Billy Wilder
Billy Wilder | |
---|---|
Born | Samuel Wilder June 22, 1906 Sucha, Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria, Austria-Hungary |
Died | March 27, 2002 | (aged 95)
Occupations |
|
Years active | 1929–1981 |
Works | Full list |
Spouses | |
Children | 2 |
Relatives | W. Lee Wilder (brother) Myles Wilder (nephew) Patrick Curtis (nephew) |
Awards | Full list |
Billy Wilder (.
Wilder became a screenwriter while living in Berlin. The rise of the
In the 1950s, Wilder directed and co-wrote a string of critically acclaimed films, including the Hollywood drama Sunset Boulevard (1950), for which he won his second screenplay Academy Award; Ace in the Hole (1951), Stalag 17 (1953) and Sabrina (1954).[2] 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).[3] 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.[4] 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 for his distinguished 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 Award 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.[5] 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".
Early life
Samuel Wilder (
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 died when Billy was 22 years old.[10] 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.[11] 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.[12][13]
Career
Early work
After writing crime and sports stories as a
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.[17] 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 tragic heroine in film melodramas), 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."[18] "Wilder followed Ninotchka with a series of box office hits in 1942, including Hold Back the Dawn, Ball of Fire, and his directorial debut film The Major and the Minor.
1940s
His third film as director, the film noir Double Indemnity, 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
Two years later, Wilder adapted from
1950s
In 1950, Wilder co-wrote and directed the cynical noir comedy 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.
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.[19][20] Although a critical and commercial failure at the time, its reputation has grown over the years. Wilder then 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.[21]
In 1957, three films Wilder directed were released:
In 1959, Wilder reunited with Monroe in the United Artists released Prohibition-era farce film
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".[24] The film received ten Academy Awards nominations and won five awards, including three for Wilder: Best Picture, Best Director and Best Screenplay.
Wilder directed the
Final films
He directed the comedy film
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.[31] Wilder was skilled at working with actors, coaxing silent era 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."[32]
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."[33] 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:
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."[34]
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."[34] In general, Wilder disliked formula and genre films.[35] 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 "Franco".
Retirement
Wilder received the
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
Wilder died of pneumonia on March 27, 2002. He was buried at Pierce Brothers Westwood Village Memorial Park and Mortuary.[41] 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.[42]
Legacy
"Don't be boring". — Billy Wilder[43]
Wilder holds a significant place in the history of Hollywood censorship for expanding the range of acceptable subject matter. He directed two of
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".[49] 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."[50] 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.[51] Ron Shelton recalls encountering Wilder:
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 a good a review as you could have."[52]
When Belle Époque won the 1993 Academy Award 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 Oscar 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 Award 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.[53] 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."[54]
Filmography
Awards and honors
Wilder received twenty-one nominations at the
See also
References
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- ^ "Sunset Blvd". Academy Museum of Motion Pictures – Timeline. Retrieved February 10, 2023.
- ISBN 0-393-97868-0.
- ^ "The 33rd Academy Awards Memorable Moments | Oscars.org | Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences". www.oscars.org. August 27, 2014. Retrieved February 10, 2023.
- ^ * Hammond, Pete (October 3, 2014). "Steve Martin To Receive AFI Life Achievement Award". Deadline Hollywood. Archived from the original on November 28, 2019. Retrieved November 28, 2019.
- Thorpe, Vanessa (February 17, 2002). "Bafta gives its top honour to Merchant Ivory". The Observer. Archived from the original on November 28, 2019. Retrieved November 28, 2019.
- "Steven Spielberg to Receive Lifetime Achievement Award, DGA's Highest Honor". Directors Guild of America. January 31, 2000. Archived from the original on November 28, 2019. Retrieved November 28, 2019.
- "Directors Guild of America". Archived from the original on November 20, 2010. Retrieved November 2, 2016.
- White, Michael (February 28, 2007). "My Oscar night with Cher". The Guardian. Archived from the original on November 28, 2019. Retrieved November 28, 2019.
- "The Laurel Award for Screenwriting Achievement". Writers Guild of America Awards. Archived from the original on February 23, 2019. Retrieved November 28, 2019.
- "Writers Guild of America, west – Laurel Award Recipients". Archived from the original on December 28, 2012. Retrieved May 26, 2010.
- McNary, Dave (November 19, 2006). "PGA sets Selznick laurel". Variety. Archived from the original on November 28, 2019. Retrieved November 28, 2019.
- ^ "הם היו כל-כך יהודים, הם היו כל-כך אמריקנים". Globes. April 4, 2002.
- Biography.com. 2015. Archived from the originalon May 9, 2015. Retrieved May 2, 2015.
- ^ Murphy, Dean E. (May 26, 1996). "Polish Town Goes Wild Over Wilder". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved July 13, 2020.
- ^ Brackett, Charles, It's the Pictures That Got Small, Columbia University Press, 2015, pg.87
- ^ a b c Hamrah, A.S. (March–May 2022). "Some Like It Fraught- How Billy Wilder survived the twentieth century". Bookforum. New York: Bookforum Magazine. Retrieved March 15, 2022.
- ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved February 4, 2020.
- ^ 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
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- ^ Jacques Le Rider, "Les Juifs viennois á la Belle Époque," Paris: Albin Michel, 2013, p. 194
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- ISBN 978-0-7864-2119-0.
- ^ Brackett, Charles, It's the Pictures That Got Small, Columbia University Press, 2015, pg. 92
- ^ 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
- ^ Gore, Chris (1999). The Fifty Greatest Movies Never Made, New York: St. Martin's Griffin
- ^ "AFI's 100 Funniest American Movies Of All Time". American Film Institute. 2000. Retrieved June 6, 2016.
- ^ "Critics' top 100". British Film Institute. 2012. Archived from the original on February 7, 2016. Retrieved June 6, 2016.–
- ^ Crowther, Bosley (June 16, 1960). "Busy 'Apartment':Jack Lemmon Scores in Billy Wilder Film". The New York Times. Retrieved September 2, 2017.
- ^ Variety. Film review, 1961. Last accessed: January 31, 2008.
- ISBN 978-0-7864-8520-8.
- ^ "Fedora (1978)". Rotten Tomatoes. May 26, 2009. Retrieved November 21, 2020.
- ISBN 978-0375406607.
- ^ Hillestrom, Oscar (April 2, 2013). "Spielberg's List". The Sydney Morning Herald.
- ^ Lane, Anthony (2002). Nobody's Perfect. p. 717.
- ^ "One Head Is Better than Two," in Films and Filming (London), February 1957.
- ^ "Trial and Error movie review & film summary (1997) | Roger Ebert".
- ISBN 978-0-8131-2570-1.
- ^ a b José-Vidal Pelaz López. Filming History: Billy Wilder and the Cold War. Communication & Society, 25(1), pp. 113–136. (2012).
- ^ Morris Dickstein (Spring 1988). "Sunset Boulevard" Grand Street Vol. 7 No. 3 p. 180
- ^ "Lifetime Honors – National Medal of Arts". Archived from the original on August 26, 2013. Retrieved January 30, 2010.
{{cite web}}
: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link) National Endowment for the Arts - ^ Ed Sikov. On Sunset Boulevard – the Life and Times of Billy Wilder "Turnaround", p. 582.
- ^ Yarrow, Andrew L. (August 30, 1989). "Billy Wilder Decides to Sell Some of His Art Collection". The New York Times.
- ^ Charlotte Chandler. Nobody's Perfect: Billy Wilder – A Personal Biography. "Nefertete", p. 317.
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- ^ "Oscar Firsts and other Trivia" (PDF). Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. February 2015. Archived from the original (PDF) on February 25, 2015. Retrieved May 2, 2015.
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- NPR
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- ^ Lane, Anthony (2002). Nobody's Perfect. pp. 712–713.
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- Times Literary Supplement.
Further reading
- ISBN 978-1-4766-0653-8.
- Auiler, Dan. Some Like it Hot (Taschen, 2001)
- Aurich, Rolf (2006). 'Billie': Billy Wilders Wiener journalistische Arbeiten (in German). Verlag Filmarchiv Austria. ISBN 978-3-901932-90-8.
- JSTOR 10.7312/slid16708.
- Chandler, Charlotte, Nobody's Perfect. Billy Wilder. A Personal Biography (New York: Schuster & Schuster, 2002)
- Crowe, Cameron, Conversations with Wilder (New York: Knopf, 2001)
- Dick, Bernard F. (August 21, 1996). Billy Wilder. Da Capo Press. ISBN 978-0-306-80729-9.
- Gemünden, Gerd (2008). A Foreign Affair: Billy Wilder's American Films (1 ed.).
- Guilbert, Georges-Claude, Literary Readings of Billy Wilder (Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2007)
- Gyurko, Lanin A. The Shattered Screen. Myth and Demythification in the Art of Carlos Fuentes and Billy Wilder (New Orleans: University Press of the South, 2009)
- Hantke, Steffen. "Wïlder's Dietrich: 'Witness for the Prosecution' in the Context of the Cold War." German Studies Review (2011): 247–260. online
- Henry, Nora (1997). Ethics and Social Criticism in the Hollywood Films of Erich Von Stroheim, Ernst Lubitsch and Billy Wilder. University of Southern California. ISBN 9780275964504.
- Hermsdorf, Danie. Billy Wilder. Filme – Motive – Kontroverses (Bochum: Paragon-Verlag, 2006)
- Hesling, Willem, ed. (1991). Billy Wilder: tussen Weimar en Hollywood (in Dutch). Garant. ISBN 978-90-5350-044-6.
- Hopp, Glenn., Billy Wilder (Pocket Essentials: 2001)
- Hopp, Glenn, and Paul Duncan. Billy Wilder (Köln / New York: Taschen, 2003)
- Horton, Robert, Billy Wilder Interviews (University Press of Mississippi, 2001)
- Hutter, Andreas / Kamolz, Klaus, Billie Wilder. Eine europäische Karriere (Vienna, Cologne, Weimar: Boehlau, 1998)
- Jacobs, Jérôme, Billy Wilder (Paris: Rivages Cinéma, 2006)
- ISBN 978-3-453-07201-5.
- Lally, Kevin. Wilder Times: The Life of Billy Wilder (Henry Holt & Co: 1st ed edition, May 1996)
- Phillips, Gene D., Some Like It Wilder (The University Press of Kentucky: 2010) online
- Sikov, Ed, On Sunset Boulevard. The Life and Times of Billy Wilder (New York: Hyperion, 1999) online
- Sinyard, Neil, & Adrian Turner, "Journey Down Sunset Boulevard" (BCW, Isle of Wight, UK, 1979)
- Staggs, Sam. Close-up on Sunset Boulevard: Billy Wilder, Norma Desmond, and the Dark Hollywood Dream (Macmillan, 2002).
- Wood, Tom (1969). The Bright Side of Billy Wilder, Primarily. New York: Doubleday.
- Zolotow, Maurice, Billy Wilder in Hollywood (Pompton Plains: Limelight Editions, 2004)
- Billy Wilder, The Art of Screenwriting No. 1; Interviewed by James Linville Paris Review1996
- Billy Wilder: A Bibliography of Materials (via UC BerkeleyLibrary)
External links
- Billy Wilder at IMDb
- Billy Wilder at the Internet Broadway Database
- Billy Wilder at the TCM Movie Database
- Billy Wilder at American Masters
- Billy Wilder at Österreichische Mediathek archive (in German)
- Billy Wilder at Encyclopedia Britannica
- Billy Wilder at AllMovie, All Media Network
- Billy Wilder, at AFI Catalog of Feature Films, American Film Institute
- Billy Wilder, su TV.com, Red Ventures (archived the 1º January 2012)