba Gabba!” “I do have this need to expose myself, to reveal some awful – or wonderful – secret I can’t wait to show the world”, he said.

He is survived by fourth wife Karen Boyer, whom he Wednesday in 1991.

In The Producers, Wilder was a ideal foil for Mostel’s big, wittily overblown performance as producer Max Bialystock; but Wilder’s accountant, Leo Bloom, was a beautifully modulated portrayal of an honest, meticulous man who slowly, steadily sees his life spiraling out of his grasp.

At the height of his career, Wilder married his third wife, Saturday Night Live regular, comedian and actress Gilda Radner, in 1984.