Wilder, Billy

orig. Samuel Wilder

born June 22, 1906, Sucha, Austria

died March 27, 2002, Beverly Hills, Calif., U.S.

Austrian-born U.S. film director and screenwriter.

Working as a reporter in Vienna and Berlin, he wrote screenplays for German films. He fled Germany in 1933 and arrived in Hollywood a year later. He cowrote screenplays with Charles Brackett and established his reputation as a director with Double Indemnity (1944). Noted for his humorous treatment of controversial subjects and his biting indictments of hypocrisy, he also directed The Lost Weekend (1945, Academy Award), Sunset Boulevard (1950, Academy Award for best screenplay), Stalag 17 (1953), and The Apartment (1960, Academy Award). His acclaimed comedies include Sabrina (1954), The Seven Year Itch (1955), Some Like It Hot (1959), and Kiss Me, Stupid (1964).

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▪ 2003

Samuel Wilder 

      Austrian-born American film director and screenwriter (b. June 22, 1906, Sucha, Austria-Hungary [now in Poland]—d. March 27, 2002, Beverly Hills, Calif.), brought his wit and his cynical, satiric sensibility to more than 50 motion pictures in a number of genres, including film noir, drama, melodrama, slapstick, and black comedy. He counted six Academy Awards—three of them for one film, The Apartment, a unique achievement—among his numerous honours, and a number of his films came to be considered classics. Wilder attended the University of Vienna to study law but left after a short time and became a journalist, first in Vienna and then in Berlin. He branched out into ghostwriting silent-film scripts, gained his first credit as screenwriter for Der Teufelsreporter (1929), and found his first success with the semidocumentary Menschen am Sonntag (1929; People on Sunday). The rise to power of Adolf Hitler prompted Wilder, a Jew, to flee Germany and go to France, where he made his debut as a director with Mauvaise graine (1933; Bad Blood, or Bad Seed, 1934), and then to the U.S. Although Wilder knew only a few words of English when he first arrived in Hollywood, he persevered, and by 1938 he had begun a collaboration with Charles Brackett. Films they wrote during this partnership, which lasted until 1950, included Ninotchka (1939); The Major and the Minor (1942), Wilder's first Hollywood directorial effort; the film noir classic Double Indemnity (1944); The Lost Weekend (1945), for which Wilder won two Oscars; and Sunset Boulevard (1950), for which he won another Oscar. Following such films as Stalag 17 (1953), Sabrina (1954), The Seven Year Itch (1955), and Witness for the Prosecution (1957). Wilder began a collaboration with I.A.L. (“Izzy”) Diamond that endured from 1957 until 1981. Among the films they wrote together was one that many people think of as the all-time best comedy movie, the farce Some Like It Hot (1959); films that followed included The Apartment (1960), One, Two, Three (1961), The Fortune Cookie (1966), The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes (1970), and Buddy Buddy (1981). Among Wilder's honours were the American Film Institute Life Achievement Award (1986) and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences' Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award (1988).

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▪ American director and producer

original name  Samuel Wilder  

born June 22, 1906, Sucha, Austria [now in Poland]

died March 27, 2002, Beverly Hills, California, U.S.

      Austrian-born American motion-picture scenarist, director, and producer known for films that humorously treat subjects of controversy and offer biting indictments of hypocrisy in American life.

      Wilder attended Viennese schools, including the University of Vienna (which he left after a year), and was a reporter in Vienna and in Berlin. His first film scenario was a collaboration on the semidocumentary Menschen am Sonntag (1929; “People on Sunday”), of which he was also codirector. For the next four years he wrote scripts for German and French films. The advent of Adolf Hitler in 1933 and Wilder's Jewish background made emigration necessary; he moved to France and then the United States, eventually settling in California.

      Wilder established his reputation as a director with the film noir classic Double Indemnity (1944), produced by Charles Brackett, with whom he had already written some screenplays. Wilder spent 1945 in Germany in charge of the U.S. Army's Psychological Warfare Division. Collaborating first with Brackett until 1950 and then with I.A.L. Diamond from 1957, he then directed films that he also wrote and frequently produced. His work often focused on subjects that had previously been considered unacceptable screen material, including alcoholism (The Lost Weekend, 1945), prisoner-of-war camps (Stalag 17, 1953), and prostitution (Irma La Douce, 1963). A number of his films, such as Sunset Boulevard (1950) and The Apartment (1960), weighed the emptiness of modern life. Later films, including Avanti! (1972), Fedora (1978), and Buddy Buddy (1981), explore this same theme. Some of Wilder's greatest films were comedies, including Sabrina (1954), The Seven Year Itch (1955), Love in the Afternoon (1957), Some Like It Hot (1959), and One, Two, Three (1961).

      During his career, Wilder garnered 20 Academy Award nominations and won six Oscars, including best director (The Lost Weekend, The Apartment) and best screenplay (Sunset Boulevard); at the 1988 Academy Awards he was given the Irving G. Thalberg Award. He received a lifetime achievement award from the American Film Institute in 1986.

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