The word unique gets misused a lot. You can’t be a little bit unique or more unique than someone else. Unique means one of a kind.
There was nobody like Gene Wilder before Gene Wilder. And, while I’m sure many tried, no one has ever been able to copy him. Do Gene Wilder. Have a Gene Wilder-like career.
He was in a number of good to great movies, including ones you forget he was until you see them again. Such as the 1974 film version of Rhinoceros that co-starred Zero Mostel. And, of course, Bonnie and Clyde.
But I think I’ll remember Gene Wilder tonight by watching Silver Streak (1976), not his best movie certainly but loads of fun and I haven’t seen it in a very long time. In it, He makes a credible romantic lead opposite Jill Clayburgh. While also holding his own comedically with Richard Pryor.
How many actors could do that? And both in the same film? Only one that I know of. Who is gone now.
Unique can’t be replaced. It can only be missed. I will miss Gene Wilder.
The word unique gets misused a lot. You can’t be a little bit unique or more unique than someone else. Unique means one of a kind.
There was nobody like Gene Wilder before Gene Wilder. And, while I’m sure many tried, no one has ever been able to copy him. Do Gene Wilder. Have a Gene Wilder-like career.
He was in a number of good to great movies, including ones you forget he was until you see them again. Such as the 1974 film version of Rhinoceros that co-starred Zero Mostel. And, of course, Bonnie and Clyde.
But I think I’ll remember Gene Wilder tonight by watching Silver Streak (1976), not his best movie certainly but loads of fun and I haven’t seen it in a very long time. In it, He makes a credible romantic lead opposite Jill Clayburgh. While also holding his own comedically with Richard Pryor.
How many actors could do that? And both in the same film? Only one that I know of. Who is gone now.
Unique can’t be replaced. It can only be missed. I will miss Gene Wilder.
randall smoot 
I am really broken up by this news but in truth, the Gene Wilder I knew is still here and I can watch him almost any time I want (and I will in coming weeks) He hasn’t really been active for almost two decades yet it is hard to think that he no longer walks the earth. What his passing really drives home is how many from those marvelous films are gone now: Richard Pryor, Peter Boyle, Anne Bancroft, Madeleine Kahn, Victor Spinetti, Marty Feldman, Cleavon Little, Zero Mostel, Kenneth Mars, Dick Shawn and so many more… The most exciting period in American films, the funniest, most powerful, most innovative, was from the mid 1960s to the late 1970s. And it happened to be our coming-of-age in film. Our time. Sure I loved me some Bogie and Bacall and Orson Welles etc. But with the 1960-70s it all busted loose. And the funniest, most delightful filmmakers were Mel Brooks and his crew. Mel is still kickin’ but almost everyone else is gone… and I just don’t get the same laughs or kicks out of “The Hangover” parts 1-infinity” or whatever bodily-function of a drunk, stoned slob film is playing these days. Mr. Wilder is just one more nail in my coffin. One more reason that I will not be so sad to depart when the time comes. All my best friends will be gone by then. All my real family. And yet their ghosts still flicker on the screen…
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