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01
Wilder tried to enter the U.S. via Mexico, where officials repeatedly denied him entry for several months. When he finally saw a new immigration officer and stated his profession as a filmmaker, the officer stamped his papers and said, Make good ones, then.
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02
His idol and mentor was German director Ernst Lubitsch. Wilder kept a sign in his office that asked, How would Lubitsch do it?
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03
He once told Billy Bob Thornton that he was too ugly to be an actor and should write a screenplay for himself in which he could exploit his less than perfect features. Thornton later won an Oscar for his Sling Blade 1996 screenplay.
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04
His mother, Gitla Siedlisker, was murdered in 1943 in the Plaszow concentration camp. His stepfather, Bernard Siedlisker, died in 1942 in the Belzec concentration camp, and his grandmother, Balbina Baldinger, died in 1943 in the ghetto of Nowy Targ.
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05
Despite his rounded face and non-stop elfin energy leading people to picture him as short and wiry, he stood 5’11 slightly taller than his own favorite star, Jack Lemmon.
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06
Wilder did not see his mother and stepfather after going to Berlin in 1933. During WWII he joined American patrols through war-torn Europe and learned through intense research that they had been murdered in concentration camps. He usually declined to discuss this, but once, while directing a film, an actor expressed sympathy for a Nazi character, causing Wilder to roar, Those bastards killed my mother!!!.
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07
He collaborated closely with Steven Spielberg on the script for Schindler’s List 1993 and was one of several directors considered to direct it. Although Wilder strongly considered it, he felt he was too old he had already retired and the subject was too personal. Ultimately, Wilder told Spielberg he should direct it.
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08
The song Isn’t it Romantic? is featured in many of Wilder’s films, not because he particularly liked the song, but because he was cheap: he got a great deal when he originally licensed it, allowing him to use it repeatedly.
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09
He directed four of the American Film Institute’s 100 Greatest Movies: Sunset Boulevard 1950 at #16, Some Like It Hot 1959 at #22, Double Indemnity 1944 at #29, and The Apartment 1960 at #80.
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10
Wilder directed 14 different actors in Oscar-nominated performances: Barbara Stanwyck, Ray Milland, William Holden, Gloria Swanson, Erich von Stroheim, Nancy Olson, Robert Strauss, Audrey Hepburn, Charles Laughton, Elsa Lanchester, Jack Lemmon, Jack Kruschen, Shirley MacLaine, and Walter Matthau. Milland, Holden, and Matthau won Oscars for their performances in a Wilder film.
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11
As a writer, he had odd habits. He hated writing alone and almost always used a partner; however, many partners complained that if he heard an idea he did not like, he could be cruel and insulting. Many writers quit because they could not take his abuse.
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12
He was always uncomfortable around children and was an absentee father to his two children from his first marriage. He and his second wife, Audrey, agreed that they did not want children.
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13
Tom Cruise and Cameron Crowe begged Wilder to appear in Jerry Maguire 1996, but he turned them down flat.
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14
He wrote five of the American Film Institute’s 100 Funniest Movies: Some Like It Hot 1959 at #1, The Apartment 1960 at #20, The Seven Year Itch 1955 at #51, Ninotchka 1939 at #52, and Ball of Fire 1941 at #92.
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15
He is among an elite group of nine directors who have won Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Screenplay Original/Adapted for the same film. In 1961 he won all three for The Apartment 1960. The others are Leo McCarey, Francis Ford Coppola, James L. Brooks, Peter Jackson, Joel Coen and Ethan Coen, Alejandro G. Iñárritu, and Bong Joon Ho.
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16
He worked closely with two co-writers: earlier with Charles Brackett, an older man who frequently provided a strong argumentative counterpoint, and later with I.A.L. Diamond, who possessed a cynical, humorous world view more in line with Wilder’s.
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17
In the early 1950s, Wilder planned a film with Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy, opening with Stan and Ollie sleeping in the O’s of the Hollywood sign. The plot centered on a woman coming between them, but the film was never made due to Hardy’s failing health.
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18
Although born as Samuel Wilder, he was called Billie by his mother from infancy. Some theorize it was due to her fascination with Buffalo Bill Cody, but it may have been just because she thought it sounded American.
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19
Honored on a US Postage Stamp in May 2012, along with Frank Capra, John Ford, and John Huston.
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20
He liked the name Sheldrake so much that he used it in three different films: most prominently in The Apartment 1960, but also in Sunset Boulevard 1950 and Kiss Me, Stupid 1964.
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21
In 1949 he married Audrey Young, an actress and former singer with the Tommy Dorsey band, whom he met on the set of The Lost Weekend 1945.
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22
He was a fan of the British film Brief Encounter 1945, which inspired him to make The Apartment 1960. The premise came from a male character who loans out his flat to a friend and does not care what happens while he is out.
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23
He was asked to direct The Sound of Music 1965 and joked that he would have focused on the Nazis.
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24
His favorite film was Battleship Potemkin 1925.
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25
At one point he was slated to direct a movie about the Marx brothers running the United Nations around 1960. The project fell apart after Chico Marx’s death in 1961, followed by Harpo Marx’s death in 1964.
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26
He excelled in film noir Double Indemnity, drama The Lost Weekend, comedy Some Like It Hot, and war Stalag 17.
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27
He was the father of twins Victoria and Vincent born 1939 with Judith. Vincent died shortly after birth.
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28
He was the subject of the 1999 book Conversations with Wilder by director/writer Cameron Crowe.
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29
He had a long-standing partnership with screenwriter I.A.L. Diamond, with whom he won an Oscar for The Apartment 1960.
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30
An inveterate clotheshorse, at age 83 he still owned over 60 cashmere sweaters.
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31
Despite directing some of the most iconic female performances of all time—Barbara Stanwyck in Double Indemnity, Gloria Swanson in Sunset Boulevard, Marilyn Monroe in Some Like It Hot, and Shirley MacLaine in The Apartment—none of them won an Oscar, although Swanson, Monroe, and MacLaine each won a Golden Globe for their respective performances.
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32
At least three of his films have been made into Broadway musicals: The Apartment became Promises, Promises in 1968; Some Like It Hot became Sugar in 1973; and Sunset Boulevard was adapted by Andrew Lloyd Webber in 1993.
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33
He met Audrey Young at Paramount Studios on the set of The Lost Weekend 1945, as his divorce from Judith was in progress and he had a liaison with actress Doris Dowling.
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34
On the first page of every screenplay he wrote, he used to write Cum Deo With God, a habit he said he had taken from Pauline Kael. He explained, It’s not harmful, anyway, and could corrupt that guy dwelling up there.
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35
In his last years he became patron of the Billy-Wilder-Institute in Germany, a film school founded to educate only producers and screenwriters. The school closed after two years due to the death of its founder and dean Lothar Rhode.
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36
He directed seven films selected for the National Film Registry: Double Indemnity 1944, The Lost Weekend 1945, Sunset Boulevard 1950, Ace in the Hole 1951, Sabrina 1954, Some Like It Hot 1959, and The Apartment 1960. He also wrote three additional registry films: Midnight 1939, Ninotchka 1939, and Ball of Fire 1941.
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37
He was awarded the American National Medal of the Arts in 1993 by the National Endowment of the Arts in Washington, DC.
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38
Gaylord Larsen’s 1988 novel A Paramount Kill features Wilder as a character. Set in 1940s Hollywood, it has Raymond Chandler as the hero and Wilder as his antagonist, reflecting their bad blood during the making of Double Indemnity.
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39
Jerry Lewis asked him to direct The Bellboy 1960. Wilder declined and suggested Lewis direct it himself.
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40
He was very unhappy that Buddy Buddy 1981 was his last film. He said that when he died he expected to see the spirits of all his movies and would love to see most of them, but Buddy Buddy, I would try to avoid.
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41
He wanted to direct Schindler’s List 1993, but Steven Spielberg preferred to do it himself. Wilder said it would have become his most personal film.
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42
He was long famous for the modern-art collection he put together over his lifetime; he sold a portion in 1989 for $32.6 million.
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43
While shooting the barnstorming sequence in The Spirit of St. Louis, on a bet from Jimmy Stewart, Wilder was persuaded to fly on top of a biplane as a wing-walker.
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44
He directed five films nominated for the Best Picture Oscar: Double Indemnity 1944, The Lost Weekend 1945, Sunset Boulevard 1950, Witness for the Prosecution 1957, and The Apartment 1960. The Lost Weekend and The Apartment won. He also wrote the Best Picture nominees Ninotchka 1939 and Hold Back the Dawn 1941.
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45
He was voted the 24th Greatest Director of all time by Entertainment Weekly.
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46
He was awarded Austria’s Golden Order, First Class for Meritorious Services.
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47
He was asked to direct Cabaret 1972.
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48
He is portrayed by Howard Caine in Marilyn: The Untold Story 1980, by Allan Corduner in Norma Jean & Marilyn 1996, and by Peter Feder in The Audrey Hepburn Story 2000.
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49
A biography appears in John Wakeman’s World Film Directors, Volume One, 1890-1945 pages 1206-1210.
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50
He was profiled in Conversations with Directors: An Anthology of Interviews from Literature/Film Quarterly 2008.
