25 Movie Talents We Lost In 2016

Undoubtedly one of the American film industry’s best and most beloved comic actors, the late great Gene Wilder made countless moviegoers laugh over his decades-long career, from his Oscar nominated role in Mel Brooks’ The Producers and in classic comedy Blazing Saddles to Woody Allen’s 1972 sex comedy Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex* (*But Were Afraid to Ask) and 1974’s Young Frankenstein – one of the funniest movies ever according to the American Film Institute.

The role for which he is probably best remembered, however, and the role that captured the hearts of a generation of kids was as twinkly-eyed, eccentric confectionary magnate in Mel Stuart’s Roald Dahl adaptation, Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory in 1971.