Biografia

His movies frequently started with narration

Films feature a sharp wit and characters who frequently try to change their identity.

A few of his films feature scenes where characters play cards (Viale del tramonto (1950), Stalag 17 (1953), L'appartamento (1960)). Wilder himself was an avid bridge and poker player.

Frequently cast Marilyn Monroe, William Holden, Jack Lemmon and Fred MacMurray. Wilder directed Jack Lemmon in seven movies: L'appartamento (1960), Che cosa è successo tra mio padre e tua madre? (1972), Buddy Buddy (1981), Non per soldi... ma per denaro (1966), Prima pagina (1974), Irma la dolce (1963) and A qualcuno piace caldo (1959).

Films often featured low key lighting

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."

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!!!".

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 Lama tagliente (1996) screenplay.

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.

[after directing Marilyn Monroe for the second time in A qualcuno piace caldo (1959)] I have discussed this with my doctor and my psychiatrist and they tell me I'm too old and too rich to go through this again.

Some pictures play wonderfully to a room of eight people. I don't go for that. I go for the masses. I go for the end effect.

Anyone who doesn't believe in miracles isn't a realist.

My English is a mixture between Arnold Schwarzenegger and Archbishop [Desmond Tutu].

A bad play folds and is forgotten, but in pictures we don't bury our dead. When you think it's out of your system, your daughter sees it on television and says, "My father is an idiot."