Gene Wilder born Jerome Silberman ; June 11, β August 29, was an American actor, comedian, writer and filmmaker. He began his career on stage, and made his screen debut in an episode of the TV series The Play of the Week in His first film role was that of a hostage in the motion picture Bonnie and Clyde.
Wilder directed and wrote several of his own films, including The Woman in Red With his third wife, Gilda Radner , he starred in three films, the last two of which he also directed. Her 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 [ 1 ] and co-founding Gilda's Club. He produced a memoir, Kiss Me Like a Stranger and five other books.
Silberman, a manufacturer and salesman of novelty items. At the age of 11, he saw his sister, who was studying acting, performing onstage, and the experience enthralled him. He asked her teacher if he could become his student, and the teacher said that if he was still interested at age 13, he would take Wilder on as a student. The day after Wilder turned 13, he called the teacher, who accepted him; Wilder studied with him for two years. When Jeanne Silberman felt that her son's potential was not being fully realized in Wisconsin, she sent him to Black-Foxe , a military institute in Hollywood, where he was bullied and sexually assaulted , primarily because he was the only Jewish boy in the school, according to his own account.
He performed for the first time in front of a paying audience at age 15, as Balthasar Romeo 's servant in a production of Shakespeare 's Romeo and Juliet. Wilder was raised Jewish, but he held only the Golden Rule as his philosophy. In a book published in , he stated, "I have no other religion. I feel very Jewish and I feel very grateful to be Jewish. But I don't believe in God or anything to do with the Jewish religion. After six months of studying fencing, Wilder became the first freshman to win the All-School Fencing Championship.
He enrolled at the HB Studio. Wilder was drafted into the Army on September 10, At the end of recruit training , he was assigned to the medical corps and sent to Fort Sam Houston for training. He was then given the opportunity to choose any open post; wanting to stay near New York City to attend acting classes at the HB Studio, he chose to serve as paramedic in the Department of Psychiatry and Neurology at Valley Forge Army Hospital , in Phoenixville, Pennsylvania.
