Did Gene Wilder have children?

If there’s such a thing as a permanent mark that an actor can leave on show business, then Gene Wilder left it. From portraying Willy Wonka to the Fox in The Little Prince to the Mock Turtle in Alice in Wonderland, Wilder has done it all.

He’s entertained children for decades, but did he have any of his own?

Gene Wilder’s personal life

In his personal life, Wilder would be among the first to admit that things were less legendary. He was married four times:

• Costume designer Karen Boyer from 1991 until his death in 2016.
• SNL royalty Gilda Radner from 1984 to her death in 1989.
• Mary Joan Schutz between 1967 and 1974.
• Mary Mercier from 1960 to 1965. 

None of Wilder’s partnerships produced biological children. However, he stated in his memoirs that he and Radner had been trying to conceive in the days leading up to her ovarian cancer diagnosis. 

The Academy Award-nominee did have one kid, however — a girl named Katharine, Schutz’s daughter from a previous marriage. Wilder adopted her the same year that he and Schutz were married, but the two became estranged under circumstances that the actor described to Larry King as “too sad a story to go into.”

Meanwhile, Wilder was reportedly very close with his nephew, Jordan, who signed off the announcement of Wilder’s death by referring to himself as “Gene’s kid.”