Billy Wilder

Sunday, January 01, 1950

Billy Wilder was born in Austria in 1906 and moved to Berlin, Germany to work as a screenwriter. Due to the rise of the Nazi Party and antisemitism in Germany, Wilder was forced to move to France and in 1934, Wilder immigrated to the United States. Wilder was a U.S. Army veteran, Kennedy Center Honors awardee, and Academy Award winning film director, screenwriter, and producer. Over the course of five decades, he directed or co-wrote classic movies such as Double Indemnity (1944), The Lost Weekend (1945), Sunset Boulevard (1950), The Seven Year Itch (1955), Some Like It Hot (1959), The Apartment (1960), One, Two, Three (1961), and Avanti! (1972).