Billy Wilder: An Austrian in Hollywood

by Paul A. Schons

Originally published by the Germanic-American Institute in July, 2002

Samuel Wilder was born in Sucha, Austria on June 22, 1906. His mother had been much impressed with an American Wild West show and took to calling her son Billie after Buffalo Bill Cody. He would use that name until he emigrated to America. At that time he changed the spelling of his name to Billy.

After Wilder’s emigration to Hollywood in 1933 he would develop into one of the leading film makers of the 20th century. The list of his films is far too long to mention them all in the restricted space available here. They include many of the classic films of the century such as, The Lost Weekend (1945), Sunset Blvd. (1950), Stalag 17 (1953), The Seven Year Itch (1955), The Spirit of St. Louis (1957), Some Like it Hot (1959), The Apartment (1960), One, Two Three (1961), Irma la Douce (1963), The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes (1970), and Buddy Buddy (1981). His work won 6 Academy Awards and there were an additional 17 Oscar nominations.

Billy’s family moved to Vienna at the time of World War I. The young man spent his formative years in the Austrian capital and received his education there. In 1924 he started university studies in law, but his real interest at that time was jazz music. He soon left the university to take up a career as a journalist specializing in music reporting. It was in the context of music reporting for the newspaper, Die Stunde, that an unplanned event took place which would set the directions for his life. Paul Whiteman and his orchestra were touring Europe in 1926. The young reporter, Wilder, in an interview with Whiteman was invited to come along to Berlin with the orchestra to serve as their guide. In Berlin Wilder very quickly began to make contact with some of the leading figures of that vital city and Berlin became his new home. He worked initially as a reporter for the Berlin newspaper, Die Berliner Zeitung am Mittag (BZ). Having met a number of people involved in the quickly growing film industry in Berlin, Wilder began to try his hand as a writer of screenplays.

The dominant film studio in Berlin at that time was UFA. Wilder ghostwrote several scripts for UFA. His first screenplay bearing his name was Menschen am Sonntag (People on Sunday) in 1930. He soon added a series of films including Ein Burschenlied aus Heidelberg, Ihre Hoheit befiehlt, Der Falsche Ehemann and the classic Emil und die Detektive.

Wilder was enjoying a fast rising film career when Adolf Hitler and the Nazi party came to power in 1933. Like many intellectuals and artists Wilder fled Germany. “I left the day after the Reichstag fire…” He moved first to Paris where he lived for 10 months. There he wrote and co-directed the film, Mauvaise Graine” (Bad Seed). In 1934 he was able to emigrate to the United States.

Wilder arrived in Hollywood with no money and no command of English. He said he learned English by listening to baseball games on the radio and going to movies. Even late in life he would describe his command of English as “a mixture between Arnold Schwarzenegger and Archbishop Tutu.”

After an initial short term contract with Columbia Pictures he was out of work for a time. “I kind of starved for a little bit. I shared a room with Peter Lorre, and we lived on a can of soup a day.” He was soon able to collaborate in screen plays, however, and in 1942 directed his first American film, The Major and the Minor. “I’m not a born director,” he said of this phase of his career. “I became a director because so many of our scripts had been screwed up.”

Although he became one of the world’s leading directors, Wilder never ceased writing scripts. He wrote his last script, Sabrina in1995. In addition to the films he directed he ghostwrote screen plays of such noted films as Ocean’s Eleven (1960) and Casino Royale (1967).

A number of Wilder’s films had a very serious message. The Lost Weekend, (1945), for example, was a powerful film about alcoholism. (So powerful, in fact, that the liquor industry is said to have offered 5 million dollars to repress it.) From the beginning though, Wilder, had understood the commercial nature of Hollywood and the necessity to entertain above all. “Never bore people,” he mused, “and if you have something important to say, wrap it in chocolate.” “I didn’t go out to make a so-called ‘artistic success’. I went out to make a commercial picture I wouldn’t be ashamed of.”

Many have regarded the Austrian immigrant as indeed having had something to say. He was awarded the National Medal of Honor by President Bill Clinton, the Academy’s Thalberg Award, the American Film Institute Life Achievement Award, the German Verdienstkreuz, and many others along with his many Oscars. Wilder died on March 27, 2002 at age 95 at his home in Beverly Hills. He had been known for his entire career as being a stinging whit: “They say Wilder is out of touch with his times. Frankly, I regard it as a compliment. Who the hell wants to be in touch with these times?”