William Wyler

Infobox actor
bgcolour=silver
name = William Wyler


imagesize =
caption = Wyler with Oscar
birthname = Willi Wyler
birthdate = birth date|1902|7|1|mf=y
location = Mülhausen, Alsace, Germany (now Mulhouse, Haut-Rhin, France)
deathdate =Death date and age|1981|7|27|1902|7|1
deathplace = Los Angeles, California, U.S.
height =
othername =
yearsactive =
spouse = Margaret Sullavan (1934-1936)
Margaret Tallichet (1938-1981)
homepage =
notable role =
academyawards = Best Director
1942 "Mrs. Miniver"
1946 "The Best Years of Our Lives"
1959 "Ben-Hur"
Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award (1965)
baftaawards = Best Film from any Source
1959 "Ben-Hur"
goldenglobeawards = Best Director - Motion Picture
1960 "Ben-Hur"
awards = Golden Palm - Cannes Film Festival
1957 "Friendly Persuasion"
AFI Life Achievement Award
1976 Lifetime Achievement

William Wyler (July 1, 1902 – July 27, 1981) was a four-time Academy Award-winning motion picture director.

Biography

Early life

Wyler was born Willi Weiller to a Jewish family in Mulhouse in the French region of Alsace (then part of the German Empire). [ Madsen 1973, p. 3.] He was distantly related to Carl Laemmle, founder of Universal Pictures, through his mother Melanie (a cousin of Laemmle's). After realizing that Willi was not interested in the family business of haberdashery and suffering through a terrible year working at 100000 CHEMISES in Paris after World War I, Melanie contacted her distant cousin about opportunities for him. Carl Laemmle was in the habit of coming to Europe each year and finding promising young men who would work in America.

In 1921, Willi found himself and a young Czech man, Paul Kohner (later the famous independent agent) on the same boat to New York. Their enjoyment of the first class trip was short lived as they found they had to pay back the cost of the passage out of their $25/week salary as messengers to Universal Pictures in New York. After working in New York for several Years Wyler decided he wanted to come to Hollywood and be a director.

Film Career

Around 1923, he arrived in Los Angeles and began work on the Universal lot on the swing gang, cleaning the stages and moving the sets. His break came when he was hired as a 2nd assistant editor. His work ethic was uneven at best with Irving Thalberg nicknaming him "Worthless Willy". After some ups and downs (including getting fired) Wyler became focused on becoming a director. He started as a 3rd assistant director and by 1925 he became the youngest director on the Universal lot directing the Westerns that Universal were famed at cranking out. In 1928, he became a naturalized citizen of the United States.

He soon proved himself an able craftsman, and in the early 1930s became one of Universal's greatest assets, directing such solid films as "The Love Trap", "Hell's Heroes", "Tom Brown of Culver", and "The Good Fairy". He became well-known for his merciless (some would say sadistic) insistence on multiple retakes, resulting in often award-winning and critically acclaimed performances from his actors. After leaving Universal he began a long collaboration with Samuel Goldwyn where he directed such classics as The Best Years of Our Lives (1946), The Little Foxes (1941), The Westerner (1940), Wuthering Heights (1939), Dead End (1937), These Three (1936) and Dodsworth (1936).

Laurence Olivier, whom Wyler directed to two Oscar nominations in two films, credited Wyler with teaching him how to act for the screen. Bette Davis not only received three Oscar nominations for her screen work under Wyler, but won her second Oscar for her performance in Wyler's 1938 film "Jezebel". Charlton Heston won "his" only nomination and Best Actor Oscar for his work in Wyler's 1959 "Ben-Hur".

In 1941 Wyler directed one of the key films that galvanized support for Britain and against the Nazis in an America slow to awaken to the threat in Europe, it was Mrs. Miniver (1942),a story of a middle class English family adjusting to the war in Europe. Mrs. Miniver won Wyler his first Academy Award for Best Director.

World War II

Between 1942 and 1945, Wyler served as a major in the United States Army Air Forces and directed two documentaries "" and "Thunderbolt!", the story of a P-47 fighter-bomber squadron in the Mediterranean.

Wyler also directed a film which captured the mood of the nation as it turned to peace after the war. "The Best Years of Our Lives" (1946), the story of three veterans arriving home and adjusting to civilian life, dramatized the problems of returning veterans for those who had remained on the homefront. Wyler's most personal film, taken from his experiences away from his family for three years and on the front, The Best Years of Our Lives won the Academy Award for Best Director (his second) and Academy Award for Best Picture.

Postwar career

During the 1950s and 1960s, Wyler directed a handful of critically acclaimed and influential films, most notably "Roman Holiday" (1953) which introduced Audrey Hepburn to American audiences and resulted in her first Oscar nomination and only win, "The Heiress" which earned Olivia de Havilland her second Oscar, "Friendly Persuasion" (1956) which was awarded the Palme d'Or (Golden Palm) at the Cannes Film Festival, and "Ben-Hur" (1959) which won eleven Oscars (equalled only twice, by "Titanic" in 1997 and "" in 2003). Ben-Hur won Wyler his third Academy Award for Best Director.

Wyler's films garnered more awards for participating artists and actors than any other director in the history of Hollywood. He received twelve Oscar nominations for Best Director, winning three times, while dozens of his collaborators and actors won Oscars or were nominated.In 1965, Wyler won the Irving Thalberg Award for career achievement. Eleven years later, he received the American Film Institute Life Achievement Award. In addition to his Best Picture and Best Director Oscar wins, ten of Wyler's films earned Best Picture nominations.

Wyler's style is (among auteurist critics) notoriously difficult to perceive. He did not build a stable of players like Capra, Sturges or Ford. He directed varied types of films without any trademark shots or themes, but in his choice of lighting, blocking and camera distance, and in the serious liberal tone of his work, a continuity of worldview is detectable.

On July 24, 1981, Wyler gave an interview with his daughter, producer Catherine Wyler for "Directed by William Wyler", a PBS documentary about his life and career. A mere three days later, Wyler died from a heart attack. Wyler's last words on film concern a vision of directing his "next picture..."Going Home". Wyler is interred at Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery in Glendale, California.

Wyler was briefly married to Margaret Sullavan (November 25, 1934 - March 13, 1936) and married Margaret Tallichet on October 23, 1938 until his death; they had four children, Catherine, Judith, Melanie and David.

Academy Awards and nominations

*1937 Nominated "Dodsworth"
*1940 Nominated "Wuthering Heights"
*1941 Nominated "The Letter"
*1942 Nominated "The Little Foxes"
*1943 Won "Mrs. Miniver"
*1947 Won "The Best Years of Our Lives"
*1950 Nominated "The Heiress"
*1952 Nominated "Detective Story"
*1954 Nominated "Roman Holiday"
*1957 Nominated "Friendly Persuasion"
*1959 Won "Ben-Hur"
*1966 Nominated "The Collector"

Wyler has the distinction of having directed three Best Director Academy Award winners: "Ben Hur", "The Best Years of Our Lives", and "Mrs. Miniver". He is tied with Frank Capra and behind John Ford, who won four Oscars in this category. There are twelve other directors who have won two Academy Awards for Best Director.

Filmography (as a director)

*"The Crook Buster" (1925)
*"The Gunless Bad Man" (1926)
*"Ridin' for Love" (1926)
*"The Fire Barrier" (1926)
*"Don't Shoot" (1926)
*"The Pinnacle Rider" (1926)
*"Martin of the Mounted" (1926)
*"Lazy Lightning" (1926)
*"The Stolen Ranch" (1926)
*"The Two Fister" (1927)
*"Kelcy Gets His Man" (1927)
*"Tenderfoot Courage" (1927)
*"The Silent Partner" (1927)
*"Blazing Days" (1927)
*"Shooting Straight" (1927)
*"Galloping Justice" (1927)
*"The Haunted Homestead" (1927)
*"Hard Fists" (1927)
*"The Lone Star" (1927)
*"The Home Trail" (1927)
*"Gun Justice" (1927)
*"The Phantom Outlaw" (1927)
*"The Square Shooter" (1927)
*"The Horse Trader" (1927)
*"Daze of the West" (1927)
*"The Border Cavalier" (1927)
*"Desert Dust" (1927)
*"Thunder Riders" (1928)
*"Anybody Here Seen Kelly?" (1928)
*"The Shakedown" (1929)
*"The Love Trap" (1929)
*"Hell's Heroes" (1930)
*"The Storm" (1930)
*"A House Divided" (1931)
*"Tom Brown of Culver" (1932)
*"Her First Mate" (1933)
*"Counsellor at Law" (1933)
*"Glamour" (1934)
*"The Good Fairy" (1935)
*"The Gay Deception" (1935)
*"Barbary Coast" (1935) (uncredited; replaced by Howard Hawks)
*"These Three" (1936)
*"Dodsworth" (1936)
*"Come and Get It" (1936)
*"Dead End" (1937)
*"Jezebel" (1938)
*"Wuthering Heights" (1939)
*"The Westerner" (1940)
*"The Letter" (1940)
*"The Little Foxes" (1941)
*"Mrs. Miniver" (1942)
*"" (1944)
*"The Best Years of Our Lives" (1946)
*"Thunderbolt" (1947)
*"The Heiress" (1949)
*"Detective Story" (1951)
*"Carrie" (1952) (based on Theodore Dreiser's novel "Sister Carrie")
*"Roman Holiday" (1953)
*"The Desperate Hours" (1955)
*"Friendly Persuasion" (1956)
*"The Big Country" (1958)
*"Ben-Hur" (1959)
*"The Children's Hour" (1961)
*"The Collector" (1965)
*"How to Steal a Million" (1966)
*"Funny Girl" (1968)
*"The Liberation of L.B. Jones" (1970)

References

Notes

Bibliography

* Anderegg, Michael A. "William Wyler". Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1979. ISBN 0-8057-9268-6.
* Herman, Jan. "A Talent for Trouble: The Life of Hollywood's Most Acclaimed Director". New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1995. ISBN 0-399-14012-3.
* Madsen, Axel. "William Wyler: the Authorized Biography". New York: Thomas Y. Crowell, 1973. ISBN 0-49101-302-7.

External links

*imdb name|id=0943758|name=William Wyler
* [http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/MRC/wylerbib.html William Wyler bibliography] via UC Berkeley Media Resources Center
* [http://www.sensesofcinema.com/contents/directors/05/wyler.html Senses of Cinema: Great Directors Critical Database]
* [http://www.hellmanwyler.com "The Little Foxes" and Wyler's screen collaborations with playwright Lillian Hellman]
* [http://www.hellmanwyler.com Margaret Tallichet and William Wyler remembered at Alabama festival]

Persondata
NAME= Wyler, William
ALTERNATIVE NAMES= Weiller, Wilhelm
SHORT DESCRIPTION=Oscar-winning motion picture director
DATE OF BIRTH= July 1, 1902
PLACE OF BIRTH= Mülhausen, Alsace, Germany (now Mulhouse, Haut-Rhin, France)
DATE OF DEATH=July 27, 1981
PLACE OF DEATH= Los Angeles, California, U.S.