Born: 22 June 1906
Died: 27 March 2002

Academy Award winning director, screenwriter and producer Billy Wilder was born on this day in 1906.

He began his career as a screenwriter in Berlin in the 1920s but with the rise of Hitler and the Nazi Party Wilder (who was Jewish) fled to Paris, where he made his directorial debut with Mauvaise Graine (1934).

Following this he moved to Hollywood where he established himself as a screenwriter and director. In a career that spanned over fifty years and included more than sixty films, Wilder received a total of 21 Academy Award nominations including:

• Ninotchka (1939) – Best Adapted Screenplay
• Hold Back the Dawn (1941) – Best Adapted Screenplay
• Ball of Fire (1941) – Best Original Screenplay
• Double Indemnity (1944) – Best Director, Best Adapted Screenplay
• A Foreign Affair (1948) – Best Adapted Screenplay
• Sunset Blvd. (1950) – Best Director
• Ace in the Hole (1953) – Best Original Screenplay
• Stalag 17 (1953) – Best Director
• Sabrina (1954) – Best Director, Best Adapted Screenplay
• Witness for the Prosecution (1957) – Best Director
• Some Like it Hot (1959) – Best Director, Best Adapted Screenplay
• The Fortune Cookie (1966) – Best Original Screenplay

 
He received the following Academy Awards:
 

• The Lost Weekend (1945) – Best Director, Best Adapted Screenplay
• Sunset Blvd. (1950) – Best Original Screenplay
• The Apartment (1960) – Best Picture, Best Director, Best Original Screenplay

 
With The Apartment Wilder became one of only five people to have won Academy Awards as director, producer and screenwriter for the same film.

Read more at The Internet Movie Database

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