Warner Brothers/Tandem Production · Public domain

Gene Wilder built a career on barely restrained hysteria — his Leopold Bloom in The Producers earned an Oscar nomination in his first major role, and he went on to co-write and star in Young Frankenstein and play Willy Wonka in the 1971 film, a performance that outlasted every remake. He formed a long partnership with Mel Brooks and a shorter, equally memorable one with Richard Pryor, in Silver Streak and Stir Crazy. After his wife Gilda Radner died of ovarian cancer in 1989, he became an advocate for cancer detection and helped found the Gilda Radner Ovarian Cancer Detection Center in Los Angeles.