Willy Wonka star reveals Gene Wilder’s “favourite brat”
<p><span>A child star who had the opportunity to work alongside the infamous Gene Wilder has spoken out on the experience, 50 years since its first premier date.</span><br /><br /><em>Charlie and the Chocolate Factory </em><span>hit movie screens 50 years ago on June 30, 1971 and achieved rapid success almost overnight.</span><br /><br /><span>The film went on to become a phenomenon that was registered in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress for being deemed “culturally, historically or aesthetically significant”.</span><br /><br /><span>The child actors Peter Ostrum, Julie Dawn Cole, Michael Bollner, Paris Themmen and Denise Nickerson – who played Charlie Bucket, Veruca Salt, Augustus Gloop, Mike Teavee and Violet Beauregarde – all came together for a virtual reunion in honour of the film’s anniversary.</span></p>
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<p><em>Image: Yahoo</em><br /><br /><span>The actors all had the opportunity to co-star together, and even got to explore the imagined Wonka Chocolate Factory.</span><br /><br /><span>The cast recounted such fond memories of exploring the film sets in Bavarian Germany and working with Gene Wilder.</span><br /><br /><span>Themmen admitted that he was indeed a “notorious troublemaker on the set.”</span><br /><br /><span>So much so that even Wilder called him “a handful”.</span><br /><br /><span>“I can corroborate that,” the actor, who played the television-obsessed rascal Mike Teavee, admitted.</span><br /><br /><span>“I was younger than the others. I was 11, they were 13 and was naturally just sort of more high-spirited and rambunctious.”</span></p>
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<p><em>Image: Yahoo</em><br /><br /><span>The now-62-year-old opened up about one brief moment he shared with Wilder, in 1976 during a fundraiser screening for the film <em>Silver Streak</em> at the Avon Theatre in Stamford, Connecticut.</span><br /><br /><span>“I sat at the back of the room and he gave his commentary and then I went up to the front of the room afterwards with my poster in hand,” Themmen relived with a smile.</span><br /><br /><span>“I said, ‘Hi, Gene, how you doing? I’m Paris Themmen, I was Mike Teavee in Willy Wonka.”</span><br /><br /><span>“And he said, ‘Oh you were a brat!’ And I flashed all the way back 50 years, or 40 years at that time, and said, ‘Well, I’m 50-something now and maybe not as much of a brat.’</span><br /><br /><span>And he signed my poster, ‘To my favourite brat.’”</span><br /><br /><span>Wilder died in 2016 at the age of 83 after a long vibrant career.</span><br /><br /><span>Cole, who played Veruca Salt, said: “I think people kind of want us to tell you that he was like Willy Wonka offset, but he wasn’t.</span><br /><br /><span>“He was such a lovely, kind man, very unassuming,” she said.</span><br /><br /><span>“He was just down to earth, not pretentious, he was just a wonderful person to be around and to work with,” said Ostrum, who played Charlie Bucket.</span></p>
