Billy Wilder(1906 — 2002)

An Austrian Jew, Billy Wilder fled Germany in 1933 as soon as Hitler came to power: he passed through Paris before reaching Hollywood in 1934. His mother, grandmother and stepfather, who stayed behind in Europe, perished in the Holocaust. This intimate wound quietly haunted his work throughout his life.

When he landed in the United States, Wilder barely spoke English. He often said he learned it by listening to the radio, to baseball game broadcasts and to the lyrics of popular songs, a dictionary always within reach. A few years later, however, he was writing the most biting dialogue in Hollywood.

The famous closing line of *Some Like It Hot* (1959), “Nobody's perfect,” was at first only a placeholder scribbled down by Wilder and his co-writer I.A.L. Diamond, for want of anything better. Lacking a more brilliant idea, they kept it — and it became one of the most famous endings in cinema.

In 1960, *The Apartment* earned Wilder himself three Oscars in a single night (Best Picture as producer, Best Director and Best Screenplay), an unprecedented feat at the time. He was nominated for the Oscars 21 times over the course of his career.

Wilder was a passionate art collector, amassing works by Picasso, Miró, Calder and Schiele. In 1989, he sold part of his collection at Christie's for around 32.6 million dollars, proving that his eye was as sharp behind a camera as it was in front of a painting.