Denise Nickerson, who played Violet in Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory, dies at 62

Denise Nickerson, best known for playing the role of Violet Beauregarde in the 1971 film Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory, has died after being taken off life support. She was 62. Nickerson was on life support for a year after suffering a severe stroke in 2018. The news of her death on 10 July ( Wednesday) was announced by her family on Facebook. [caption id=“attachment_6980391” align=“alignnone” width=“825”] Denise Nickerson. Image from Twitter[/caption] “They just took off all the equipment. None of it was helping, but making her only more uncomfortable. We’re telling her it’s okay to let go,” the actor’s son Josh Nickerson wrote. “She’s gone,” he added later. Nickerson, who found fame as a teenager, retired from acting at 21 to pursue nursing, writes The Hollywood Reporter. Besides Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory, the film adaptation of Roald Dahl’s celebrated novel_,_ she featured in The Electric Company, played Amy Jennings/ Nora Collins in the cult television series Dark Shadows and Liza Kendall in Search for Tomorrow. But the fans of movie will forever remember her as Beauregarde, the third of the five children to receive Wonka’s Golden Tickets. The competitive gum-chewing character is turned into giant bubblegum by Gene Wilder’s Wonka for being rude. Her family has set up a  GoFundMe page to raise money to fulfill her last wish of her ashes being made into glass art. (With inputs from Press Trust of India)