Yes, That Gene

In an interview with The Independent, actor Gene Wilder, who was born Jerome Leiberman, reveals that he chose the name "Gene" to honor Thomas Wolfe's autobiographical character Eugene Gant.

"...He spent a year in England, where he trained at the Bristol Old Vic and became the all-schools' fencing champion, then he enrolled at Lee Strasberg's Actor's Studio in New York.
It was there that he took his surname, in homage to the playwright Thornton Wilder.  He says Gene was the name of a character in a work by author Thomas Wolfe..."