60 Fun Facts About Billy Wilder

Billy Wilder was born in 1906 in Sucha, a small town in Galicia that was then part of which empire?

He liked to say it was "half an hour from Vienna. By telegraph."

What was Billy Wilder's birth name?

His mother nicknamed him Billie after the Buffalo Bill shows she had seen in New York.

How many Academy Awards did Billy Wilder win?

He received 21 nominations in all: twelve for writing, eight for directing and one for producing.

Which jazz bandleader took the young Vienna journalist Wilder along to Berlin in 1926?

Whiteman liked the interview so much he brought Wilder with the band, where he made his entertainment contacts.

Before succeeding as a writer in Berlin, what unusual job did Wilder hold?

He was paid to dance with customers while writing crime and sports stories as a stringer.

Wilder co-wrote the groundbreaking 1930 German film People on Sunday with which future Hollywood directors?

The film's New Objectivity style is credited with paving the way for Italian neorealism.

Wilder made his directorial debut, Mauvaise Graine, in 1934 in which city after fleeing Hitler's Germany?

"It seemed the wise thing for a Jew to do," he said of leaving Berlin.

Wilder's first big Hollywood success was the 1939 comedy Ninotchka, sold with which tagline?

Ernst Lubitsch directed; it was Greta Garbo's first comedy and earned Wilder his first Oscar nomination.

Who was Wilder's screenwriting partner from 1938 to 1950, on films from Ninotchka to Sunset Boulevard?

Brackett said his ideas would be torn apart and then turn up days later, slightly changed, as Wilder's.

Wilder's Hollywood directorial debut in 1942 was which comedy starring Ginger Rogers?

Rogers plays a woman posing as a 12-year-old to travel half fare.

With which crime novelist did Wilder co-write Double Indemnity?

Chandler expected to finish in a week; it took fourteen, and the two men loathed each other.

Double Indemnity opens with the wounded Walter Neff confessing into what device?

He is confessing to claims manager Barton Keyes, played by Edward G. Robinson.

James M. Cain's Double Indemnity was based on which real 1927 crime?

Snyder and her lover Judd Gray obtained a 45,000-dollar policy on her husband before killing him.

Why had Double Indemnity long been considered unfilmable under the Hays Code?

Wilder and Chandler also had to drop the novella's double suicide ending in favour of the lovers shooting each other.

Wilder cast which actor, then Hollywood's highest-paid star of light comedies, against type as the schemer in Double Indemnity?

He used him again as the philandering boss Sheldrake in The Apartment.

The Lost Weekend (1945) was the first major American film to seriously examine what?

The liquor industry allegedly had gangster Frank Costello offer Paramount five million dollars to shelve it.

Who won Best Actor as the alcoholic writer Don Birnam in The Lost Weekend?

The film also took Best Picture, Director and Adapted Screenplay and shared the top prize at the first Cannes festival.

Like The Lost Weekend, which of these won both Best Picture and the top prize at Cannes?

The Lost Weekend shared the top prize at the first Cannes festival in 1946; Marty, Parasite and Anora are the other films to have done the double.

Wilder directed Death Mills, a 1945 documentary about Nazi atrocities, for which audience?

His own mother, stepfather and grandmother were murdered in the Holocaust.

Sunset Boulevard opens with the narrator's body floating where?

Joe Gillis then narrates his own story in flashback.

Which silent-film star played the deluded Norma Desmond in Sunset Boulevard?

Wilder had first wanted Mae West, who was offended at being asked to play a has-been.

Which actor was signed to play Joe Gillis but withdrew just before filming, giving William Holden the part?

Clift said the role was too close to his part in The Heiress; Wilder fumed that a real actor could make love to any woman.

Norma Desmond's bridge partners, whom Joe calls "the waxworks", included which silent comedian playing himself?

Anna Q. Nilsson and H. B. Warner made up the table; Hedda Hopper also appears as herself.

Which director plays himself in Sunset Boulevard, calling Norma "young fella"?

His scenes were shot on the set of Samson and Delilah, and the nickname was really his for Swanson.

Norma Desmond has written a script for her comeback about which biblical figure?

Joe finds it abysmal but flatters her into hiring him as script doctor.

Which 1951 Wilder film, about a reporter exploiting a man trapped in a cave, was retitled The Big Carnival by the studio?

Kirk Douglas starred; it was Wilder's first flop and is now considered one of his major works.

Victor Desny sued for breach of contract, claiming he had pitched the idea for Ace in the Hole to whom?

Desny received a settlement of 14,350 dollars in the California case Wilder v Desny.

William Holden won his Best Actor Oscar in which Wilder film about American airmen in a German POW camp?

Holden wanted to make his cynical Sefton more likeable; Wilder refused.

Which director appears as the POW camp commandant Oberst von Scherbach?

Sig Ruman played the guard Schulz.

In Sabrina, Audrey Hepburn plays the daughter of a wealthy family's what?

She returns from Le Cordon Bleu in Paris transformed, and Humphrey Bogart's Linus falls for her.

Sabrina was Wilder's last film for which studio, ending a 12-year relationship, before he moved on to United Artists and others?

Bogart, cast against his tough-guy image, gave one of his warmest performances.

The Seven Year Itch contains the famous image of Marilyn Monroe's white dress blown up by what?

She is standing on a New York subway grate; Tom Ewell reprised his stage role opposite her.

Wilder released three films in 1957, including a biopic starring James Stewart as which aviator?

The Spirit of St. Louis came out alongside Love in the Afternoon and Witness for the Prosecution.

Witness for the Prosecution, with Charles Laughton and Marlene Dietrich, was based on a play by which author?

It was the first film adaptation of the story, set in the Old Bailey.

Love in the Afternoon (1957) was Wilder's first script with which writer, who became his regular partner?

Together they wrote seven more films including Some Like It Hot and The Apartment.

Some Like It Hot was released without a seal of approval from which body?

Its unabashed sexual comedy and cross-dressing theme were too much for the censors.

Which historic California resort stood in for Miami's Seminole Ritz in Some Like It Hot?

Its 1920s look and closeness to Hollywood made it ideal.

How many takes did Marilyn Monroe reportedly need to say "It's me, Sugar" correctly?

Tony Curtis said kissing her was "like kissing Hitler" because of all the retakes.

Which actress did Wilder and his co-writer originally have in mind for Sugar Kane before Monroe wanted the part?

Monroe took the role for 10 percent of the profits on her husband Arthur Miller's advice.

Why did Wilder shoot Some Like It Hot in black and white?

Adolph Deutsch's brassy jazz score gave it the period feel instead.

Who delivers the last line of Some Like It Hot, "Well, nobody's perfect"?

Wilder and Diamond put it in as a placeholder until they thought of something better, and never did.

What does Wilder's tombstone say?

Le Monde headlined its obituary "Billy Wilder is dead. Nobody is perfect."

In The Apartment, C. C. Baxter lends his flat to executives for their affairs. What kind of business does he work for?

Consolidated Life, in New York; the story was partly inspired by Brief Encounter.

Jack Lemmon improvised a scene in The Apartment straining spaghetti through what?

Wilder rarely allowed improvisation, but let Lemmon do it in two scenes.

Who was originally cast as Sheldrake in The Apartment before dying unexpectedly?

Fred MacMurray stepped in and played the cad.

The Apartment was turned into which 1968 Broadway musical by Burt Bacharach, Hal David and Neil Simon?

Jerry Orbach starred; a 2010 revival paired Sean Hayes and Kristin Chenoweth.

Which Wilder film first paired Jack Lemmon with Walter Matthau?

Released in Britain as Meet Whiplash Willie, it earned Wilder his final Oscar nomination.

Which Cold War farce starring James Cagney did Wilder direct in 1961?

Variety called it "a fast-paced, high-pitched, hard-hitting, lighthearted farce".

Wilder's Irma la Douce was based on a French stage musical, but Wilder did what to the songs?

Lemmon plays a Paris policeman who becomes the pimp of MacLaine's prostitute.

Which novel did Wilder hope to film as a memorial to his murdered family, before praising Spielberg's version?

He asked Holocaust deniers in a German newspaper: "then please tell me—where is my mother?"

Which Spanish director said in his 1993 Oscar speech, "I just believe in Billy Wilder"?

Wilder phoned him the next day: "Fernando, it's God."

How many actors did Wilder direct to Oscar-nominated performances?

They ran from Barbara Stanwyck in Double Indemnity to Walter Matthau in The Fortune Cookie.

Which Noël Coward work inspired the initial concept of The Apartment?

Wilder was struck by the friend whose flat the lovers borrow, but the Production Code kept him from making the comedy for years.

Who stars as the disgraced, cynical reporter Chuck Tatum in Ace in the Hole?

Tatum has been fired from eleven major newspapers before he talks his way onto the small Albuquerque Sun-Bulletin.

Ace in the Hole echoed the real 1925 case of W. Floyd Collins, who was trapped in a cave in which state?

The Louisville Courier-Journal turned the Sand Cave rescue into a national media sensation, much as Tatum does in the film.

Since The Apartment, how many black-and-white films have won Best Picture at the Oscars?

Only Schindler's List and The Artist have managed it; routine black-and-white filmmaking in Hollywood ended within a few years of Wilder's film.

Which honour did Wilder receive from the Academy in 1988?

It joined an AFI Life Achievement Award in 1986, Kennedy Center Honors in 1990 and the National Medal of Arts in 1993.

How many Academy Award nominations did Wilder receive across his career?

Twelve were for screenwriting, eight for directing and one for producing; he won Best Director for The Lost Weekend and The Apartment.

Which was Wilder's final film as director?

Neither it nor its predecessor Fedora impressed critics at the time, though Fedora has since been re-evaluated favourably.

Le Monde's front-page 2002 obituary of the director ended its headline with which famous line?

He died of pneumonia on March 27, 2002 and was buried at Pierce Brothers Westwood Village Memorial Park.