personalities - Austria / II. Republic of Austria 2003 - 58 Euro Cent

The well-known screenwriter and director was born in 1906 in the then Austrian Sucha (b. Krakow) and initially worked as a reporter and journalist in Vienna. He got the name Billy from his mother in the name of Buffalo Bill. From 1927 he was screenwriting ghost writer in Berlin, where he became aware of him through the movie "Emil and the detective". It soon became clear to him that he had no future in the Third Reich as a Jew. He went to Paris in 1933, to his brother in 1934 in New York and on to Hollywood. The entry as a scriptwriter enabled him there, the Austrian Joe May, who worked for Columbia. From the later partnership with Manny Wolf was born "Ninochka" with Greta Garbo. As a director, he worked for "The Major and the Minor" for the first time. Then came "Double Indemnity", a movie that is still considered one of the best today. 1945 received "The lost Weekend" about alcohol problems 5 Oscars. $ 4.5 million was recorded! Wilder was to participate in the denazification in Germany. It was a bitter time for him. He could not find his father's grave in bombed Berlin and found that his family had died in Auschwitz. Returned to America were u.a. "Prosecutor", "Some like it hot" with Mary Monroe, "The Appartment" (3 Oscars) and "Extrablatt" his work. At the age of 95, Wilder died in Beverly Hills last year.