Gene Wilder, the “Blazing Saddles” star who blazed a trail through Hollywood and who is the subject of theSan Francisco Jewish Film Festival’sopening night movie, “Remembering Gene Wilder,” was a mensch.

“When we started doing the interviews, the warmth and kindness everyone feels for him, it was very obvious,” recalled executive producer David Knight. “There’s just a lot of love. We knew Mel Brooks really loved him, but these other people we interviewed really connected with him.”

That love is sure to be felt at the Castro Theatre onThursday, July 20, when Knight, fellow producer and wife Julie Nimoy, director Ron Frank and Wilder’s widow, Karen Wilder, are expected to attend.

The warmth of Wilder’s personality led to his lifelong friendship with Brooks when the two met backstage during the 1963 Broadway run of Bertolt Brecht’s “Mother Courage and Her Children,” which starred Wilder and Anne Bancroft (Brooks’ girlfriend and future wife). Years later, that relationship led to the classic comedy hat trick of “The Producers,” “Blazing Saddles” and “Young Frankenstein.”

Striking up a conversation with future studio head and then-agent Mike Medavoy in a Beverly Hills clothing store led Wilder to yet another friendship, new California representation, the impetus to write “Young Frankenstein,” and two of that film’s stars in the Medavoy-repped Marty Feldman and Peter Boyle. When Brooks sought an actor to play the film’s Blindman, Wilder pointed him to another friend, his “Bonnie and Clyde” co-star Gene Hackman.

The guy seemed to know everyone.In fact, it was another of Wilder’s relationships that led to the making of “Remembering Gene Wilder.”

In 1990, Leonard Nimoy directed Wilder in the comedy “Funny About Love,” and the two remained friends until尼的死in 2015.Wilder diedfrom complications from Alzheimer’s disease a year later.

Julie Nimoy, the “Star Trek” icon’s daughter, and Knight produced a 2017 documentary about her father, “Remembering Leonard Nimoy: His Life, Legacy and Battle with COPD.” Then Knight saw a press release announcing that Karen Wilder was partnering with the Alzheimer’s Association to raise awareness about the disease that ended Wilder’s life.

“Almost immediately, a little light bulb went off in our heads,” Knight told The Chronicle as he sat beside Julie Nimoy in a recent video interview at their home in Los Angeles. “We just honored Leonard and created awareness around lung disease. We thought, what a great film that would be to honor Gene and his legacy.”

凯伦·怀尔德的祝福“记忆基因Wilder” became a reality. Frank, who also directed the Leonard Nimoy documentary, said his gateway drug to Wilder’s comedy was the actor’s star-making turn in 1967’s “The Producers.” He was clear on the direction he and writer Glenn Kirschbaum should take.

“It ended up being really a love letter to Gene,” Frank said of the documentary in a separate video interview from Los Angeles. “We expanded it to include much more about Gene’s history. We didn’t want to tell the unfortunate story of how his life ended; we wanted to celebrate the rest of it. So, we focused on his earlier life and kept the Alzheimer’s part toward the end.”

Wilder himself left a road map that enabled Frank and Kirschbaum to get at the heart of the story with his 2010 memoir, “Kiss Me Like a Stranger: My Search for Love and Art.” Perhaps even better, Wilder narrated the book’s audio adaptation. This way, Wilder would not just be a figure in film clips but a living, palpable presence as the narrator of “Remembering Gene Wilder.”

“我们可以授权采访——他做了一次政变le of long ones, with Merv Griffin and others — (but) this was much more personal,” Frank said. “The hard part was what to leave out. There was so much more insight into his personal life — his exploration of his sexuality when he was coming of age, and that sort of thing. It kind of read a little like ‘Portnoy’s Complaint’ to me.

“Gene became the storyteller, and a good one,” he added.

Deciding which of Wilder’s TV and film work should be part of the documentary was another challenge. In addition to Brooks’ three films, Frank decided“Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory,”Woody Allen’s “Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex,” his collaborations with Richard Pryor, and Wilder’s own writing and directing work were essential. So was the lesser-known “Frisco Kid,” in which Wilder — whose grandfather headed a synagogue — played a Polish rabbi making his way across the Wild West to San Francisco with the aid of a desperado played byHarrison Ford.

“I’m Jewish. I grew up in a Jewish home. I thought that movie was hysterical,” Frank said. “I remember when it came out and I thought it was one of his most underrated movies. We wanted to play that one up.”

应用程序earing in the documentary are an assortment of Wilder’s co-stars, among them Carol Kane, who starred opposite him in 1977’s “The World’s Greatest Lover” and onstage at Connecticut’s Westport Country Playhouse; “Willie Wonka” star Peter Ostrum, who played Charlie; and Eric McCormack of “Will and Grace,” the sitcom Wilder performed in for his last role in front of a camera in 2003. Others interviewed include Wilder’s friend and neighbor, singer and actor Harry Connick Jr.; actress Rain Pryor, daughter of Richard; and TCM host Ben Mankiewicz.

“I think you really get a sense of Gene throughout the film that he was just a loving, caring and kind person,” Julie Nimoy said. “You can feel it by the way he talks and acts in his films. He’s very caring.”

Pam Grady is a freelance writer.