"Adieu Diana Sowle": Another star from the (original) movie, Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, Passes Away

Diana Sowle, the lady who played Charlie's Mom, Mrs Bucket, in the beloved 1971 film, *Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, has just died - at the good 'ole age of 88; we are told this morning. **'Famously singing "Cheer up Charlie" in one memorable scene', the American actress apparently made her onscreen debut therein, and passed away overnight surrounded by friends and family at her hospital bedside. **'She was one of the last surviving 'adult cast' members of the beloved movie, co-star Gene Wilder...Willy Wonka, dy[ing] in 2016 of complications from Alzheimer's Disease.'

Interviewed over recent times, according to USA Today Sowle was reported to have made a number of personal comments observations about the film's enduring success (and Gene Wilder's ongoing popularity), such as:

#"It's nice it's still so popular, and the reason I think it's so popular is - if you're a parent, you can send your child to that movie, there's no violence, there's no bad language, there's no sex." (Italics mine.)

#"And kids love the thought of going to a chocolate factory and someone wins the golden ticket and they have all these bad kids and good kids, and the bad kids lose out because they try to grab (everything) for themselves." (Italics mine.)

#"[Gene Wilder] was so nice, he never acted like, "Oh, I'm a bigger star than the rest of you", and "he'd join us on a lunch break and we'd have lunch".

#"Gene Wilder was always friendly and courteous and funny and told nice stories...I'm very sorry he's passed away because I think he was a great talent and I think he was liked by many, many people."

Corny as, cliche-ridden remarks, d'ya think? Perhaps. But as trite and old-fashioned as such sentimental-laden remarks may well seem to today's 'been there and done (all of) that' generation, I suspect...within some of that (i.e. this current) generation...there's an inner - if entirely unconscious and never-to-be-admitted-in-a-thousand-years - yearning that such corny, 'fuddy-duddy' values were a little bit more in vogue than they seem to be these days...though, yes, they'd sooner die than admit it!

*An adaptation, of course, of renowned author Roald Dahl's book, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory...which I've gotten ahold of in recent years, but, regrettably, have still to get onto/into...

**Various online news stories/obituaries published over recent hours, especially the BBC report and Maeve McDermott's piece for USA Today.