Mel Stuart had firmly established himself as an Emmy Award-winning documentary filmmaker in the 1960s when his daughter Madeline, a big fan of Roald Dahl’s “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory,” insisted he turn the popular children’s book into a movie.

“It was my favorite book at the time, and I told him this would make a great movie,” Madeline Stuart told The Los Angeles Times on Friday.

Her father proceeded to add the 1971 fantasy musical “Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory” to his extensive resume as a director. He died Thursday of cancer at his home in the Los Angeles neighborhood of Westwood, said his son, Andrew. He was 83.

During a more than 50-year career in which he won four Emmys, Stuart was known early on for the many documentaries he made in association with David L. Wolper.

That included directing and producing “The Making of the President 1960,” for which he shared an Emmy Award with executive producer Wolper and writer Theodore H. White; and the Oscar-nominated “Four Days in November,” which chronicled the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.

And then there was “Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory,” with Gene Wilder in the title role of the eccentric candy maker who is searching for a young heir to run his factory and opens its doors to the five children who found golden tickets in their candy bars.

After Stuart pitched the idea to Wolper, the movie was shot in Munich, with Stuart’s 12-year-old daughter playing one of the children in a classroom scene in which the teacher asks her how many Wonka bars she had eaten.

“I say, ‘About a hundred,’ a line that lives in film history,” Madeline joked.

 

Copy the Story Link