Some Like It Wilder Read online

  23. Goodman, Fifty-Year Decline, 266.

  24. Thomas, Golden Boy, 86.

  25. Meyers, Bogart, 284.

  26. Spoto, Enchantment, 109; see also Ian Woodward, Audrey Hepburn (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1984), 117.

  27. Meyers, Bogart, 284.

  28. Crowe, Conversations with Wilder, 159.

  29. David Hofstede, Audrey Hepburn: A Bio-bibliography (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1994), 75; see also Spoto, Enchantment, 110–11.

  30. Crowe, Conversations with Wilder, 173; see also Bogart, In Search of My Father, 179–81.

  31. “Ernest Lehman,” in Stevens, Conversations with the Great Moviemakers, 486.

  32. Lally, Wilder Times, 237; see also Zolotow, Billy Wilder in Hollywood, 253.

  33. Goodman, Fifty-Year Decline, 266.

  34. Zolotow, Billy Wilder in Hollywood, 185.

  35. Ibid., 156; see also Lally, Wilder Times, 235.

  36. Hopp, Billy Wilder, 91.

  37. Schickel, “Appreciation,” 72, 76.

  38. Karasek, Billy Wilder, 385.

  39. Walker, Audrey, 97.

  40. Lally, Wilder Times, 240; see also Zolotow, Billy Wilder in Hollywood, 140.

  41. Barbara Leaming, Marilyn Monroe (New York: Random House, 1998), 114.

  42. Madsen, Billy Wilder, 14.

  43. Wilder, interview by Gehman, 60.

  44. George Axelrod, interview by Patrick McGilligan, Film Comment 31, no. 6 (1995): 14.

  45. Ibid., 12.

  46. Wilder, interview by Brown; see also Crowe, Conversations with Wilder, 85.

  47. Erich Stahl, “The Seven Year Itch,” in Movies of the Fifties, ed. Jürgen Muller (Los Angeles: Taschen/BFI, 2005), 225.

  48. Billy Wilder and George Axelrod, The Seven Year Itch: Unpublished Screenplay (Los Angeles: Twentieth Century–Fox, 1954), 77.

  49. Axelrod, interview, 12.

  50. Rebecca Epstein, “The Seven Year Itch,” in Welsh and Tibbetts, Encyclopedia of Stage Plays into Film, 266.

  51. Pat Kirkham, “Saul Bass and Billy Wilder in Conversation,” Sight and Sound, n.s., 5, no. 6 (1995): 20.

  52. Armstrong, Billy Wilder, 79.

  53. Zolotow, Billy Wilder in Hollywood, 230.

  54. Gene D. Phillips, Major Film Directors of the American and British Cinema, rev. ed. (Bethlehem, PA: Lehigh University Press, 1999), 107.

  55. “Entretien avec Billy Wilder,” interview by Michael Ciment, Positif, August 1983, 20. Bridgette Chandler translated the cited passages.

  56. Douglas Brode, The Films of the Fifties (New York: Carol, 1993), 136.

  57. “Entretien avec Billy Wilder,” 1983, 21.

  58. Leaming, Marilyn Monroe, 128.

  59. Crowe, Conversations with Wilder, 344.

  60. Anthony Summers, Goddess: The Secret Lives of Marilyn Monroe (New York: Macmillan, 1986), 118.

  61. Fred Lawrence Guiles, Norma Jean: The Life of Marilyn Monroe (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1969), 157.

  62. Chandler, Nobody’s Perfect, 180.

  63. Wood, Bright Side of Billy Wilder, 111.

  64. Chandler, Nobody’s Perfect, 180.

  65. Leaming, Marilyn Monroe, 128; see also Sarah Churchwell, The Many Lives of Marilyn Monroe (New York: Holt, 2006), 47.

  66. Wilder and Axelrod, Seven Year Itch: Unpublished Screenplay, 77.

  67. Sikov, On Sunset Boulevard, 366.

  68. “The Seven Year Itch,” Backstory, AMC, August 26, 2000.

  69. Hawks, interview.

  70. “Billy Wilder,” in Stevens, Conversations, 312.

  71. Leaming, Marilyn Monroe, 33; see also Wood, Bright Side of Billy Wilder, 110.

  72. Zolotow, Billy Wilder in Hollywood, 255.

  73. Lally, Wilder Times, 243.

  74. Bernard Dick, Forever Mame: The Life of Rosalind Russell (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2006), 79.

  75. Wilder and Axelrod, Seven Year Itch: Unpublished Screenplay, 66.

  76. “Dialogue on Film: Billy Wilder and I. A. L. Diamond,” 124.

  77. Philip Kemp, “Saul Bass,” in Pendergast and Pendergast, International Dictionary of Films and Filmmakers, 4:67.

  78. Churchwell, Many Lives of Marilyn Monroe, 37; see also Chandler, Nobody’s Perfect, 180.

  79. Louis Giannetti, Masters of the American Cinema (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1981), 324.

  80. François Truffaut, The Films of My Life (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1975), 159.

  81. Churchwell, Many Lives of Marilyn Monroe, 59–60; see also Dick, Billy Wilder, 80.

  82. Marilyn Monroe, interview by Edward R. Murrow, Person to Person, CBS-TV, April 8, 1955.

  83. Sikov, On Sunset Boulevard, 368; see also Leaming, Marilyn Monroe, 137.

  84. Ephraim Katz, The Film Encyclopedia, ed. Fred Klein and Ronald Nolen, rev. ed. (New York: HarperCollins, 2005), 989.

  85. Hopp, Billy Wilder, 95.

  10. LIGHT UP THE SKY

  1. Chandler, Nobody’s Perfect, 183.

  2. Volker Schlöndorff, “Playing by His Rules: Billy Wilder,” Los Angeles Times Calendar, June 18, 2006, 8; see also Armstrong, Billy Wilder, 80.

  3. “Air Force,” in Oxford Desk Encyclopedia of World History, ed. Edmund Wright (New York: Oxford University Press, 2006), 126; see also Lorraine Glennon, ed., Our Times (Atlanta: Turner, 1995), 144.

  4. Roquemore, History Goes to the Movies, 363.

  5. Kyla Dunn, “Death Defying,” New York Times Book Review, October 7, 2007, 36; see also Chandler, Nobody’s Perfect, 186.

  6. Roquemore, History Goes to the Movies, 263–64.

  7. The Dawn of Sound: How Movies Learned to Talk, documentary (Warner Bros., 2007).

  8. Stark Smith, Jimmy Stewart, Bomber Pilot (St. Paul, MN: Zenith Press, 2005), 23.

  9. Ibid.; see also Nash and Ross, Motion Picture Guide, 3070.

  10. Roy Pickard, Jimmy Stewart: A Life in Film (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1992), 29–30.

  11. See Steve Seidman, The Film Career of Billy Wilder (Pleasantville, NY: Redgrave, 1977), 89.

  12. Allen Eyles, James Stewart (London: Allan, 1984), 131.

  13. Marc Eliot, Jimmy Stewart: A Biography (New York: Random House, 2006), 298; see also Jhan Robbins, Everybody’s Man: A Biography of Jimmy Stewart (New York: Putnam, 1985), 250.

  14. Gary Fishgall, Pieces of Time: The Life of James Stewart (New York: Scribner, 1997), 258; see also Higham and Greenberg, Celluloid Muse, 251.

  15. Sikov, On Sunset Boulevard, 379; see also Chandler, Nobody’s Perfect, 185.

  16. Fishgall, Pieces of Time, 258; see also Eliot, Jimmy Stewart, 299.

  17. Fishgall, Pieces of Time, 257.

  18. Arthur Rowan, “Making the Aerial Shots for The Spirit of St. Louis,” American Cinematographer, June 1957, 367.

  19. Leland Hayward to Jack Warner, September 9, 1955, The Spirit of St. Louis file, Warner Bros. Archives, Cinematic Arts Library, University of Southern California, Los Angeles.

  20. Sikov, On Sunset Boulevard, 376–77.

  21. Leland Hayward to Jack Warner, [early September 1955?], The Spirit of St. Louis file, Warner Bros. Archives.

  22. Leland Hayward to Jack Warner, September 25, 1955, The Spirit of St. Louis file, Warner Bros. Archives; see also Rowan, “Making the Aerial Shots,” 385.

  23. Rowan, “Making the Aerial Shots,” 381.

  24. Leonard Mosley, Lindbergh: A Biography (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1976), 351.

  25. Armstrong, Billy Wilder, 85.

  26. Interim report, n.d., The Spirit of St. Louis file, Warner Bros. Archives.

  27. Dick, Billy Wilder, 129; see also Hopp, Billy Wilder, 101, and Rowan, “Making the Aerial Shots,” 385.

  28. Sikov, On Sunset Boulevard, 378; see also Lally, Wilder Times, 253.

  29. Dick, Billy Wilder, 129–30.

  30. Neil Sinyard and Adrian Turner, Journey down Sunset Boulevard: The Films of Billy Wilder (Ryde, Isle of Wight: BCW, 1979), 353.

  31. “The Spirit of St. Louis,” in Va
riety Film Reviews, 1907–1996 (New Providence, NJ: Bowker, 1997), vol. 9, n.p.

  32. Dunne, “Old Pornographer,” 92.

  33. Jack Warner, My First Hundred Years in Hollywood (New York: Random House, 1964), 320.

  34. Pickard, Jimmy Stewart, 136.

  35. Mosley, Lindbergh, 351; see also Scott Berg, Lindbergh (New York: Putnam, 1998), 503.

  36. Roquemore, History Goes to the Movies, 364.

  37. Chandler, Nobody’s Perfect, 187.

  38. Zolotow, Billy Wilder in Hollywood, 323.

  39. Joanne Yeck, “I. A. L. Diamond,” in Pendergast and Pendergast, International Dictionary of Films and Filmmakers, 4:210.

  40. Murray Schumach, “Bright Diamond,” New York Times Magazine, May 26, 1963, 80–81.

  41. Wood, Bright Side of Billy Wilder, 117–18.

  42. Wilder, interview by Schlöndorff. Sikov, On Sunset Boulevard, 390, erroneously states that the title that Broidy mentions is Omaha, which is not the name of an Allied Artists film.

  43. Wilder, interview by Prelutsky, 188.

  44. Lally, Wilder Times, 259.

  45. Eliot, Jimmy Stewart, 341.

  46. Wilder, “Going for Extra Innings,” 47.

  47. Walker, Audrey, 139–40.

  48. Ibid., 142; see also Halliwell, Who’s Who in the Movies, 95.

  49. Walker, Audrey, 141–42; see also Lally, Wilder Times, 260.

  50. Walker, Audrey, 140.

  51. Katz, Film Encyclopedia, 299.

  52. Crowe, Conversations with Wilder, 345.

  53. Sikov, On Sunset Boulevard, 397.

  54. Walter Mirisch, I Thought We Were Making Movies, Not History (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2008), 81.

  55. Thomas Doherty, Hollywood’s Censor: Joseph I. Breen and the Production Code Administration (New York: Columbia University Press, 2007), 109. The book covers Shurlock’s tenure as industry censor as well.

  56. Love in the Afternoon file, Legion of Decency files, in the author’s possession; Sikov, On Sunset Boulevard, 369.

  57. Crowe, Conversations with Wilder, 108; Dick, Billy Wilder, 82.

  58. Spoto, Enchantment, 149.

  59. Brownlow to author.

  60. Wilder, “Wilder Seeks Films with Bite,” 15.

  61. “Love in the Afternoon,” in Variety Film Reviews, vol. 9, n.p.

  62. Kael, 5001 Nights at the Movies, 438.

  63. Dick, Billy Wilder, 85; see also Hopp, Billy Wilder, 110.

  64. Chandler, Nobody’s Perfect, 191.

  65. Wood, Bright Side of Billy Wilder, 179.

  66. Brownlow to author.

  67. Thomson, New Biographical Dictionary of Film, 903.

  68. Barson, Hollywood Directors, 457.

  69. Sikov, On Sunset Boulevard, 396.

  70. Eileen Whitaker, Pickford: A Biography (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1997), 491.

  71. Portrait of a 60% Perfect Man: Billy Wilder, documentary, directed by Annie Tresgol (Action Films, 1980).

  72. Gehman, “Charming Billy,” 61, 70.

  11. REMAINS TO BE SEEN

  1. Charles Osborne, The Life and Crimes of Agatha Christie (New York: HarperCollins, 1999), 268–69.

  2. Edward Small, interview by author, Los Angeles, July 5, 1977.

  3. Jon Tuska, In Manors and Alleys: The American Detective Film (New York: Greenwood Press, 1988), 320; see also Sikov, On Sunset Boulevard, 403.

  4. Wilder, interview by Gehman, 58–59.

  5. Farber, “Films of Billy Wilder,” 17.

  6. Small, interview.

  7. Ibid.

  8. Halliwell, Who’s Who in the Movies, 382.

  9. Crowe, Conversations with Wilder, 69.

  10. Tuska, In Manors and Alleys, 320.

  11. Dick, Billy Wilder, 138.

  12. Bach, Marlene Dietrich, 384.

  13. Dassanowsky-Harris, “Billy Wilder’s Germany,” pt. 1, 294.

  14. Wood, Dietrich, 299; see also Wood, Bright Side of Billy Wilder, 185.

  15. Harry Kurnitz, “Billy the Wild,” Holiday, June 1964, 93, 95.

  16. Staggs, Close-Up on Sunset Boulevard, 272; see also Hector Arce, The Secret Life of Tyrone Power (New York: Morrow, 1979), 254.

  17. John Baxter, “Russell Harlan,” in Pendergast and Pendergast, International Dictionary of Films and Filmmakers, 4:349.

  18. Madsen, Billy Wilder, 111.

  19. Riva, Marlene Dietrich, 681–82.

  20. Ibid., 648.

  21. Wood, Dietrich, 299.

  22. Bach, Marlene Dietrich, 386.

  23. Schlöndorff, “Playing by His Rules,” 8.

  24. Riva, Marlene Dietrich, 681.

  25. Simon Callow, Charles Laughton: A Difficult Actor (New York: Grove Press, 1987), 242.

  26. Riva, Marlene Dietrich, 680, 682; see also Skaerved, Dietrich, 142–43.

  27. Dietrich, Marlene, 127.

  28. Staggs, Close-Up on Sunset Boulevard, 366; see also Crowe, Conversations with Wilder, 346.

  29. Philip Scheuer, “Outcome of Christie Play Kept Dark for Film,” Los Angeles Times, July 14, 1957, V2.

  30. Charles Higham, Charles Laughton (New York: Doubleday, 1976), 204.

  31. Crowe, Conversations with Wilder, 30, 153.

  32. Callow, Charles Laughton, 242.

  33. Nash and Ross, Motion Picture Guide, 3889.

  34. Bach, Marlene Dietrich, 385.

  35. Nash and Ross, Motion Picture Guide, 3889.

  36. Riva, Marlene Dietrich, 687.

  37. Bach, Marlene Dietrich, 385.

  38. Osborne, Life and Crimes of Agatha Christie, 270.

  39. Patricia Hanson, “Daniel Mandell,” in Pendergast and Pendergast, International Dictionary of Films and Filmmakers, 4:528.

  40. Agatha Christie, Witness for the Prosecution, in The Mousetrap and Other Plays (New York: Dodd, Mead, 1978), 422.

  41. Bach, Marlene Dietrich, 387.

  42. Dick, Billy Wilder, 139.

  43. Paul Bergman and Michael Asimow, Reel Justice: The Courtroom Goes to the Movies (Kansas City, MO: Andrew and McMeel, 1996), 185.

  44. Wood, Bright Side of Billy Wilder, 184.

  45. “Witness for the Prosecution,” in Variety Film Reviews, vol. 11, n.p.; see Lally, Wilder Times, 274.

  46. Homer Dickens, The Complete Films of Marlene Dietrich (New York: Citadel, 1992), 207.

  47. Jeanine Basinger, The Star Machine (New York: Knopf, 2007), 174–75.

  48. Skaerved, Dietrich, 143.

  49. Marlene, documentary, directed by Maximilian Schell (Bayerischer Rundfunk, 1984). Schell was, like Dietrich, a German actor who worked in Hollywood; he won an Oscar for Judgment at Nuremberg (1961).

  50. Donald Spoto, Blue Angel: The Life of Marlene Dietrich (New York: Doubleday, 1992), 264.

  51. Irene Atkins, “Agatha Christie and the Detective Film,” Literature/Film Quarterly 3, no. 3 (1973): 206.

  52. G. C. Ramsey, Agatha Christie: Mistress of Mystery (New York: Dodd, Mead, 1967), 220. One commentator smirked that Wilder only claimed that Christie made this statement; obviously her statement is documented.

  12. THE GANG’S ALL HERE

  1. Dan Auiler, “The Making of Some Like It Hot: Interviews,” in Billy Wilder and I. A. L. Diamond, Some Like It Hot: A Screenplay, ed. Alison Castle (New York: Taschen, 2001), 236.

  2. Gerd Gemünden, A Foreign Affair: Billy Wilder’s American Films (New York: Berghahn Books, 2008), 110–11; see also Lally, Wilder Times, 277.

  3. I. A. L. Diamond, “The Day Marilyn Monroe Needed 47 Takes to Remember to Say, ‘Where’s the Bourbon?’ ” California, December 1985, 132.

  4. Auiler, “Making of Some Like It Hot: Interviews,” 236.

  5. Leaming, Marilyn Monroe, 303; see also Zolotow, Billy Wilder in Hollywood, 202.

  6. Churchwell, Many Lives of Marilyn Monroe, 60.

  7. Leaming, Marilyn Monroe, 303.

  8. Auiler, “Making of Some Like It Hot: Interviews,” 278.

  9. The Making of “Some Like It Hot,
” documentary, directed by Mike Thomas (Sony, 2006). Unless specifically noted otherwise, all quotations from the members of the cast and crew in this chapter are from this source.

  10. Pat O’Brien, interview by author, Columbus, OH, June 14, 1965.

  11. Jerry Vermilye, The Films of the Thirties (New York: Carol, 1993), 131.

  12. O’Brien, interview.

  13. Armstrong, Billy Wilder, 89.

  14. Some Like It Hot, souvenir program (MGM Home Entertainment, 2006); see also Crowe, Conversations with Wilder, 38.

  15. “Billy Wilder,” in Stevens, Conversations, 305–6.

  16. Auiler, “Making of Some Like It Hot: Interviews,” 246.

  17. Zolotow, Billy Wilder in Hollywood, 201; see also Chandler, Nobody’s Perfect, xv.

  18. Madsen, Billy Wilder, 43.

  19. Ibid., 114; see also Gehman, “Charming Billy,” 147.

  20. Auiler, “Making of Some Like It Hot: Interviews,” 160.

  21. Dan Widener, Lemmon: A Biography (New York: Macmillan, 1975), 169.

  22. Tony Curtis, interview by Leonard Maltin, Some Like It Hot, DVD, directed by Billy Wilder (MGM Home Entertainment, 2006).

  23. Chris Lemmon, A Twist of Lemmon: A Tribute to My Father (New York: Algonquin Books, 2006), 43; see also Chandler, Nobody’s Perfect, 211.

  24. Madsen, Billy Wilder, 114.

  25. James Thomas, “Wilder’s Winning Ways,” Daily Express (London), April 19, 1961, 1.

  26. Blowen, “Art of Billy Wilder,” 83; see also “Dialogue on Film: Billy Wilder and I. A. L. Diamond,” 113.

  27. Norman Mailer, Marilyn: A Biography (New York: Grosset and Dunlop, 1973), 17.

  28. Churchwell, Many Lives of Marilyn Monroe, 251.

  29. Leaming, Marilyn Monroe, 313; see also Zolotow, Billy Wilder in Hollywood, 257.

  30. Leaming, Marilyn Monroe, 314.

  31. Alison Castle, introduction to Wilder and Diamond, Some Like It Hot: A Screenplay, 18.

  32. Leaming, Marilyn Monroe, 316; see also Castle, introduction, 18.

  33. Auiler, “Making of Some Like It Hot: Interviews,” 279.

  34. Zolotow, Billy Wilder in Hollywood, 261.

  35. Castle, introduction, 18.

  36. Wood, Bright Side of Billy Wilder, 156.

  37. Tony Curtis and Barry Paris, Tony Curtis: The Autobiography (New York: Morrow, 1993), 162.

  38. Diamond, “Day Marilyn Monroe Needed,” 135.

  39. Leaming, Marilyn Monroe, 318.