William Wyler (
/ˈwaɪlər/; born
Willi Wyler (German:
[ˈvɪli ˈvi:lɐ]); July 1, 1902 – July 27, 1981) was a Swiss-German-American film director and producer who won the
Academy Award for Best Director three times, those being for
Mrs. Miniver (1942),
The Best Years of Our Lives (1946), and
Ben-Hur (1959), all of which also won for
Best Picture. In total, he holds a record twelve nominations for the Academy Award for Best Director.
Born in Alsace, then in Germany, but later part of France, Wyler was a troublemaker in the schools of his youth. He immigrated to United States in 1921, working first for Universal Studios in New York before moving to Los Angeles. By 1925, he was the youngest director at Universal, and in 1929 he directed
Hell's Heroes, Universal's first sound production filmed entirely on location. In 1936, he earned his first nomination for the Academy Award for Best Director for
Dodsworth, starring
Walter Huston,
Ruth Chatterton and
Mary Astor, "sparking a 20-year run of almost unbroken greatness."
He helped propel a number of actors to stardom, including finding and directing
Audrey Hepburn in her debut starring role,
Roman Holiday (1953), and directing
Barbra Streisand in her debut film,
Funny Girl (1968), both winning Academy Awards.
Olivia de Havilland and
Bette Davis both won their second Oscar in Wyler films, de Havilland for
The Heiress (1949) and Davis for
Jezebel (1938). Davis said Wyler made her a "far, far better actress" than she had ever been, while
Laurence Olivier, who received his first Oscar nomination for Wyler's
Wuthering Heights (1939), credited Wyler with teaching him how to act for the screen. Wyler's three Best Picture-winning films each featured a Best Actress or
Actor Oscar winner -
Greer Garson in
Mrs Miniver,
Fredric March in
The Best Years of Our Lives, and
Charlton Heston in
Ben-Hur. Other popular Wyler films include:
The Westerner (1940) with
Gary Cooper,
The Letter (1940) again with Davis,
Detective Story (1951) with
Kirk Douglas,
Friendly Persuasion (1956) with Cooper and
Dorothy McGuire,
The Big Country (1958) with
Gregory Peck and Heston,
The Children's Hour (1961) with Hepburn,
Shirley MacLaine and
James Garner, and
How to Steal a Million (1966) with Hepburn and
Peter O'Toole.
Film historian
Ian Freer calls Wyler a "
bona fide perfectionist", whose penchant for retakes and an attempt to hone every last nuance "became the stuff of legend." His ability to direct a string of classic literary adaptations into huge box-office and critical successes made him one of "
Hollywood's most bankable moviemakers" from the 1930s to the 1960s. Through his talent for staging, editing, and camera movement, he turned dynamic theatrical spaces into cinematic ones. For his work Wyler was awarded the
Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award for career achievement, the
Directors Guild of America Lifetime Achievement Award, and the
American Film Institute Life Achievement Award.