Billy Wilder

Cast · Writer · Director

Born

June 22, 1906 · Sucha, Austria-Hungary (now Sucha Beskidzka Poland)

Died

March 27, 2002

Birth name

Samuel Wilder

"If for 90 minutes someone managed to forget what money he would fill the fridge with, for Wilder his work would already have been worthwhile." Billy Wilder was an Austrian-born film director, screenwriter, and producer. He was the master of Hollywood comedy between the 50s and 60s, noted for focusing his work on controversial issues that were considered unacceptable for cinema, such as alcoholism, prostitution, among others. Escaping from Nazism, he immigrated to the United States with actor Peter Lorre, where he went through some tough early years, until he got a job as a screenwriter at Paramount. He had the chance to collaborate with Lubitsch, his great master, in Ninotchka (1939). Double Indemnity (1944) was his first success as a director, a noir that established conventions for the genre such as the illumination of "Venetian blinds" or the voice-over narration, and where he began to confront Hollywood censorship. Some of his hits were The Lost Weekend (1945), Sunset Boulevard (1950), The Seven Year Itch (1955) where he created one of the most emblematic images of cinema with Marilyn Monroe's skirt-lifting, Some Like It Hot (1959), and The Apartment (1960). He was a six-time Academy Award winner as producer, director, and screenwriter, acclaimed by critics, audiences, and remembered as one of the comedy kings of American cinema.