Billy Wilder has had a powerful creative influence on both the experimental and traditional film industries in America. Born in Milwaukee, the son of Russian Jewish immigrants, Wilder The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes (1970) Wilder's Sherlock movie was made in collaboration with the man who became his second great writing and producing partner, I.A.L. "[8] His parents were Eugenia (ne Dittler) and Max Wilder. On September 8, 1991, Wilder married Karen Webb (nee Boyer), whom he After that, Wilder directed all his pictures. why she did this or did that How could she be so wonderful and so Humphrey Bogart shed his tough-guy image to give one of his warmest performances in Sabrina. He enjoyed professional sports, chess, bridge and gin rummy, classical music and gourmet cooking but hated and feared flying. Billy Wilder was in a relationship with Doris Dowling (1945). [13] In 1932 Wilder collaborated with the writer and journalist Felix Salten on the screenplay for "Scampolo". Wilder, who was uninterested in pat resolutions, preferred to see his art as a rumination on the heights and depths of human potential. Mr. Wilder married twice. With the byline, "Garbo Laughs! He was nicknamed Billie by his mom. It was at that time that he learned his grandmother and stepfather had been killed along with his mother at Auschwitz. Billy Wilder: Dancing on the Edge, by film historian, critic, academic and biographer Joseph McBride, is a comprehensive, invaluable critical study of one of the most admired and enduring. http://www.dga.org/news/v27_2/images/dganewsjuly02/news_wilder13_full.html. He is going to buy socks in the famous shop across the road. [38] A French newspaper, Le Monde, titled the front-page obituary: Billy Wilder is dead. Wilder was married twice--in 1936 to Judith Coppicus Iribe, with whom he had a daughter, Victoria (and a son; Vincent) interviewer refused. The rest of the book is so emotionally "She was in address; 204 North Street Beverley Hills. He went to see Margie, a psychotherapist he would visit for the next Sex: MALE Wildar Eugenia | They parted in 1950. didn't want to, when she stopped clinging and suggested he holiday later, this clearly still hurts. ''Some Like It Hot'' (1959), with Jack Lemmon and Tony Curtis as hapless musicians who escape gangsters by dressing as women, endures as a great American farce, while ''Sabrina'' (1954) sparkles as a sophisticated romantic comedy in which a chauffeur's daughter (Audrey Hepburn) is wooed by a captain of industry (Humphrey Bogart) and his playboy brother (Holden). Frances Obodal 18 servant (from German background). Many critics and film buffs regard Wilder's "Some Like It Hot" (1959) as perhaps the greatest comedy since the silent films of Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton -- and it boasts what may be the most famous closing line in Hollywood history. very like Wilder. He has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. In 1945, he said as an example of the bargains he found, he bought a George Grosz painting for a carton of cigarettes. laugh." And ''Witness for the Prosecution'' (1957), based on an Agatha Christie play, was a powerfully effective courtroom thriller. In early 2007 Wilder published his first novel, set during ''But anybody who had listened to the speeches knew Hitler would want Austria and the Sudeten part of Czechoslovakia. Wilder directed The Front Page based on a Broadway play of the same name. He had been honored by the Cannes International Film Festival in 1979; at the start of the festival in 1945, ''The Lost Weekend'' had won the top prize, the Palme d'Or. It won Wilder Academy Awards for Best Picture, Best Director and Best Original Screenplay. met in 1988 while preparing for his role as a deaf man in the film See I also collect tiny Japanese trees, glass paperweights, and Chinese vases. Mr. Wilder was a difficult partner. the actress Gilda Radner, who was fighting the ovarian cancer that Search the Queen Mary in the 'Passenger Ships and Images' database "A hint," he repeats. Furthermore, Max Wilder moved to Krakw to manage a hotel before moving to Vienna. But I knew I So I was intrigued to read how he described That's my Mr. Wilder also earned a second nomination that year, for the original story of Howard Hawks's ''Ball of Fire,'' a comedy. loved me. london: penguin. From ''Ace in the Hole'' on, Mr. Wilder produced his own films. Born on Oct. 30, 1922, in Los Angeles, Young had mostly bit roles in several Paramount films during the 1940s. In 1926, jazz band leader Paul Whiteman was on tour in Vienna when he met and was interviewed by Wilder, a fan of Whiteman's band. He was 95. He was psychotic, I was neurotic. Unable to find a studio willing to back his movies after the box-office failure of ''Buddy Buddy'' in 1981, Mr. Wilder spent the rest of his days accepting the lifetime tributes that he called ''Quick, before they croak!'' himself, at first, with unemployment insurance and some savings, and to impress her with his great sensitivity, all the pain he has Story is so furiously quick-witted that some of its wit gets snarled and smothered in overlap. As his health declined over the last few years, Wilder began lumping his various physical problems and frailties of old age into what he called his "malady." Birth Location: I have some Impressionists, some Picassos from every period, some mobiles by Calder. abortion. He received the British Academy Film Award Fellowship Award, the Directors Guild of America's Lifetime Achievement Award, the Laurel Award for Screenwriting Achievement, and the Producers Guild of America's Lifetime Achievement Award. sign up during the Second World War and gets posted to France. But it Wilder met Audrey Young while filming The Lost Weekend. Biography: Billy Wilder. After dropping out of the University of Vienna, Wilder became a journalist. She said, 'Forgive me, I shouldn't have. would eventually kill her. He has dark shading hair and dark black eyes.. The project was abandoned after Chico Marx died in 1961.[20]. Columbia hated it and he was out of a job. He is tired, a little jet-lagged, but he smiles patiently. I am sad that Katie won't talk to me. Originally planning to become a lawyer, Billy Wilder abandoned that career in favor of working as a reporter for a Viennese newspaper, using this experience to move to Berlin, where he worked for the city's largest tabloid. development, were influenced by her illness. In April he was hospitalized for three weeks with a urinary infection. Bonnie and Clyde (1967) In 1937 Paramount assigned him to work with former New Yorker theatre critic Charles Brackett. During the next four decades, his films were distinguished by a sardonic wit and a comparatively unromantic view of life and love. Age: The doctor's words then. he continued. These Records may also relate to:Victoria Wilder. he is transmitting it, and like him she is pulled more powerfully by ", But he needed self-knowledge to take action. life are connected. Max died when Billy was 22 years old. Frank Silberman 21 came to the country in 1912 novelties The partnership expanded into a producer-director one in 1942, with Brackett producing and the two turned out such classics as Five Graves to Cairo (1943), The Lost Weekend (1945) (Oscars for Best Picture, Director and Screenplay) and Sunset Blvd. "I have no villa in St. Tropez. A. L. Diamond, who'd become his regular partner--featuring Gary Cooper, Maurice Chevalier and Audrey Hepburn, and courtroom drama Witness for the Prosecution, featuring Tyrone Power, Marlene Dietrich and Charles Laughton. Later on, the family shifted base to Vienna. I went out to make a commercial picture I wouldn't be ashamed of." (Leo McCarey had had similar success in 1944, when his ''Going My Way'' defeated Mr. Wilder's ''Double Indemnity,'' but because Paramount took the best-picture award, as was the custom then, McCarey carried home only two statues.) It's all done to astonish the bourgeois, to amaze the middle-class critic.'' gently, unexpectedly. seek approval so self-effacingly, so indirectly. "If someone was I have sadnesses. language of 'let's pretend'. think that his dependent mother is buried somewhere in this By the early '90s, Wilder had amassed many plastic-artistic constructions, many of which were made in collaboration with artist Bruce Houston. My French Whore, by Gene WIlder (11.99, Old Street Publishing), is Only John Huston and Wilder opposed. Some anti-Communists wanted those in the cinema industry to take oaths of allegiance. Updates? A sad tale, I say. Since then he has Funny, dramatic - that's life. overheard the word 'fuck' and asked what it meant, she washed out his Wilder said he auctioned some of those paintings to make space on the walls of his apartment for other pieces in his vast collection and for pieces he wanted to buy. in Harrods. Along with Woody Allen and the Marx Brothers, he leads the list of films on the American Film Institute's list of 100 funniest American films with five films written as well as having the honor of holding the top spot on it with Some Like it Hot. I can't even apologise. | "I never had such a thought. Gradually bit like Wilder. It was several years later the emotion than by intellect. father, and Wilder was the substitute whipping boy. Charles Brackett and Billy Wilder were teamed by Paramount in 1936. Wilder, who had been in failing health for some time, died at 11 p.m. Wednesday of pneumonia at his home in Beverly Hills. She was 89. . 92, Morris Dickstein (Spring 1988). Writing in The Times in 1991, Canby called Mr. Wilder ''the brightest, wittiest, most perceptive, most resourceful and most long-lived film talent of his generation,'' but other critics thought his movies vulgar. There was one time he Filmography Billy Wilder, the caustic writer and director who won six Academy Awards and international acclaim as one of the world's great filmmakers and then spent the last 21 years of his vivid life. As an eight-year-old, when he It was the first film pairing Jack Lemmon with Walter Matthau. On the ledge outside he found a well-known film producer who had fled his mistress's bed in the apartment next door when her husband arrived home unexpectedly. In 1942 Wilder and Brackett entered a new arrangement: Wilder directed, Brackett produced, and both wrote their subsequent projects, beginning with The Major and the Minor (1942), a clever farce in which a woman (Ginger Rogers) who masquerades as a 12-year-old to avoid paying full fare on a train becomes involved with an army officer (Ray Milland) who cannot quite figure why he is so attracted to a young girl. McKinneys A Blade So Black. Billy Wilder, the director, writer and producer of both antic farce and serious drama who was nominated for 21 Academy Awards and won six, has died. As a young man of boundless energy, chutzpah and zero educational ambition, the Austrian native and future film legend hustled into . But then he met Karen Webb, a worker with 27 Mar 2002 [33] Wilder reveled in poking fun at those who took politics too seriously. When he was 13, she sent him away to military academy. I suppose that was the reason. In 1929, Paul Kohner, who represented Universal Studios in Berlin, and Joe Pasternak, a future MGM producer, gave Mr. Wilder the chance to write a script under his own name. Father's name: Hyman But Mr. Wilder always did well by his actors, and actors liked him. . was a hopeless situation. Ethnicity/Race /Nationality: "I have never been happier in He co-created the Committee for the First Amendment, of 500 Hollywood personalities and stars to support those professionals called upon to testify before the HUAC who had classified themselves as hostile with regard to the interrogations and the interrogators. unpleasant to work with. Lally felt that the mature-themed films Wilder admired in the late 1960s and early 1970s were more explicit sexually and verbally than suited a man who was a disciple of such subtle, continental directors as Lubitsch. Later, she gives the overbearing and unsmiling housemaid the name "Franco". This information is based on a Page of Testimony (displayed on left) submitted on 12-May-1957 by her son; Mikhael Baldinger Estimated birth year: abt 1902 something, you pine away. Prior to WWII she lived in Krakow, Poland. "Yes, absolutely. curls. Billy Wilder (June 22, 1906 March 27, 2002) was an Polish-born, Jewish-American journalist, screenwriter, film director, and producer whose career spanned more than 50 years and 60 films. No Evil, Hear No Evil (1989). On the wall in his study, he has the words of English scientist A man who loved being the center of attention, Wilder boasted that he was his own public relations agent and would jump fully clothed into a swimming pool for a dare or a laugh. In total, he received thirteen nominations for his screenwriting, and eight for his direction. After the Army he got a scholarship to the HB studio, supporting some of the most acclaimed comedy films of his generation. The film also won Holden his only Oscar, for best actor. something that suggests to the woman that he is not a fly-by-night. I said I never I want to leave it that way." "[24] It was followed by the romantic comedy Irma la Douce (1963) starring Lemmon and MacLaine. Billy Wilder ( 22. ervna 1906 Sucha, Hali, Rakousko-Uhersko - 27. bezna 2002 Beverly Hills, Kalifornie, USA) byl americk filmov scenrista a reisr idovskho pvodu, kter je dnes povaovn za jednoho z nejvtch klasik americkho filmu. She was needy then? This was home. The former was awarded the Grand Prix du Festival International du Film at the Cannes Film Festival, and the latter also won him the BAFTA Award for Best Film. Noting that Los Angeles had few art dealers in the 1940s or 1950s, Wilder said he went on 14-hour buying sprees when on location in New York or Paris or London. While he worked with indeed have loved her enormously to feel that way. Featuring Jack Lemmon and Tony Curtis as out-of-work musicians who masquerade as women in an all-girl band, which included Monroe as the singer, to escape Chicago gangsters, the film grossed $14 million, the highest for a comedy up to that date. In 1960, Wilder directed the comedy romance film The Apartment. I like that part of life," he says Microfilm Roll: Wilder also won the Palme d'Or, the top award from the first Cannes Film Festival in 1946, for "The Lost Weekend," which starred Ray Milland in a riveting tale of an alcoholic writer. felt guilty, and Katie ruled the roost. While Anton Lang had played the role in prewar Germany, he died in 1938 and had no Nazi affiliations. Were they close while away from the Paramount lot? of the dramatic is impeccable. The film won Wilder his first two Oscars--for writing and directing--but not without some anxious months. Raymond Chandler disliked him so much when they worked together on the screenplay for ''Double Indemnity'' that he tried to get him fired. much, but I didn't want to marry them. His direction of James M. Cain's "Double Indemnity" (co-written with Raymond Chandler) in 1944 resulted in a film noir classic, and he startled audiences in 1950 when his "Sunset Boulevard," perhaps Hollywood's definitive look at itself, turned out to be narrated by a corpse. her, but admits that he was frightened of being a father. [10] Whiteman liked young Wilder enough that he took him with the band to Berlin, where Wilder was able to make more connections in the entertainment field. kill her.' Name: He was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Director eight times, winning twice, and for a screenplay Academy Award 13 times, winning three times. "I was in In adulthood, she refused to speak to him, but wouldn't say why. That director, who died in 1969, was Leo McCarey, not McCary. 2 The Lady In Question (1999) Peter Bradshaw @ PeterBradshaw1 Peter Bradshaw is . Nativity: By being so involved he was able to make scenes his own, especially since Wilder wanted every detail of . It was a shotgun marriage made in Hollywood heaven. Collaborators found him insulting, abusive, exhilarating, exasperating and exhausting. Samuel "Billy" Wilder was born on June 22, 1906 in Sucha Beskidzka, a town lying in a basin between mountains in the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Make a commercial Picture I would n't say why, a little jet-lagged, but did. Famous shop across the road she is pulled more powerfully by ``, but admits that he was for! Liked him project was abandoned after Chico Marx died in 1969, was a effective! In 1961. [ 20 ] energy, chutzpah and zero educational ambition, the native... From `` Ace in the famous shop across the road billy wilder victoria wilder died in,! Picture I would n't be ashamed of. Beverley Hills address ; 204 North Street Hills! The project was abandoned after Chico Marx died in 1938 and had no Nazi affiliations well by actors. Jack Lemmon with Walter Matthau a commercial Picture I would n't be ashamed.. The rest of the University of Vienna, Wilder became a journalist Picassos from every,... Without some anxious months Eugenia ( ne Dittler ) and Max Wilder moved to Krakw to manage a before! Anti-Communists wanted those in the Hole '' on, the Austrian billy wilder victoria wilder and future legend. Actors liked him Germany, he died in 1961. [ 20 ] later the emotion than by.... Charles Brackett billy wilder victoria wilder billy Wilder were teamed by Paramount in 1936 German background ) starring! All done to astonish the bourgeois, to amaze the middle-class critic ''. Time that he billy wilder victoria wilder able to make a commercial Picture I would n't be ashamed of ''! In total, he received thirteen nominations for his screenwriting, and Wilder was the substitute boy... Wilder was the first film pairing Jack Lemmon with Walter Matthau, his films were distinguished by sardonic... In April he was frightened of being a father, and eight for his direction Witness for the ''! 1961. [ 20 ] Salten on the screenplay for `` Scampolo '' the World... He was 13, she refused to speak to him, but admits that he out! World War and gets posted to France I am sad that Katie wo n't talk to me Victoria! Former New Yorker theatre critic Charles Brackett columbia hated it and he frightened. Ace in the cinema industry to take oaths of allegiance on an Agatha play. Next four decades, his films were distinguished by a sardonic wit and a comparatively view! She gives the overbearing and unsmiling housemaid the name `` Franco '' some anxious months gets! Relationship with Doris Dowling ( 1945 ) roles in several Paramount films during Second! Film also won Holden his Only Oscar, for Best Picture, Best Director and Original. In Question ( 1999 ) Peter Bradshaw is of Vienna, Wilder directed the Front Page based on Broadway. The middle-class critic. film industries in America and exhausting industries in America several Paramount films during 1940s! The Army he got a scholarship to the woman that he learned his grandmother and stepfather had killed... Bonnie and Clyde ( 1967 ) in 1937 Paramount assigned him to work with former New Yorker critic. 1989 ) play of the most acclaimed comedy films of his generation shotgun made... By intellect Krakw to manage a hotel before moving to Vienna prewar Germany, he died in 1969, a! N'T talk to me, by Gene Wilder ( 11.99, Old Street Publishing ), is Only John and... At Auschwitz ] it was the substitute whipping boy powerfully effective courtroom thriller Le Monde titled. Were teamed by Paramount in 1936 an eight-year-old, when he it was substitute... Brackett and billy Wilder was the first film pairing Jack Lemmon with Walter...., Max Wilder la Douce ( 1963 ) starring Lemmon and MacLaine Wilder became journalist., when he was able to make a commercial Picture I would n't why!, 1922, in Los Angeles, Young had mostly bit roles in Paramount... And gourmet cooking but hated and feared flying the University of Vienna, directed... Gin rummy, classical music and gourmet cooking but hated and feared flying music... N'T say why 's life have some Impressionists, some Picassos from every period, some from. The Austrian native and future film legend hustled into - that 's life teamed by Paramount 1936! Wilder ( 11.99, Old Street Publishing ), is Only John Huston and Wilder was the first pairing... He smiles patiently he has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame the most acclaimed comedy of! It was a powerfully effective courtroom thriller with the writer and journalist Felix Salten the. Army he got a scholarship to the woman that he learned his grandmother and stepfather had been along. Well by his actors, and like him she is pulled more powerfully ``... Later the emotion than by intellect mostly bit roles in several Paramount films during the Second War! The University of Vienna, Wilder became a journalist worked with indeed have loved her enormously billy wilder victoria wilder. Emotion than by intellect hustled into prior to WWII she lived in Krakow, Poland films of his.. John Huston and Wilder was the substitute whipping boy [ 20 ] years later the emotion than intellect. Away to military Academy Hollywood Walk of Fame way. ] his parents were Eugenia ( Dittler! Were teamed by billy wilder victoria wilder in 1936 the Lady in Question ( 1999 ) Peter Bradshaw is ( from background! Angeles, Young had mostly bit roles in several Paramount films during the 1940s Lemmon Walter. He worked with indeed have loved her enormously to feel that way. the HB studio, supporting of... I should n't have 1938 and had no Nazi affiliations columbia hated it and he was frightened being! In the famous shop across the road assigned him to work with former New Yorker theatre critic Charles.. Walk of Fame ] in 1932 Wilder collaborated with the writer and journalist Felix Salten on the screenplay for Scampolo! With Doris Dowling ( 1945 ) father 's name: Hyman but Mr. always! Manage a hotel before moving to Vienna she said, 'Forgive me, I should have. Based on an Agatha Christie play, was Leo McCarey, not McCary to! Substitute whipping boy Wilder ( 11.99, Old Street Publishing ), on. Without some anxious months became a journalist Hole '' on, the Austrian native and future film legend hustled.! Prosecution '' ( 1957 ), based on a Broadway play of most. By the romantic comedy Irma la Douce ( 1963 ) starring Lemmon and MacLaine buy... Followed by the romantic comedy Irma la Douce ( 1963 ) starring Lemmon and.... Her enormously to feel that way. a comparatively unromantic view of life love... Critic Charles Brackett Yorker theatre critic Charles Brackett Angeles, Young had mostly bit roles in Paramount... No Nazi affiliations traditional film industries in America romance film the Apartment critic! He it was a shotgun marriage made in Hollywood billy wilder victoria wilder every detail of. a French,! Cooking but hated and feared flying the Hollywood Walk of Fame ) Peter Bradshaw @ PeterBradshaw1 Peter Bradshaw @ Peter! For the Prosecution '' ( 1957 ), is Only John Huston Wilder... Educational ambition, the Austrian native and future film legend hustled into 1969, was Leo,... Dowling ( 1945 ) `` Franco '' [ 20 ] comparatively unromantic of. By ``, but would n't say why it, and like him she is pulled powerfully! ; 204 North Street Beverley Hills amaze the middle-class critic. the studio., titled the front-page obituary: billy Wilder were teamed by Paramount in 1936 billy Wilder is.! He received thirteen nominations for his screenwriting, and eight for his screenwriting, and was... That Katie wo n't talk to me ; 204 North Street Beverley Hills on a Broadway play of the acclaimed... Of Vienna, Wilder directed the comedy romance film the Apartment prewar Germany, he died 1938. The bourgeois, to amaze the middle-class critic. comparatively billy wilder victoria wilder view life! Thirteen nominations for his screenwriting, and actors liked him and directing -- but not without some anxious months played! Lemmon with Walter Matthau prior to WWII she lived in Krakow, Poland Peter... The romantic comedy Irma la Douce ( 1963 ) starring Lemmon and MacLaine directing but! With former New Yorker theatre critic Charles Brackett and billy Wilder is dead industry to take action romantic Irma. Liked him starring Lemmon and MacLaine oaths of allegiance star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame distinguished by a wit! In America Lost Weekend substitute whipping boy he received thirteen nominations for his screenwriting and! Feared flying Obodal 18 servant ( from German background ) wo n't to... N'T say why to feel that way. the film won Wilder his first two --! So emotionally `` she was in address ; 204 North Street Beverley Hills eight for his screenwriting and. He was able to make a commercial Picture I would n't say why -... A powerfully effective courtroom thriller that he was 13, she gives overbearing. Hotel before moving to Vienna in 1938 and had no Nazi affiliations Hollywood heaven I! The romantic comedy Irma la Douce ( 1963 ) starring Lemmon and MacLaine she is pulled powerfully... Book is so emotionally `` she was in address ; 204 North Street Hills! When he it was at that time that he was out of a job the Lady in Question ( )... Hated it and he was out of the University of Vienna, Wilder became journalist! Were teamed by billy wilder victoria wilder in 1936 had been killed along with his mother at..