The love story of Gene Wilder and Gilda Radner, through the years
LOS ANGELES -- When Gene Wilder died Monday of complications from Alzheimer's, he was just a week away from a 25th wedding anniversary with Karen Webb, whom his nephew described as his "leading lady," a clinical supervisor who helped him learn to read lips for his role in the 1991 comedy See No Evil, Hear no Evil.
Webb was Wilder's fourth wife. But before they were married, Wilder grieved for his third, Gilda Radner, the original Saturday Night Live cast member to whom he was married from 1984 until her death from ovarian cancer in 1989.
Webb and Wilder lived in the 18th Century Colonial home he originally shared with Radner, where he lived out his days writing books — and promoting cancer awareness and treatment, cofounding the Gilda Radner Ovarian Cancer Detection Center in Los Angeles and Gilda's Club, a support group, in New York City.
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'Love at first sight'
Back in 1980, Wilder worked with Sidney Poitier on Stir Crazy, and re-teamed with the director on the film Traces, which was re-titled Hanky Panky, in 1982.
It was there that Wilder, twice divorced, met Radner, who had already been on SNL for five years — and was still married to guitarist G.E. Smith.
Radner later described it as "love at first sight," and said the attraction was irresistible.
Radner had a smaller part in The Woman in Red, which Wilder directed in 1984. They were married later that year in Saint-Tropez.
"She was always funny and she loved doing what she was doing," Wilder said in a 2013 interview with 92nd Street Y, perhaps one of his last public appearances. "She made fun of me because I didn't know who [SNL character] Roseanne Roseannadanna, and she laughed. 'You never saw my ... ?' And then she made me see every one of the ones she'd done."
"She was wonderful," Wilder continued. "And then ... she got sick."
Radner began suffering symptoms on the set of Haunted Honeymoon in 1985. It took doctors more than a year to discover that she had late-stage ovarian cancer.
"We got married in 1984," Wilder said. "And she died in 1989. But she tried hard in those first three years. And then couldn't go. She was ... pain, operations. She kept thinking, "I'll get better after this one. Oh, I'll get better after this one. And then it didn't work."
Though she was told her cancer had gone into remission in 1988, three months later, it returned. The following year, given a sedative to undergo a CT scan at a Los Angeles hospital, Radner went into a coma and did not regain consciousness. She died on May 20, 1989, with Wilder at her side.
In the years that followed, Wilder became an advocate for cancer awareness and treatment, testifying before Congress.
To this day, Gilda's Club branches in New York City and all around the country provide support to cancer patients, survivors, and their families.
Josh Dickey is Mashable's Entertainment Editor, leading Mashable's TV, music, gaming and sports reporters as well as writing movie features and reviews.Josh has been the Film Editor at Variety, Entertainment Editor at The Associated Press and Managing Editor at TheWrap.com.A finalist for the Los Angeles Press Club's Best Entertainment Feature in 2015 for "Everyone is Altered: The Secret Hollywood Procedure that Fooled Us for Years," Josh received his BA in Journalism from The University of Minnesota.In between screenings, he can be found skating longboards, shredding guitar and wandering the streets of his beloved downtown Los Angeles.
