Gene Wilder's Real Name: Jerome Silberman

Quick answer: Gene Wilder was born Jerome Silberman. Encyclopaedia Britannica records the form and gives his birth date as June 11, 1933, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and his death as August 29, 2016, in Stamford, Connecticut (Encyclopaedia Britannica). Contemporary Theatre, Film and Television, reproduced at Encyclopedia.com, instead heads the entry "WILDER, Gene 1935" and gives June 11, 1935 (Encyclopedia.com). This page notes the conflict rather than choosing silently, and does not put a birth year in the title.

Real name and early life

Britannica lists "Also known as: Jerome Silberman"; Encyclopedia.com gives the original name as Jerome "Jerry" Silberman and names his parents as William J. Silberman, an importer and bottle manufacturer, and Jeanne (maiden name Baer) Silberman. As a youth in Milwaukee he studied with acting instructor Herman Gottlieb, Britannica says, and in 1955 he graduated from the University of Iowa with a degree in theatre. He later studied at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School in England and, in 1961, joined the Actors Studio in New York, studying under Lee Strasberg. That year he made his Broadway debut in The Complaisant Lover.

Career highlights

Wilder made his film debut with a small part in Bonnie and Clyde (1967). A turning point came when Mel Brooks, whom he had met in his Broadway days, cast him as the neurotic accountant Leo Bloom in The Producers (1968), opposite Zero Mostel. The role brought an Academy Award nomination for best supporting actor. In 1970 he starred in Start the Revolution Without Me and Quackser Fortune Has a Cousin in the Bronx. He was widely remembered as the title character in Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory (1971) and appeared in a segment of Woody Allen's Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex but Were Afraid to Ask (1972). He became a major star in 1974 with Brooks's Blazing Saddles, as the "Waco Kid," and Young Frankenstein, a spoof of Mary Shelley's novel. He later teamed with Richard Pryor on Silver Streak (1976) and Stir Crazy (1980). After the death of his wife, Gilda Radner, from ovarian cancer in 1989, he helped establish Gilda's Club, a support center for cancer patients. In 2005 he published the memoir Kiss Me Like a Stranger.

Death

Britannica records that he died August 29, 2016, in Stamford, Connecticut.

Name notes for searchers

Jerome Silberman is his birth name; he was known professionally as Gene Wilder. Searchers looking for Willy Wonka, Leo Bloom in The Producers, or the star of Young Frankenstein are usually aiming at the same person.