EXCLUSIVE: Cloris Leachman, who worked with Gene Wilder on projects including Mel Brooks’ classic 1974 comedy Young Frankenstein, told Deadline via her reps that she had so much respect for the actor, who died Sunday. “Gene was in a class by himself,” she said. “I looked up to him, yet on the set he was just one of us.” Leachman remembers how he kept cracking up during one scene in the iconic film in which she played Frau Blücher.