Gene Wilder’s widow recalls actor’s sweet final words in new documentary
nypost.comKaren Boyer, Gene Wilder’s widow, remembered the last words her late husband said before his death in August 2016.A new “Remembering Gene Wilder” documentary focused on the actor’s diagnosis with Alzheimer’s disease and into his final days.In the film, Boyer recalled listening to Ella Fitzgerald’s legendary hit, “Somewhere Over the Rainbow,” with Gene before he spoke for the last time.“The music was playing in the background — Ella Fitzgerald was singing ‘Somewhere Over the Rainbow,’ and I was lying next to him, and he sat up in bed, and he said, ‘I trust you,'” she said, per People magazine. “And then he said, ‘I love you.’ That’s the last thing he said.”Wilder died on August 29, 2016, from complications with Alzheimer’s disease.
He was 83.Boyer remembered the first time she became aware Wilder was struggling with his memory when he couldn’t remember the title of “Young Frankenstein,” which she said was “his favorite movie.”“He never really accepted that he had Alzheimers, and maybe by the time we found out that’s what it was, his hippocampus didn’t let him remember,” she said in the film. “So I’m not sure that he ever knew.
When I’d see him slip away further from me, I was sick to my stomach, but I had to keep smiling and tell him that everything was okay.” Boyer added, “Gene was wonderful; he was the best husband I think anybody could ask for.
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