Oscar-winning filmmaker Billy Wilder, who injected rapier wit and cynicism into classics like “Some Like It Hot,” “Sunset Boulevard” and “The Apartment,” has died. He was 95.
The Austrian-born writer-director had been in poor health in recent years. He died at his Beverly Hills home late Wednesday after battling pneumonia, friends said.
A Hollywood hit machine, Wilder left his mark on more than 50 movies during a four-decade career. From campy social satire to film-noir thriller, he moved among genres with unparalleled ease.
He received 20 Academy Award nominations and won six Oscars – three of them for 1960’s “The Apartment,” starring Shirley MacLaine and Jack Lemmon.
His recipe for silver-screen success was deceptively simple.
“I just always think, ‘Do I like it?’ And if I like it, maybe other people will come and like it too,” he said in the 1999 book “Conversations With Wilder” by fellow director Cameron Crowe.
Born June 22, 1906, and raised in Vienna, Wilder moved to Berlin in the 1920s. He fled Nazi Germany for Paris and then headed to Hollywood in 1934, knowing just 100 words of English.
His insecurity about the language prompted him to use collaborators.
A prolific writer, he made his U.S. directorial debut with the 1942 Ginger Rogers comedy “The Major and the Minor.”