9. Gene Wilder and Gilda Radner
Tributes were flowing these past few weeks when Gene Wilder passed away at the age of 83. At one point the world’s tears flowed for his third wife, Gilda Radner, who passed away from Ovarian Cancer in 1989, at the age of 42. The couple met on the set of 1982’s Hanky Panky. The comedians had the most appropriate of beginnings. Gene, dressed in a work tuxedo, met Gilda on the Hudson river right after filming ended for the day. It was the most romantic of settings until ”Gilda said that I rubbed my crotch against her knee when I asked her if I could bring her some tea or coffee. When she told me this story, I said, ‘You’re nuts!’ And she said, ‘No, they were your nuts’.” Either way the trick worked because Radner would later write in her book that “My heart fluttered — I was hooked. It felt like my life went from black and white to Technicolor.” Gilda was married at the time, but nevertheless two weeks later she made the first move when she threw him on his hotel room bed and, according to Wilder, said “I have a plan for fun.”
Gilda experienced a myriad of fertility problems and in 1986, she was suffering from other symptoms as well, which forced her to end her movie career. Doctors had no clue what was wrong with her until 1989, when she was diagnosed with Ovarian cancer. By that point it was too late as she passed away a few months later. “The fact is, Gilda didn’t have to die,” Wilder said. “But I was ignorant. Gilda was ignorant. The doctor was ignorant.” Gene used his newfound knowledge to start Gilda’s Club, a non-profit organization that strove to ensure that no other woman would ever be misdiagnosed again.
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