Gene Wilder’s Widow Looks Back on Their Love-Filled Marriage: ‘It Was Destiny’

When they were out in public together, Karen Wilder never called her husband by his name. “Everyone always said, ‘Hi, Gene.’ ‘Hey, Gene.’ I called him Sweetie, so that he knew that it was me.”

A two-time Oscar nominee, Gene Wilder, who was born Jerome Silberman in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, became a movie star in the 1970s with films including Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory, Young Frankenstein and Silver Streak, the first of four comedies costarring Richard Pryor. He had a special knack for displaying emotional depth and humanity even in his most outrageous characters.

Gene met Karen Boyer while researching his role as a deaf man for 1989’s See No Evil, Hear No Evil, his third outing with Richard. “I was a clinician for a not-for-profit organization that helps people with hearing loss,” Karen exclusively tells Closer, who recalls herself as “struck” by Gene at first sight. “It was amazing the way he looked at me. He was just so pleasant, and he wanted to get to know me.”

The pair became friends, but didn’t begin dating until years later when Karen contacted Gene about a video, she spearheaded to teach lipreading. “He came to New York and took me out to dinner,” she recalls. “I read him my script, and he helped to put something funny in it.” They wed on September 8, 1991. “It was destiny,” Karen tells Closer. “We both believed that.”

Gene and Karen Wilder’s Happy Life

In private, Gene wasn’t manic, like so many of his roles. Quiet and introspective, he’d overcome many troubles in his life, including three previous marriages, to arrive at a peaceful place with Karen. “He made it easy to laugh at things in life that drive most people crazy,” she says. “He had a gift for taking the tension out of the air.”

Gene’s fans often associate him with his marriage to his third wife, Gilda Radner, who died of ovarian cancer in 1989. Karen never felt threatened by the SNL star’s memory. “I never thought about it,” she says. “We’re two different people. I was not ever jealous because I knew he loved me. And I trusted him. That’s what love is.”

At home, the couple played a lot of tennis — often with famous friends including Mel Brooks and Anne Bancroft, Carl and Estelle Reiner and Alan and Arlene Alda. “They played every Sunday,” says Karen. “And I played with them, too.”

Her favorite memories are of being home with Gene at their Connecticut house. “I think he was happiest when we were alone fixing dinner,” says Karen, who also shared his passion for art. “We both did watercolors together.”

Gene’s marriage to Karen would last 25 years until his death from the complications of Alzheimer’s in 2016 at age 83. “In our wedding vows, we said, ‘As long as we keep laughing, we’ll have a long life together.’ And we did,” says Karen, who is a supporter of the Alzheimer’s Association. “Even near the end of his life, we could still find something to smile about.”