Letter from Gene Wilder to Mel Stuart – RE: Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory

I love Gene Wilder! I think he’s swell. An unquestionable inspiration in the whole that is me; from my straight-(wo)man ways to my sarcasm to even my hair. So when I stumbled upon this blog post by “Letters of Note”, I just had to re-blog. For all the Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory fans out there, this one’s for you:

In the early-1970s, when originally offered the lead role in Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory by director Mel Stuart, the great Gene Wilder accepted on one condition:

“When I make my first entrance, I’d like to come out of the door carrying a cane and then walk toward the crowd with a limp. After the crowd sees Willy Wonka is a cripple, they all whisper to themselves and then become deathly quiet. As I walk toward them, my cane sinks into one of the cobblestones I’m walking on and stands straight up, by itself; but I keep on walking, until I realize that I no longer have my cane. I start to fall forward, and just before I hit the ground, I do a beautiful forward somersault and bounce back up, to great applause.”