Trivia

Wilder had tried to enter the U.S. via Mexico, where U.S. officials repeatedly denied him entry for several months. At the point of losing hope, he went to a new immigration officer who asked him his profession. After stating he was a filmmaker, the officer stamped his papers, and upon entering the U.S. the officer said,"Make good ones, then."

Once told Billy Bob Thornton that he was too ugly to be an actor and he should write a screenplay for himself in which he could exploit his less than perfect features. Thornton later collected an Oscar for his Sling Blade (1996) screenplay.

His idol and mentor was German director Ernst Lubitsch. Wilder always kept a sign hanging in his office that asked, "How would Lubitsch do it?"

Not having seen his mother and stepfather since he went to Berlin in 1933 to make films, he joined American patrols through war-torn Europe during WWII. Through intense research he learned they had been murdered in concentration camps and his grandmother had died in a Polish ghetto. He usually declined to discuss this. However, once, while directing a film, an actor expressed sympathy for the Nazi character he was playing, causing Wilder to roar, "Those bastards killed my mother!!!".

He collaborated closely with Steven Spielberg on the script for Schindler's List (1993), and was one of several directors considered to direct it (Roman Polanski and Martin Scorsese; both turned down the project). Although Wilder strongly considered directing Schindler's List (1993), he felt he was a little too old (he had already retired) and the subject was almost too personal (his mother, step-father and grandmother were killed in the Holocaust). It was ultimately Wilder who told Spielberg he should direct it.

Due to his rounded face and non-stop elfin energy, people often pictured him as short and wiry, but, in fact, he stood 5'11" (slightly taller than his own favorite star, Jack Lemmon).

His mother, Gitla Siedlisker, was murdered in 1943 in the Plaszow concentration camp. His stepfather, Bernard (Berl) Siedlisker, died in 1942 in the Belzec concentration camp, while his grandmother, Balbina Baldinger, died in 1943 in the ghetto of Nowy Targ.

Ingmar Bergman claimed that Wilder was his favorite Hollywood director.

The song, "Isn't it Romantic?" is featured in many of Wilder's films, not particularly because he liked the song, but, as he said of himself, "I'm cheap." Wilder got a great deal when he originally licensed the song for use, which allowed him to use it over and over.

He directed 14 different actors in Oscar-nominated performances: Barbara Stanwyck, Ray Milland, William Holden, Gloria Swanson, Erich von Stroheim, Nancy Olson, Robert Strauss, Audrey Hepburn, Charles Laughton , Elsa Lanchester, Jack Lemmon, Jack Kruschen, Shirley MacLaine and Walter Matthau. Milland, Holden and Matthau won Oscars for their performances in a Wilder film.

Although born as Samuel Wilder, he was called "Billie" by his mother from infancy and it stuck. Some theorize it was due to her fascination with the western character Buffalo Bill Cody, but it may have been just because she thought it sounded American. She was reportedly obsessed with American culture.

Directed four of the American Film Institute's 100 Greatest Movies: Sunset Boulevard (1950) at #16, Some Like It Hot (1959) at #22, Double Indemnity (1944) at #29 and The Apartment (1960) at #80.

As a writer, he had odd habits. On the one hand, he hated writing alone, so he almost always used a partner, someone to be in the room with him while he worked. On the other hand, many of the partners complained that if he heard an idea he did not like, he could be cruel and insulting. Many writers quit on him because they could not take his abuse.

He is among an elite group of nine directors who have won Best Picture, Best Director and Best Screenplay (Original/Adapted) for the same film. In 1961 he won all three for The Apartment (1960). The others are Leo McCarey, Francis Ford Coppola, James L. Brooks, Peter Jackson, Joel Coen and Ethan Coen, Alejandro G. Iñárritu, and Bong Joon Ho.

Liked the name "Sheldrake" so much that he used it in three different films, most prominently in The Apartment (1960), but also in Sunset Boulevard (1950) and Kiss Me, Stupid (1964).

He was always uncomfortable around children and was an absentee father to his two children from his first marriage. He and his second wife, Audrey, agreed that they didn't want children.

He wrote five of the American Film Institute's 100 Funniest Movies: Some Like It Hot (1959) at #1, The Apartment (1960) at #20, The Seven Year Itch (1955) at #51, Ninotchka (1939) at #52 and Ball of Fire (1941) at #92.

He worked closely with two co-writers in his career: earlier in his career with Charles Brackett, an older man who frequently provided a strong argumentative counterpoint in the writing room and later with I.A.L. Diamond, who possessed a cynical, humorous world view more in line with Wilder's.

Tom Cruise and Cameron Crowe begged Wilder to appear in Jerry Maguire (1996), but he turned them down flat.

One of the most eclectic writer-directors, Wilder excelled in film noir (Double Indemnity (1944)), drama (The Lost Weekend (1945)), comedy (Some Like It Hot (1959)) and war (Stalag 17 (1953)).

Honored on a US Postage Stamp in May 2012 (along with Frank Capra, John Ford, and John Huston).

In 1949 he married Audrey Young, an actress and former singer with the Tommy Dorsey band, whom he met on the set of The Lost Weekend (1945).

Was a fan of the British film Brief Encounter (1945). It inspired him to make the movie The Apartment (1960). The premise for The Apartment is based on a male character who loans out his flat to a friend and doesn't care what happens while he's out.

He was asked to direct The Sound of Music (1965). He joked that he would have focused on the Nazis.

His favorite film was Battleship Potemkin (1925).

At one point he was slated to direct a movie about the Marx brothers running the United Nations. This was around 1960. The project fell apart after Chico Marx's death in 1961, which was followed by Harpo Marx's death in 1964.

Father of the twins Victoria and Vincent (born 1939). Their mother was Judith. Vincent died shortly after birth.

Estranged brother of producer/director W. Lee Wilder, uncle of Myles Wilder.

In the early 1950s, Wilder had planned on doing a film with Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy. The film was to open with Stan and Ollie each sleeping in one of the "o"s of the Hollywood sign. The plot centered on a woman coming between them. The film was never made due to Hardy's failing health.

Had a long-standing partnership with screenwriter I.A.L. Diamond, with whom he won an Oscar for The Apartment (1960).

Was the subject of the 1999 book "Conversations with Wilder," written by director/writer Cameron Crowe.

An inveterate clotheshorse, at age 83 he still owned over 60 cashmere sweaters.

On the first page of every screenplay of his own he used to write "Cum Deo" (With God), a habit he said he had taken from Pauline Kael. "It's not harmful, anyway," Wilder explained, "and could corrupt that guy dwelling up there".

At least three of his films have been made into Broadway musicals. The Apartment (1960) was the basis for "Promises, Promises" in 1968. Some Like It Hot (1959) was the basis for "Sugar" in 1973. And Sunset Boulevard (1950) was adapted into a musical by Andrew Lloyd Webber in 1993.

Met Audrey Young at Paramount Studios on set for The Lost Weekend (1945), as his divorce from Judith was in progress and he had a liaison with the actress Doris Dowling.

Despite directing some of the most iconic female performances of all time, such as Barbara Stanwyck in Double Indemnity (1944), Gloria Swanson in Sunset Boulevard (1950), Marilyn Monroe in Some Like It Hot (1959), and Shirley MacLaine in The Apartment (1960) none of them won an Oscar, although Swanson, Monroe and MacLaine all won a Golden Globe for their respective performances.

Michael Caine recounted in his biography that he was surprised to see Wilder living in a flat instead a villa. Caine visited the apartment and said that it was full of paintings, with no room left to hang them on the walls.

In his last years he became patron of the "Billy-Wilder-Institute" located in Germany, a film school founded to educate only producers and screenwriters. The school was closed after just two years because of the death of its founder and dean Lothar Rhode.

He wanted to direct Schindler's List (1993), but Steven Spielberg preferred doing it himself. Wilder has been quoted saying it would have become his most personal film.

Gaylord Larsen's 1988 novel "A Paramount Kill" features Wilder as a character. A whodunit set in 1940s Hollywood, it has Raymond Chandler as the hero and Wilder as his antagonist, causing trouble for Chandler because of their bad blood during the making of Double Indemnity (1944).

Long famous for the modern-art collection he put together over his lifetime (he sold only a portion of it in 1989 for $32.6 million)

He was awarded the American National Medal of the Arts in 1993 by the National Endowment of the Arts in Washington, DC.

He has directed seven films that have been selected for the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically or aesthetically" significant: Double Indemnity (1944), The Lost Weekend (1945), Sunset Boulevard (1950), Ace in the Hole (1951), Sabrina (1954), Some Like It Hot (1959) and The Apartment (1960). He wrote all of those films in addition to Midnight (1939), Ninotchka (1939) and Ball of Fire (1941), all of which are in the registry as well.

Was voted the 24th Greatest Director of all time by Entertainment Weekly.

Awarded Austria's Golden Order, First Class for Meritorious Services. (1991)

He directed two Best Picture Academy Award winners: The Lost Weekend (1945) and The Apartment (1960). He also directed three other Best Picture nominees: Double Indemnity (1944), Sunset Boulevard (1950) and Witness for the Prosecution (1957).

Jerry Lewis asked him to direct The Bellboy (1960). He declined and suggested that Lewis direct it himself.

While shooting the barnstorming sequence in "The Spirit of St. Louis," on a bet from Jimmy Stewart, Wilder was persuaded to fly on top of a biplane as a wing-walker.

Was very unhappy that Buddy Buddy (1981) would be the last film he ever directed. Wilder once said that when he died he expected he'd see the "spirits" of all the movies that he'd directed and he would love to see most of them and would be polite to some others but "Buddy Buddy, I would try to avoid".

He was asked to direct Cabaret (1972).