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WILDER Billy

 

Samuel WILDER.

 
Date of birth : June 22, 1906, Sucha, Poland.

Date of death : March 27, 2002, Beverly Hills, California ().

 

Portrait 

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Practise: director.

 

Story

He married on December 22, 1936 Judith Coppicius. Birth of their twins Vincent and Victoria on December 21, 1939. But Vincent died soon after his birth. The couple divorced in 1946.

On June 30, 1949 he married Audrey Young (October 30, 1922, Los Angeles-June 1st, 2012, Los Angeles)

(,
,).

 

He emigrated to the USA in 1933, after having given up his law studies for journalism and worked as a screenwriter in Berlin.

Several years later, he started to write for the Paramount.

He linked up with Charles Brackett (until 1950)  and had a nomination to the Academy Awards for "Ninotchka" (1939).

 
He was co-writer and director of the following movies, all nominated to the Academy Awards :

          "Double Indemnity" in 1944

          "A Foreign Affair" in 1948

          "Sunset Boulevard" in 1950 : ,

          "Stalag 17" in 1953

          "Sabrina" in 1954 : ,

         

         " The Lost Weekend" in 1945, "Some Like it Hot" in 1959 and "The Apartment" () in 1960 received several Academy Awards.

!He directed Marilyn in her biggest comic success "The Seven Year Itch" (1955) and "Some Like it Hot" (1959).

 

"The Seven Year Itch" 

skirt scene

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bathtub scene

                                   

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toothpaste advert scene

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pink blouse

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night gown

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dotted dress

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spotted dress

       
              

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bathrobe

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blouse and denim

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Mae West costume

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For "Some Like it Hot", Marilyn's proverbial intransigence on the set reached its climax : she was missing for complete mornings, was too groggy by the drugs to remember her lines, sometimes needed 50 shots for simple sequences and ignored Wilder, letting herself guided by Paula Strasberg.

Press conference, July 1958 

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Train scene

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Bath scene

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Bathrobe

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Beach

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Spangled dress

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Others

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With Jack Lemmon 

 

At the end of the shooting, he refused to invite Marilyn at the party celebrating the end of the movie. 
At that time, relieved, he admitted to a reporter : "For the first time, I can begin looking at my wife without wanting to beat her because she's a woman".

Marilyn was very hurt by those comments; Arthur Miller immediately stood up for his wife, accusing Wilder of having deliberately overworked Marilyn while knowing she was pregnant (later, she had a miscarriage).
After violent exchanges in the press between Miller and Wilder, this one publicly swore he would never work with Marilyn again. Their relationship thawed in September 1959, when they met again at the party organized by the
Fox, for Nikita Khrouchtchev's visit.

 

The vestiges of their disputes faded on June 21, 1960 when she attended the preview of "The Apartment"
(,) and the following party at Romanoff.
 

In many interviews, he recognized Marilyn's talent and expressed his despair about the tensions a shooting with her involved.
 

In 1964, he celebrated his 58th birthday on the set of "Kiss Me Stupid" : 

 

In 1986 he received a "Life Achievement Award" from the American Film Institute, rewarding his whole career.

 
In 1994 :

 

Bibliography

"Billy Wilder in Hollywood", Maurice Zolotow, New York, Putnam, 1977.

Website

Wikipedia

 

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