Early Life and Education
Born Jerome Silberman in Milwaukee, Wisconsin on June 11, 1933, Gene Wilder is the son of William J. and Jeanne (Baer) Silberman. He adopted "Gene Wilder" for his professional name at the age of 26, later explaining, "I had always liked Gene because of Thomas Wolfe's character Eugene Gant in Look Homeward, Angel and Of Time and the River. And I was always a great admirer of Thornton Wilder." Wilder first became interested in acting when at age 8, his mother was diagnosed with rheumatic fever and the doctor told him to "try and make her laugh." When Jeanne Silberman felt that her son's potential was not being fully realized in Wisconsin, she sent him to Black-Foxe, a military institute in Hollywood, where he wrote that he was bullied and sexually assaulted, primarily because he was the only Jewish boy in the school. After an unsuccessful short stay at Black-Foxe, Wilder returned home and became increasingly involved with the local theatre community. At age fifteen, he performed for the first time in front of a paying audience, as Balthasar (Romeo's manservant) in a production of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet. Gene Wilder graduated from Washington High School in Milwaukee in 1951.
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