Billy Wilder

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Billy Wilder

American director and producer

Also known as: Samuel Wilder

Written by Michael Barson

Fact-checked by The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica

Last Updated: Mar 23, 2024 • Article History

Billy Wilder

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Category: Arts & Culture

Original name:: Samuel Wilder

Born:: June 22, 1906, Sucha, Austria [now in Poland]

Died:: March 27, 2002, Beverly Hills, California, U.S. (aged 95)

Awards And Honors:: Kennedy Center Honors (1990); Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award (1988); Academy Award (1961); Academy Award (1951); Academy Award (1946)

Notable Works:: “Double Indemnity”; “Irma La Douce”; “One, Two, Three”; “Some Like It Hot”; “Stalag 17”; “Sunset Boulevard”; “The Apartment”; “The Fortune Cookie”; “The Lost Weekend”; “The Seven Year Itch”; “Witness for the Prosecution”

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Billy Wilder (born June 22, 1906, Sucha, Austria [now in Poland]—died March 27, 2002, Beverly Hills, California, U.S.) Austrian-born American motion-picture scenarist, director, and producer known for films that humorously treat subjects of controversy and offer biting indictments of hypocrisy in American life. His work often focused on subjects that had previously been considered unacceptable screen material, including alcoholism (The Lost Weekend, 1945), prisoner-of-war camps (Stalag 17, 1953), and prostitution (Irma La Douce, 1963). A number of his films, such as Sunset Boulevard (1950) and The Apartment (1960), weighed the emptiness of modern life. (Read Martin Scorsese’s Britannica essay on ...(100 of 2559 words)

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