“If the concentration camps and the gas chambers were all imaginary, then please tell me—where is my mother?”
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Billy Wilder
Billy Wilder was an Austrian and American film director and screenwriter. His career in Hollywood spanned five decades, and he is regarded as one of America's most versatile filmmakers. He received seven Academy Awards, a BAFTA Award and the Palme d'Or.
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culture · Austrian and American filmmaker (1906–2002) · screenwriter · film director · film producer · writer · journalist · director · producer · film screenwriter · filmmaker · also Billy Wilder, Samuel Wilder, Wilder
Born 22 June 1906 · Died 27 March 2002 · Q51547
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2026· 2 entries
“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.”
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2025· 1 entry
The Guardian: The Apartment: Billy Wilder’s Christmas classic is the blueprint for romcoms everywhere
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2022· 1 entry
The Guardian: How the acclaimed Billy Wilder tried and failed to snub Hollywood
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2021· 2 entries
The Guardian: Billy Wilder: from poor Austrian journalist to Hollywood superstar
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The Guardian: Sunset Boulevard review – Hollywood musical is milder than Wilder
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2020· 2 entries
The Guardian: Mr Wilder & Me by Jonathan Coe review – the director's cut
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The Guardian: The Apartment at 60: is this Billy Wilder's finest film?
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2017· 1 entry
Vulture named Wilder the greatest screenwriter of all time
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2012· 1 entry
The decennial Sight and Sound poll of the world's film critics rated Some Like it Hot as the 43rd-best movie ever made, and the second-highest-ranking comedy
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2011· 1 entry
That they were each murdered in different locations: his mother, Eugenia "Gitla" Siedlisker, in 1943 at Plaszów; his stepfather, Bernard "Berl" Siedlisker, in 1942 at Belzec; and his grandmother, Balbina Baldinger, died
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2007· 1 entry
Total Film magazine ranked Wilder at number 13 on its 100 Greatest Film Directors Ever list
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2002· 7 entries
Died 2002-03-27.
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“A bad play folds and is forgotten, but in pictures we don't bury our dead. When you think it's out of your system, your daughter sees it on television and says, My father is an idiot.”
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“I just made pictures I would've liked to see.”
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“I have ten commandments. The first nine are, thou shalt not bore. The tenth is, thou shalt have right of final cut.”
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“The Austrians have completed the feat of turning Beethoven into an Austrian, and Hitler into a German.”
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“Eighty percent of a picture is writing, the other twenty percent is the execution, such as having the camera on the right spot and being able to afford to have good actors in all parts.”
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“An actor entering through the door, you've got nothing. But if he enters through the window, you've got a situation.”
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2000· 2 entries
Awarded honorary citizen of Vienna (2000).
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Awarded Knight Commander's Cross of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany (2000).
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1995· 1 entry
Awarded BAFTA Fellowship (1995).
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1994· 1 entry
Won Goethe Medal (1994).
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1993· 2 entries
Awarded Berliner Bär (1993).
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Art dealer Louis Stern, a longtime friend, helped organize an exhibition of Wilder's work at his Beverly Hills gallery
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1992· 1 entry
Awarded European Film Academy Lifetime Achievement Award (1992).
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1990· 1 entry
Awarded Kennedy Center Honors (1990).
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1988· 1 entry
The Kennedy Center Honors in 1990, and the National Medal of Arts in 1993
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1986· 2 entries
Awarded AFI Life Achievement Award (1986).
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The Kennedy Center Honors in 1990, the National Medal of Arts in 1993 and the BAFTA Fellowship Award in 1995
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1970· 1 entry
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
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1961· 4 entries
Awarded Academy Award for Best Director for The Apartment (1961).
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Awarded Academy Award for Best Writing, Original Screenplay for The Apartment (1961).
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Awarded Academy Award for Best Picture for The Apartment (1961).
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Awarded BAFTA Award for Best Film for The Apartment (1961).
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1960· 2 entries
Co-wrote, produced and directed The Apartment, which won him Academy Awards for Best Original Screenplay, Best Director and Best Picture
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Wilder directed the comedy romance film The Apartment
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1959· 1 entry
Wilder reunited with Monroe in the United Artists-released Prohibition-era farce Some Like It Hot
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1957· 1 entry
Three films Wilder directed were released: biopic The Spirit of St
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1955· 1 entry
Won Golden Globe Award for Best Screenplay for Sabrina (1955).
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1951· 3 entries
Won Golden Globe Award for Best Director for Sunset Boulevard (1951).
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Awarded Academy Award for Best Writing, Original Screenplay for Sunset Boulevard (1951).
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Wilder directed Ace in the Hole (a
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1950· 1 entry
Wilder co-wrote and directed the cynical noir Sunset Boulevard
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1946· 4 entries
Awarded Academy Award for Best Writing, Adapted Screenplay for The Lost Weekend (1946).
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Won Golden Globe Award for Best Director for The Lost Weekend (1946).
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Awarded Academy Award for Best Director for The Lost Weekend (1946).
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Awarded Palme d'Or for The Lost Weekend (1946).
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1945· 1 entry
The Psychological Warfare Department of the United States Department of War produced an American documentary film directed by Wilder
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1942· 1 entry
With The Major and the Minor, a comedy starring Ginger Rogers and Ray Milland
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1939· 1 entry
Having spent time in Mexico waiting for the government after his six-month card expired in 1934, an episode reflected in his Hold Back the Dawn (1941)
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1934· 2 entries
Wilder continued working as a screenwriter
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And had a major hit when he, Charles Brackett and Walter Reisch wrote the screenplay for Ninotchka (1939)
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1932· 1 entry
Wilder collaborated with the writer and journalist Felix Salten on the screenplay for "Scampolo"
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1926· 1 entry
Jazz band leader Paul Whiteman was on tour in Vienna, where he was interviewed by Wilder
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1916· 1 entry
Moved to Vienna, where he worked as a journalist instead of attending university
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1906· 2 entries
Into a Polish-Jewish family in Sucha, known as Sucha Beskidzka since 1964, a small town in the Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria of the Austro-Hungarian Empire
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Born 1906-06-22.
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