Billy Wilder

Billy Wilder 22 June 1906 27 March 2002 was an Austrianborn director screenwriter and producer who is regarded as one of the most excellent filmmakers of Hollywoods golden age Today he is best known for his comedies although he also directed dramas and film noirs Wilder is one of only five people who have won Academy Awards as producer director and writer for the same film The Apartment Wilders career began in Germany where he worked as a writer for comedy films from 1930 After the Nazis seized power in 1933 he emigrated to the United States where he continued to write screenplays including Ernst Lubitschs Ninotchka 1939 and Howard Hawks Ball of Fire 1941 From the early 1940s Wilder was allowed to film his own screenplays and thus made a name for himself as a director Initially his greatest successes included predominantly dramatic film noirs such as Double Indemnity 1944 The Lost Weekend 1945 Sunset Boulevard 1950 and Ace in the Hole 1951 It was only then that he increasingly turned to comedy including Stalag 17 1953 Sabrina 1954 and The Seven Year Itch 1955 although he made a small detour to courtroom drama with Witness for the Prosecution 1957 With Some Like It Hot 1959 and The Apartment 1960 he made his most famous and probably most successful comedy films the latter even receiving five Oscars In One Two Three 1961 Wilder dealt with the conditions of the time in his former adopted country Germany and made the successful romantic comedy Irma la Douce 1963 In the two decades that followed Wilder made seven more films which were less well received by critics and audiences although the GermanFrench drama Fedora 1978 is viewed somewhat more favorably today by predominantly pretentious film experts Some time later Wilder was under discussion as director for Schindlers List which he had wanted as the end of his long career but ultimately had to turn it down due to his advanced age