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Billy Wilder (; ; born Samuel Wilder; June 22, 1906 – March 27, 2002) was an American filmmaker and screenwriter. His career in Hollywood spanned five decades, and he is regarded as one of the most brilliant and versatile filmmakers of Classic Hollywood cinema. He received seven Academy Awards (among 21 nominations), a BAFTA Award, the Cannes Film Festival's Palme d'Or and two Golden Globe Awards.
Wilder was born in Sucha Beskidzka, Austria-Hungary (the town is now in Poland). After moving to Berlin in his early adulthood, Wilder became a screenwriter. The rise of the Nazi Party and antisemitism in Germany saw him move to Paris. He then moved to Hollywood in 1934, and had a major hit when he, Charles Brackett and Walter Reisch wrote the screenplay for the Academy Award-nominated film Ninotchka (1939). Wilder established his directorial reputation and received his first nomination for the Academy Award for Best Director with Double Indemnity (1944), a film noir based on the novel by James M. Cain with a screenplay by Wilder and Raymond Chandler. Wilder won the Best Director and Best Screenplay Academy Awards for The Lost Weekend (1945), which also won the Academy Award for Best Picture.
In the 1950s, Wilder directed and co-wrote a string of critically acclaimed films, including the Hollywood-set drama Sunset Boulevard (1950), for which he won his second screenplay Academy Award; Ace in the Hole (1951), Stalag 17 (1953) and Sabrina (1954). Wilder directed and co-wrote three films in 1957: The Spirit of St. Louis, Love in the Afternoon and Witness for the Prosecution. During this period, Wilder also directed Marilyn Monroe in two films, The Seven Year Itch (1955) and Some Like It Hot (1959). In 1960, Wilder co-wrote, directed and produced the critically acclaimed film The Apartment. It won Wilder Academy Awards for Best Picture, Best Director and Best Original Screenplay. Other notable films Wilder directed include One, Two, Three (1961), Irma la Douce (1963), Kiss Me, Stupid (1964), The Fortune Cookie (1966) and Avanti! (1972).
Wilder received various honors over his career, including the AFI Life Achievement Award in 1986, the Kennedy Center Honors in 1990, the National Medal of Arts in 1993 and the BAFTA Fellowship in 1995. He also received 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.*
Seven of his films are preserved in the United States National Film Registry of the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically or aesthetically significant".
Wilder's elder brother, W. Lee Wilder, was also a filmmaker. His parents had a successful cake shop in Sucha's train station that flourished into a chain of railroad cafes. Eugenia and Max Wilder did not persuade their son to join the family business. Max moved to Kraków to manage a hotel before moving to Vienna and dying when Billy was 22 years old. After the family moved to Vienna, Wilder became a journalist instead of attending the University of Vienna. In 1926, jazz band leader Paul Whiteman was on tour in Vienna where he was interviewed by Wilder. Whiteman liked young Wilder enough that he took him with the band to Berlin, where Wilder was able to make more connections in entertainment.
Before achieving success as a writer, he was a taxi dancer in Berlin.Philips, Alastair. City of Darkness, City of Light: Emigre Filmmakers in Paris, 1929–1939. Amsterdam University Press, 2004. p. 190.Silvester, Christopher. The Grove Book of Hollywood. Grove Press, 2002. p. 311
After arriving in Hollywood in 1934, Wilder continued working as a screenwriter. He became a naturalized citizen of the United States in 1939, having spent time in Mexico waiting for the government after his six-month card expired in 1934, an episode reflected in his 1941 Hold Back the Dawn. Wilder's first significant success was Ninotchka, a collaboration with fellow German immigrant Ernst Lubitsch. The romantic comedy starred Greta Garbo (generally known as a tragedy heroine in film ), and was popularly and critically acclaimed. With the byline "Garbo Laughs!", it also took Garbo's career in a new direction. The film marked Wilder's first Academy Award nomination, which he shared with co-writer Charles Brackett (although their collaboration on Bluebeard's Eighth Wife and Midnight had been well received). Wilder co-wrote many of his films with Brackett from 1938 to 1950. Brackett described their collaboration process: "The thing to do was suggest an idea, have it torn apart and despised. In a few days it would be apt to turn up, slightly changed, as Wilder's idea. Once I got adjusted to that way of working, our lives were simpler."Brackett, Charles, It's the Pictures That Got Small, Columbia University Press, 2015, pg. 92
His third Hollywood film as director, the film noir Double Indemnity (1944), starring Fred MacMurray, Barbara Stanwyck and Edward G. Robinson, was a major hit. It was nominated for seven Academy Awards including Best Picture, Director, Screenplay and Actress; Wilder co-wrote it with Raymond Chandler. The film not only set conventions for the noir genre (such as "venetian blind" lighting and voice-over narration), but is a landmark in the battle against Hollywood censorship. Based on James M. Cain's novel, it featured two love triangles and a murder plotted for insurance money. While the book was popular with the reading public, it had been considered unfilmable under the Hays Code because adultery was central to the plot.
In 1945, the Psychological Warfare Department of the United States Department of War produced an American documentary film directed by Wilder. The film known as Death Mills, or Die Todesmühlen, was intended for German audiences to educate them about the atrocities committed by the Nazi regime. For the German version, Die Todesmühlen, Hanuš Burger is credited as the writer and director, while Wilder supervised the editing. Wilder is credited with the English-language version.
Two years later, Wilder adapted from Charles R. Jackson's novel The Lost Weekend into a film of the same name. It was the first major American film with a serious examination of alcoholism, another difficult theme under the Production Code. It follows an alcoholic writer (Ray Milland) opposing the protestations of his girlfriend (Jane Wyman). The film earned critical acclaim after it premiered at the Cannes Film Festival and competed in the main competition, where it received the Festival's top prize, the Palme d'Or, and four Academy Awards including for Best Picture. Wilder earned the Oscars for Best Director and Best Screenplay and Milland won Best Actor. The film is one of four to win both the Academy Award for Best Picture and the Cannes Film Festival's Palme d' Or, alongside Marty, Parasite and Anora.
In 1951, Wilder directed Ace in the Hole (a.k.a. The Big Carnival) starring Kirk Douglas in a tale of media exploitation of a caving accident. The idea had been pitched over the phone to Wilder's secretary by Victor Desny. Desny sued Wilder for breach of an implied contract in the California copyright case Wilder v Desny, ultimately receiving a settlement of $14,350.46 Cal.2d 715, 299 P.2d 257, CAL. 1956.Sikov, Ed. On Sunset Boulevard: The Life and Times of Billy Wilder, Hyperion Press, 1998, p. 328 Although a critical and commercial failure at the time, its reputation has grown over the years. The following year, Wilder announced plans to direct and produce a film version of the Sophocles tragedy Oedipus Rex, adapted for the screen by Walter Reisch. They planned to shoot the film on location in Greece in Technicolor, but it never went into production.
Subsequently, Wilder directed three adaptations of Broadway plays, war drama Stalag 17, for which William Holden won the Best Actor Academy Award, romantic comedy Sabrina, for which Audrey Hepburn was nominated for Best Actress, and romantic comedy The Seven Year Itch, which features the iconic image of Marilyn Monroe standing on a subway grate as her white dress is blown upwards by a passing train. Wilder was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Director for the first two films and shared a nomination for Best Screenplay for the second. He was interested in doing a film with one of the classic slapstick comedy acts of the Hollywood Golden Age. He first considered, and rejected, a project to star Laurel and Hardy. He held discussions with Groucho Marx concerning a new Marx Brothers comedy, tentatively titled A Day at the U.N. The project was abandoned after Chico Marx died in 1961.Gore, Chris (1999). The Fifty Greatest Movies Never Made, New York: St. Martin's Griffin
In 1957, three films Wilder directed were released: biopic The Spirit of St. Louis, starring James Stewart as Charles Lindbergh, romantic comedy Love in the Afternoon—Wilder's first screenplay with I. A. L. Diamond, who would 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. Wilder received an Academy Award nomination for Best Director for the last film.
In 1959, Wilder reunited with Monroe in the United Artists released Prohibition-era farce film Some Like It Hot. It was released, however, without a Production Code seal of approval, which was withheld due to the film's unabashed sexual comedy, including a central cross-dressing theme. Jack Lemmon and Tony Curtis played musicians disguised as women to escape pursuit by a Chicago gang. Curtis's character courts a singer (Monroe), while Lemmon is wooed by Joe E. Brownsetting up the film's final joke in which Lemmon reveals that his character is a man and Brown blandly replies "Well, nobody's perfect". A box office success, the film was lightly regarded by film critics during its original release, although it did receive six Academy Award nominations, including for Best Director and Best Screenplay. But its critical reputation grew prodigiously; in 2000, the American Film Institute selected it as the best American comedy ever made. In 2012, the British Film Institute decennial Sight and Sound poll of the world's film critics rated it as the 43rd best movie ever made, and the second-highest-ranking comedy.–
Wilder directed the Cold War political farce film One, Two, Three (1961), starring James Cagney, which won critical praise with Variety writing, "Billy Wilder's One, Two, Three is a fast-paced, high-pitched, hard-hitting, lighthearted farce crammed with topical gags and spiced with satirical overtones. Story is so furiously quick-witted that some of its wit gets snarled and smothered in overlap." Variety. Film review, 1961. Last accessed: January 31, 2008. It was followed by the romantic comedy Irma la Douce (1963) starring Lemmon and MacLaine. The film was the fifth highest-grossing film of the year. Wilder received a Writers Guild of America Award nomination for his screenplay. Wilder then wrote and directed the sex comedy film Kiss Me, Stupid starring Dean Martin, Kim Novak, and Ray Walston, who was a last minute replacement for ailing Peter Sellers. The film was criticized by some critics for vulgarity, with Bosley Crowther blaming the film for giving American movies the reputation of "deliberate and degenerate corruptors of public taste and morals". A. H. Weiler of the New York Times called the film "pitifully unfunny". Wilder gained his final Academy Award nomination and a Writers Guild of America Award nomination for the screenplay of The Fortune Cookie, which he co-produced through his independent film company, Phalanx Productions. It was the first film pairing Jack Lemmon with Walter Matthau. The film was titled Meet Whiplash Willie in the United Kingdom. In 1970, he directed The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes, also made through Phalanx Productions, which was intended as a major roadshow theatrical release, but to Wilder's dismay was heavily cut by the studio.
For Stalag 17, Wilder squeezed an Oscar-winning performance out of a reluctant William Holden (Holden had wanted to make his character more likable; Wilder refused). At a casting meeting, Wilder reportedly said, "I'm tired of clichéd typecasting—the same people in every film." An example of this is Wilder's casting of Fred MacMurray in Double Indemnity and The Apartment. MacMurray had become Hollywood's highest-paid actor portraying a decent, thoughtful character in light comedies, melodramas, and musicals; Wilder cast him as a womanizing schemer. Humphrey Bogart shed his tough-guy image to give one of his warmest performances in Sabrina. James Cagney, not usually known for comedy, was memorable in a high-octane comic role for Wilder's One, Two, Three. Wilder coaxed a very effective performance out of Monroe in Some Like It Hot.
In total, he directed fourteen different actors in Oscar-nominated performances: Barbara Stanwyck in Double Indemnity, Ray Milland in The Lost Weekend, William Holden in Sunset Boulevard and Stalag 17, Gloria Swanson, Erich von Stroheim and Nancy Olson in Sunset Boulevard, Robert Strauss in Stalag 17, Audrey Hepburn in Sabrina, Charles Laughton in Witness for the Prosecution, Elsa Lanchester in Witness for the Prosecution, Jack Lemmon in Some Like It Hot and The Apartment, Jack Kruschen in The Apartment, Shirley MacLaine in The Apartment and Irma la Douce and Walter Matthau in The Fortune Cookie. Wilder mentored Lemmon, and was the first director to pair him and Matthau in The Fortune Cookie. Wilder and Lemmon worked on seven films.Philips (2010), p. 230.
Wilder was not affected by the Hollywood blacklist. Of the blacklisted 'Hollywood Ten' he said, "Of the ten, two had talent, and the rest were just unfriendly." In general, Wilder disliked formula and genre films.Morris Dickstein (Spring 1988). "Sunset Boulevard" Grand Street Vol. 7 No. 3 p. 180 Wilder reveled in poking fun at those who took politics too seriously. In Ball of Fire, his burlesque queen 'Sugarpuss' points at her sore throat and complains "Pink? It's as red as the Daily Worker and just as sore." Later, she gives the overbearing and unsmiling housemaid the name "Francisco Franco".
Wilder died of pneumonia on March 27, 2002. He was buried at Pierce Brothers Westwood Village Memorial Park and Mortuary. A French newspaper, Le Monde, titled the front-page obituary: "Billy Wilder is dead. Nobody is perfect", a reference to the last line of Some Like It Hot.
Wilder holds a significant place in the history of Hollywood censorship for expanding the range of acceptable subject matter. He directed two of film noir's definitive films, Double Indemnity and Sunset Boulevard. Along with Woody Allen and the Marx Brothers, he leads the list of films on the American Film Institute's AFI's 100 Years...100 Laughs and he earned the top spot on it with Some Like It Hot. Also on the list are The Apartment and The Seven Year Itch, which he directed, and Ball of Fire and Ninotchka, which he co-wrote. The AFI listed Double Indemnity, Sunset Boulevard, Some Like It Hot and The Apartment on AFI's 100 Years... 100 Movies. Wilder was ranked 6th in director's poll on Sight & Sound's 2002 list of The Greatest Directors of All Time. In 1996, Entertainment Weekly ranked Wilder at No. 24 in its "50 Greatest Directors" list. Wilder was ranked at No. 19 on Empire's "Top 40 Greatest Directors of All-Time" list in 2005. In 2007, Total Film magazine ranked Wilder at No. 13 on its "100 Greatest Film Directors Ever" list. Wilder was voted at No. 4 on the "Greatest Directors of 20th Century" poll conducted by Japanese film magazine Kinema Junpo.
Seven of his films are preserved in the United States National Film Registry of the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically or aesthetically significant". Anthony Lane writes that Double Indemnity, The Seven Year Itch, Sunset Boulevard and The Apartment are "part of the lexicon of moviegoing" and that Some Like It Hot is a "national treasure." Roger Ebert asked, "Of all the great directors of Hollywood's golden age, has anybody made more films that are as fresh and entertaining to this day as Billy Wilder's?...And who else can field three contenders among the greatest closing lines of all time?", citing the closing lines of Sunset Boulevard, Some Like it Hot, and The Apartment. Ron Shelton recalls encountering Wilder:
When Belle Époque won the 1993 Academy Awards for Best Foreign Language Film, Spanish filmmaker Fernando Trueba said in his acceptance speech: "I would like to believe in God in order to thank him. But I just believe in Billy Wilder... so thank you, Mr. Wilder." According to Trueba, Wilder called him the day after and told him: "Fernando, it's God." French filmmaker Michel Hazanavicius thanked Billy Wilder in the 2012 Best Picture Academy Awards acceptance speech for The Artist: "I would like to thank the following three people, I would like to thank Billy Wilder, I would like to thank Billy Wilder, and I would like to thank Billy Wilder." Wilder's 12 Academy Awards nominations for screenwriting were a record until 1997 when Woody Allen received a 13th nomination for Deconstructing Harry. In 2017, Vulture.com named Wilder the greatest screenwriter of all time. He directed fourteen actors in Oscar-nominated performances. Wilder's epitaph, a paraphrase of the last line of Some Like It Hot, is "I'm a writer but then nobody's perfect."
Career
Early work
After writing crime and sports stories as a stringer for local newspapers, he was eventually offered a regular job at a Berlin tabloid. Developing an interest in film, he began working as a screenwriter. From 1929 to 1933, he produced twelve German films. He collaborated with several other novices (Fred Zinnemann and Robert Siodmak) on the 1930 film People on Sunday. Eschewing the German Expressionist styles of F. W. Murnau and Fritz Lang, People on Sunday was considered as a groundbreaking example of the Neue Sachlichkeit or New Objectivity movement in German cinema. Furthermore, this genre of Strassenfilm ("street film") paved way to the birth of Italian neorealism and the French New Wave. He wrote the screenplay for the 1931 film adaptation of a novel by Erich Kästner, Emil and the Detectives, also screenplays for the comedy The Man in Search of His Murderer (1931), the operetta Her Grace Commands (1931) and the comedy A Blonde Dream (1932), all of them produced in the Babelsberg Studios in Potsdam near Berlin. In 1932, Wilder collaborated with the writer and journalist Felix Salten on the screenplay for "Scampolo".Jacques Le Rider, "Les Juifs viennois á la Belle Époque," Paris: Albin Michel, 2013, p. 194 After Adolf Hitler's rise to power, Wilder went to Paris, where he made his directorial debut film Mauvaise Graine (1934). He relocated to Hollywood prior to its release. Wilder's mother, grandmother and stepfather were all victims of the Holocaust. For decades it was assumed that it happened at Auschwitz Concentration Camp, but, while researching Polish and Israeli archives, his Austrian biographer Andreas Hutter discovered in 2011 that they were murdered in different locations: his mother, Eugenia "Gitla" Siedlisker, in 1943 at Plaszow; his stepfather, Bernard "Berl" Siedlisker, in 1942 at Belzec; and his grandmother, Balbina Baldinger, died in 1943 in the ghetto in Nowy Targ.
1940s
Wilder continued his screenwriting career with a series of box office hits in the early 1940s, including the romantic drama Hold Back the Dawn and the screwball comedy Ball of Fire. Both films earned him nominations for the 1941 Academy Awards in the categories of Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Story respectively. Wilder made his Hollywood directorial debut in 1942 with The Major and the Minor, a comedy starring Ginger Rogers and Ray Milland.
1950s
In 1950, Wilder co-wrote and directed the cynical noir film Sunset Boulevard. It follows a reclusive silent film actress (Gloria Swanson), who dreams of a comeback with delusions of her greatness from a bygone era. She accompanies an aspiring screenwriter (William Holden), who becomes her gigolo partner. This critically acclaimed film was the final film Wilder collaborated with Brackett. The film was nominated for eleven Academy Awards; together Wilder and Brackett won the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay.
1960s
In 1960, Wilder directed the comedy romance film The Apartment. It follows an insurance clerk (Lemmon), who allows his coworkers to use his apartment to conduct extramarital affairs until he meets an elevator woman (Shirley MacLaine). The film was a critical success with The New York Times film critic Bosley Crowther, who called the film "gleeful, tender, and even sentimental" and Wilder's direction "ingenious". The film received ten Academy Awards nominations and won five awards, including three for Wilder: Best Picture, Best Director and Best Screenplay.
Final films
He produced and directed the comedy film Avanti!, again through Phalanx Productions, which follows a businessman (Lemmon) attempting to retrieve the body of his deceased father from Italy. Wilder received two Golden Globe Award nominations for Best Director and Best Screenplay, and a Writers Guild of America Award nomination. Wilder directed The Front Page based on the Broadway play of the same name. It was a significant financial success with low budget. His final films, Fedora and Buddy Buddy, failed to impress critics or the public, although Fedora has since been re-evaluated and is now considered favorably. Wilder had hoped to make Thomas Keneally's Schindler's Ark as his final film, saying "I wanted to do it as a kind of memorial to my mother and my grandmother and my stepfather," who had all been murdered in the Holocaust. He praised Steven Spielberg adaptation, Schindler's List. To those who Holocaust denial, Wilder wrote in a German newspaper, "If the concentration camps and the gas chambers were all imaginary, then please tell me—where is my mother?"
Directorial style
Wilder's directorial choices reflected his belief in the primacy of writing. He avoided, especially in the second half of his career, the exuberant cinematography of Alfred Hitchcock and Orson Welles because, in Wilder's opinion, shots that called attention to themselves would distract the audience from the story. Wilder's films have tight plotting and memorable dialogue. Despite his conservative directorial style, his subject matter often pushed the boundaries of mainstream entertainment. Once a subject was chosen, he would begin to visualize in terms of specific artists. His belief was that no matter how talented the actor, none were without limitations and the result would be better if you bent the script to their personality rather than force a performance beyond their limitations."One Head Is Better than Two," in Films and Filming (London), February 1957. Wilder was skilled at working with actors, coaxing silent film legends Gloria Swanson and Erich von Stroheim out of retirement for roles in Sunset Boulevard. Regarding Wilder's more comedic films, Roger Ebert wrote: "he took the characters seriously, or at least as seriously as the material allowed, and got a lot of the laughs by playing scenes straight."
Politics
Wilder opposed the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC). 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". Some anti-Communists wanted those in the cinema industry to take oaths of allegiance. The Screen Directors Guild had a vote by show of hands. Only John Huston and Wilder opposed. Huston said, "I am sure it was one of the bravest things that Billy, as a naturalized German, had ever done. There were 150 to 200 directors at this meeting, and here Billy and I sat alone with our hands raised in protest against the loyalty oath."José-Vidal Pelaz López. Filming History: Billy Wilder and the Cold War. Communication & Society, 25(1), pp. 113–136. (2012).
Retirement
Wilder received the American Film Institute (AFI) Life Achievement Award in 1986. He received the Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award in 1988, the Kennedy Center Honors in 1990 and the National Medal of Arts in 1993. National Endowment for the Arts He has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Wilder became well known for owning one of the finest and most extensive art collections in Hollywood, mainly collecting modern art. As he described it in the mid-80s, "It's a sickness. I don't know how to stop myself. Call it bulimia if you want – or curiosity or passion. I have some Impressionists, some from every period, some mobiles by Alexander Calder. I also collect tiny Japanese trees, glass paperweights, and Chinese vases. Name an object and I collect it."Ed Sikov. On Sunset Boulevard – the Life and Times of Billy Wilder "Turnaround", p. 582. Wilder's artistic ambitions led him to create a series of works of his own. By the early '90s, Wilder had amassed many plastic-artistic constructions, many of which were made in collaboration with artist Bruce Houston. In 1993, art dealer Louis Stern, a longtime friend, helped organize an exhibition of Wilder's work at his Beverly Hills gallery. The exhibition was titled Billy Wilder's Marché aux Puces and the Variations on the Theme of Nefertiti segment was notably popular. This series featured busts of the Egyptian queen wrapped à la Christo, or splattered à la Jackson Pollock, or sporting a Campbell's soup can in homage to Andy Warhol.Charlotte Chandler. Nobody's Perfect: Billy Wilder – A Personal Biography. "Nefertete", p. 317.
Personal life and death
Wilder married Judith Coppicus on December 22, 1936. The couple had twins, Victoria and Vincent (born 1939), but Vincent died shortly after birth. They divorced in 1946. Wilder met Audrey Young while filming The Lost Weekend. They were married on June 30, 1949.
Legacy
"Don't be boring". — Billy Wilder Billy Wilder Tribute at NPR
I was in a restaurant about six months after Bull Durham came out. And a man came over and said "Somebody would like to see you." And I looked over and it was Billy Wilder. And I went over and he said, "Great fuckin' picture, kid!" And I thought that was as good a review as you could have."
Filmography
+Directed features
! Year
! Title
! Distributor 1934 Mauvaise Graine Pathé Consortium Cinéma 1942 The Major and the Minor Paramount Pictures 1943 Five Graves to Cairo 1944 Double Indemnity 1945 The Lost Weekend 1948 The Emperor Waltz A Foreign Affair 1950 Sunset Boulevard 1951 Ace in the Hole 1953 Stalag 17 1954 Sabrina 1955 The Seven Year Itch 20th Century Fox 1957 The Spirit of St. Louis Warner Bros. Love in the Afternoon Allied Artists Pictures Corporation Witness for the Prosecution United Artists 1959 Some Like It Hot 1960 The Apartment 1961 One, Two, Three 1963 Irma la Douce 1964 Kiss Me, Stupid Ilya Lopert / United Artists 1966 The Fortune Cookie United Artists 1970 The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes 1972 Avanti! 1974 The Front Page Universal Pictures 1978 Fedora United Artists 1981 Buddy Buddy United Artists / Cinema International Corporation
Awards and honors
Wilder received twenty-one nominations at the Academy Awards, winning six. In total, he received twelve nominations for his screenwriting, eight for his direction, and one for producing. He won both the Academy Award for Best Director and the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay for both The Lost Weekend (1945) and The Apartment (1960). 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. Wilder garnered eight Directors Guild of America Award nominations, with the sole win for his work on The Apartment. He received seven nominations at the Golden Globe Awards, winning Best Director for The Lost Weekend and Sunset Boulevard (1950). He won seven Writers Guild of America Awards including two Laurel Awards for Screenwriting Achievement. He garnered a number of lifetime achievement awards including the Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award, the BAFTA Fellowship, the David O. Selznick Achievement Award in Theatrical Motion Pictures, and the Honorary Golden Bear from the Berlin International Film Festival.
+Awards and nominations received by Wilder's motion pictures 1943
!scope="row" Five Graves to Cairo 3 1944
!scope="row" Double Indemnity 7 1945
!scope="row" The Lost Weekend 7 4 1948
!scope="row" The Emperor Waltz 2 1950
!scope="row" Sunset Boulevard 11 3 7 4 1951
!scope="row" Ace in the Hole 1 1953
!scope="row" Stalag 17 3 1 1954
!scope="row" Sabrina 6 1 1 1 1 1955
!scope="row" The Seven Year Itch 1 1 1 1957
!scope="row" The Spirit of St. Louis 1 1959
!scope="row" Some Like it Hot 6 1 2 1 3 3 1960
!scope="row" The Apartment 10 5 3 3 4 3 1961
!scope="row" One, Two, Three 1 2 1963
!scope="row" Irma la Douce 3 1 1 3 1 1966
!scope="row" The Fortune Cookie 4 1 1 1972
!scope="row" Avanti! 6 1 1974
!scope="row" The Front Page 3
Oscar-related performances
Under Wilder's direction, these actors have received Academy Awards nominations and wins for their performances in their respective roles.
+ AMPAS acting awards and nominations for Billy Wilder films, by category and year 1946 Ray Milland The Lost Weekend Best Actor 1951 William Holden Sunset Boulevard 1954 Stalag 17 1958 Charles Laughton Witness for the Prosecution 1960 Jack Lemmon Some Like It Hot 1961 The Apartment 1945 Barbara Stanwyck Double Indemnity Best Actress 1951 Gloria Swanson Sunset Boulevard 1955 Audrey Hepburn Sabrina 1961 Shirley MacLaine The Apartment 1964 Irma la Douce 1951 Erich von Stroheim Sunset Boulevard Best Supporting Actor 1961 Jack Kruschen The Apartment 1967 Walter Matthau The Fortune Cookie 1951 Nancy Olson Sunset Boulevard Best Supporting Actress 1958 Elsa Lanchester Witness for the Prosecution
See also
Further reading
(2025). 9781476606538, McFarland. ISBN 9781476606538
(2025). 9783901932908, Verlag Filmarchiv Austria. ISBN 9783901932908
(1996). 9780306807299, Da Capo Press. ISBN 9780306807299
(1997). 9780275964504, University of Southern California. ISBN 9780275964504
(1994). 9783453072015, Heyne. ISBN 9783453072015
External links
Categories: 1906 Births, 2002 Deaths, 20th-century American Journalists, 20th-century American Male Writers, 20th-century American Screenwriters, Afi Life Achievement Award Recipients, Film Directors From California, American Film Producers, American Male Journalists, American Male Screenwriters, American People Of Polish-jewish Descent, Austrian Emigrants To The United States, Austrian Film Directors, Austrian Film Producers, Austrian Jews, Austrian Journalists, Austrian Refugees, Austrian Screenwriters, Bafta Fellows, Best Adapted Screenplay Academy Award Winners, Best Directing Academy Award Winners, Best Director Golden Globe Winners, Best Original Screenplay Academy Award Winners, Burials At Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery, American Comedy Film Directors, David Di Donatello Winners, Deaths From Pneumonia In California, Directors Of Palme D'or Winners, Directors Guild Of America Award Winners, English-language Film Directors, European Film Awards Winners, Filmmakers Who Won The Best Film Bafta Award, German-language Film Directors, Honorary Golden Bear Recipients, American Art Collectors, Jewish Art Collectors, Jewish American Screenwriters, Jewish American Journalists, Jewish Emigrants From Nazi Germany To The United States, Jews Who Emigrated To Escape Nazism, Jews From Galicia, People From Innere Stadt, People From Leopoldstadt, People From Sucha Beskidzka, Producers Who Won The Best Picture Academy Award, United States National Medal Of Arts Recipients, Kennedy Center Honorees, Golden Lion For Lifetime Achievement Recipients, Directors Of Best Picture Academy Award Winners, Writers Of Sherlock Holmes Pastiches, Jewish Austrian Film People
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