Billy Wilder fled Austria ahead of the Nazis, arrived in Hollywood speaking almost no English, and became the sharpest comedy writer-director in American film history. Some Like It Hot, The Apartment, Sunset Boulevard — he made cynicism entertaining and entertainment smart, and he did it in his second language.
This episode traces Wilder from his journalism career in Vienna through his escape from Europe, his years as a screenwriter, and his rise to a director whose films defined sophisticated American comedy for three decades.
He fled Austria in 1933 and lost his mother, grandmother, and stepfather in the Holocaust
Some Like It Hot is regularly voted the greatest comedy film ever made
He won six Academy Awards as both writer and director
He wrote and directed in English despite it being his second language, mastering wordplay that native speakers envied
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