In a the new documentary, "Remembering Gene Wilder," the actor's widow, Karen Boyer, recently revealed what her late husband's last words were before his death in August 2016. The documentary focused on Wilder's diagnosis with Alzheimer's disease and his final days. Boyer recalled listening to Ella Fitzgerald's legendary hit, "Somewhere Over the Rainbow," with Wilder 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. "And then he said, 'I love you.' That's the last thing he said." The "Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory" star passed away at age 89 on August 29, 2016 due to complications from Alzheimer's disease.

Boyer recalled the time she realized that Wilder was struggling with his memory. The actor couldn't seem to remember the title of the movie, "Young Frankenstein," which she said was "his favorite movie." "He never really accepted that he had Alzheimer's, 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. To love and be loved is the best gift anybody could ask for, and we had that."

Wilder married Boyer in 1991. At the time, Boyer was a supervisor for the New York League for the Hard of Hearing who had been an expert on his 1989 film, "See No Evil, Hear No Evil." Brian Scott Mednick, who published a biography about Wilder, remembered the Hollywood icon to be completely enamored with Boyer. "Gene called Karen the great love of his life," Mednick told Woman's World in 2018. "It was his fourth marriage and the longest; he died shortly before their 25th wedding anniversary. Gene admitted he was very unhappy for a long time with Gilda. He didn’t think he’d get married again, and he said he didn’t believe in fate. And he nearly cried when telling an interviewer how passionate his love for Karen was. He said he always felt you make your life and then call it fate, but Karen made him believe in fate. Like any marriage, it wasn’t without its problems, but it was a very strong, loving marriage. He just idolized her."