Billy Wilder

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Billy Wilder (June 22, 1906–March 27, 2002) had a career as a screenwriter, film director and producer that spanned more than 50 years and more than 60 films. He is regarded as one of the most brilliant film-makers during Hollywood's old age and many of his films achieved both critical and public acclaim.

Contents 1 Life and work 2 Filmography 3 Trivia 4 Oscars 5 Quotes 6 External links

Life and work

He was born Samuel Wilder in Sucha, Austria-Hungary (now Poland). His parents, Max Wilder and Eugenia Dittler, were Jewish.

He started work in late 1920s as screenwriter in Germany, but allegedly he was also a taxi dancer, then left for France, then the United States after the rise of Adolf Hitler. His mother, grandmother, and stepfather all died at Auschwitz.

Sharing an apartment with Peter Lorre, he broke into writing in Hollywood with classics like Ninotchka. He was a noted collector of modern art.

Billy Wilder died in 2002 at the age of 95 after battling health problems, including cancer, in Los Angeles, California, and was interred in the Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery in Westwood, Los Angeles, California.

Filmography

Billy Wilder wrote and/or directed classics in more than one genre:

• Film noir: Double Indemnity, The Lost Weekend, Sunset Boulevard
• Comedy: Some Like it Hot, The Apartment, The Fortune Cookie, One, Two, Three, A Foreign Affair, Avanti!
• Drama: Stalag 17, The Spirit of St. Louis, Witness for the Prosecution, The Big Carnival

Trivia

• Wilder is often confused with director William Wyler; the confusion is understandable, as both were German-speaking Jews with similar backgrounds and names. However, their output as directors is quite different, with Wyler preferring helming epics and heavy dramas and Wilder noted for his comedies.

Oscars

• Best Picture - won 1961 for The Apartment
• Best Director - eight nominations, won in 1946 for The Lost Weekend, and in 1961 for The Apartment
• Screenwriting - twelve nominations, won 1946, 1951, and 1961. These included winning Best Picture, Director, and Original Screenplay for The Apartment (screenplay award shared with I.A.L. Diamond) -- only four other people have won three Oscars for the same film (Francis Ford Coppola for The Godfather Part II, Peter Jackson for The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, James L. Brooks for Terms of Endearment, and James Cameron for Titanic).

Quotes

• "You have to have a dream so that you can get up in the morning."
• "My English is a mixture between Arnold Schwarzenegger and Archbishop Tutu."
• "A bad play folds and is forgotten, but in pictures we don't bury our dead. When you think it's out of your system, your daughter sees it on television and says, My father is an idiot."
• "I just made pictures I would've liked to see."
• "Eighty percent of a picture is writing, the other twenty percent is the execution, such as having the camera on the right spot and being able to afford to have good actors in all parts."

• "Journalism ain't good" (Ace in the Hole)
• "Nobody is perfect." (Some Like it Hot)
• "Shut up and deal." (The Apartment)

External links

• Billy Wilder at the Internet Movie Database
• Billy Wilder - The German-Hollywood Connection
• Film Noir and Billy Wilder
• American Master - Billy Wilder
• Senses of Cinema - Great Directors Critical Database
• Wilder Bibliography (via UC Berkeley)
• Billy Wilder Fanlistingde:Billy Wilder

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