Billy Wilder – NY Times

The Wilder Touch: Both Sweet and Sour

LOS ANGELES — Almost two years ago my wife and I were on our way to Billy Wilder’s 94th birthday party, and we were discussing whether or not to tell Billy that we had named one of our twin boys after him. I suggested we tell him another time. Billy Wilder had been honored in every way imaginable, by countries and academies and consulates and universities, and I was shy about adding our own personal tribute to the stack. We’d tell him another time.

The evening was a great one. It was a small group, marked by old friends and a few new ones — Curtis Hanson, the director and Oscar-winning screenwriter of “L.A. Confidential,” was there, and so was Sam Mendes, who had recently won the Academy Award for directing “American Beauty.” (The birthday boy loved both movies.) My wife, Nancy, sat next to Billy. I sat at the opposite end, with Audrey Wilder, Billy’s cherished wife of 50-plus years. Billy was alive with stories and thoughts about the new century. He had longed to reach the year 2000, and he had surmounted many physical complications to do it. Halfway through the evening, Billy turned to Nancy and asked about our new family. “They’re thriving and wonderful,” she said. “One’s a comedian and one’s very serious. One’s named Curtis.” She paused, and threw the next piece of information far, far away. “One’s named Billy.”

Billy’s eyes danced behind his trademark large glasses. Immediately he asked, “Which one is named after me?”

“The comedian,” said Nancy.

“That’s wonderful,” said Billy proudly. “Just wonderful. That’s very good.”

We toasted, and the party continued for several more hours. But I was sure I’d seen the smallest trace of disappointment in Billy’s reaction. I had at that point spent several years as a collaborator in a series of interviews with him that were published as a book. Over time Billy Wilder, the master director and architect of some of the world’s greatest screen stories, had also become a dear friend. It was a relationship I treasured, and I had come to know some of the nuances lurking within Billy’s legendary wit. Between the comedian and the serious one, I knew he had his eye on the serious one.

I. A. L. Diamond, Billy’s co-writer on his later classics like “The Apartment,” “Some Like It Hot” and others, had famously called the Wilder touch a combination of the sweet and the sour. Billy’s tales had a grand humor and a grand melancholy. Some called it cynicism, but his was a clear-eyed view of life in all its humor and pain. Billy rejected pretension. To him, gems like “Sunset Boulevard” and “Double Indemnity” were simply “pictures.” And when Billy discussed the filmmakers who truly moved him, besides his mentor Ernst Lubitsch, it was often the serious filmmakers like Stanley Kubrick or Federico Fellini who Billy mentioned with a certain awe. (Tellingly, it was Fellini who called Wilder maestro because of the supremely rare and unexpected ways in which his films made Fellini laugh like a schoolboy.)

The comedian in Billy Wilder always knew the best comedy was also serious. The darker rhythms of his pictures were often what made the humor zing. Would “Some Like It Hot” have been the same movie without the ache of Marilyn Monroe’s Sugar? Would the corrosive darkness of “Ace in the Hole” have been as memorable without such laugh lines as “I never go to church; kneeling bags my nylons”? Billy’s screen heroes were often memorable precisely for their ability to laugh through the pain, or smile through tears.

That mix of happy-sad is my own greatest addiction as a filmgoer, and as a director I often looked to Billy for inspiration in attempting that high-wire act of criss-crossing emotions onscreen. But the man himself was not easy to impress. Several years ago, I suffered through a showing of “Almost Famous,” my film set in the early-70’s world of rock, in a studio theater accompanied only by Billy and Audrey Wilder.

The music was often too loud for Billy. I know this because four or five times he thundered, “Too loud!” The air conditioning was also too cold. I know this because he often said, “Too cold!” And perhaps I should add that: Billy was no fan of rock ‘n’ roll, either, with the exception, he said, “maybe of some of the Beatles’ music, though I can’t say which songs or even if you can call them songs.” Watching the film with him was agony. With every strum of a guitar, I felt the clammy hand of disaster. Then came the moment when Kate Hudson, as the discarded groupie Penny Lane, learns she’s been sold for a case of beer. She cries a single tear and then laughs, wiping the tear away and asking with mock casualness: “What kind of beer?”

From the row behind him, I could see Billy’s rather stern look of concentration start to shift. His forehead rose, his lower lip jutted out and then his mouth opened. Out came something I had rarely heard from the man who usually appreciated humor with the silent satisfaction of a wine connoisseur. He laughed. And when the lights came up, he turned to me and said simply: “It’s a wonderful picture. I love the kid, and I love that girl.” I called Kate Hudson from the car, and told her what Billy Wilder had just said. She screamed, and my ears are still ringing.

Wilder’s unique style is imitated by many, and studied by countless film fans. On a worldwide promotional tour for my most recent film, “Vanilla Sky,” there was one constant. Somewhere, at some point, in every country, Wilder fans would appear with foreign editions of our book “Conversations With Wilder.” Through the broken English I could usually decipher two basic questions. One was, “How is Billy doing?” The other was, “How did he do it?”

The answers are essentially the same. Billy had achieved much through an insatiable desire to learn more about life and love and the world. His playful personality kept us all on our toes, even his soul-mate Audrey. The renowned cynic also had a secret — he was a clear-eyed optimist. All around the world, he had touched people with his blend of darkness and light and curiosity. In his own own words, that’s what kept him alive. And that was how he did it.

BILLY WILDER died peacefully on Wednesday, March 27, at 11 p.m. He was at home in his Beverly Hills apartment, filled with his favorite art and artifacts, and, most important, with Audrey at his side. His 96th year had not been easy. Lately he had been in and out of the hospital, always rallying to return home. His doctors had called him the Comeback Kid, and it also applied to his life. Billy Wilder lived long enough to survive innumerable trends, a brief period out of fashion, the sad passing of many close compatriots, and finally he was able to witness his own place in history. Few have ever lived a life as rich, and yet to his friends and fans, Billy Wilder leaves an enormous vacuum.

One of the great gifts of his friendship was the ability to share a meal at one of his favorite haunts. Or to call him on a Sunday afternoon and hear his bright voice on the other end of the line, crisply announcing with mock drama: “I am watching the Dodgers disappoint me again!” I was prepared for the call that came on Thursday, but when it arrived the odd emptiness caught me by surprise.

Later that night, I heard noises in the room occupied by our two sons. It was 1 a.m., and I entered to find them fully awake, chattering and barking at each other through the wooden bars of their cribs. I stood listening to their first real conversation with each other, the comedian and the serious one. The blend of their two very different voices sounded something close to an essential truth. It was the sweet and the sour. The canvas on which Billy Wilder painted his masterpieces. Soon, we all began to laugh.

The director Cameron Crowe is finishing the script for a new romantic comedy.

Courtesy of The NY Times – Cameron Crowe – April 7, 2002