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The film industry lost one of its legends on March 27, when writer-director Billy Wilder passed away at his Beverly Hills home. Wilder had been suffering from pneumonia. He was 95.

Born Samuel Wilder in Sucha, Austria-Hungary (now a part of Poland), he wrote or co-wrote more than 50 films and directed 25 Hollywood movies in a wide variety of genres. He won 21 Academy Awards (12 for writing, 8 for directing, and 1 for producing The Apartment). The filmmaker came to the United States in 1934 as the Nazis were consolidating their power in Germany. He knew almost no English when he arrived, but within his first year was selling stories to the film studios. His first screenplay credit was 1939's Midnight, a romantic comedy starring Claudette Colbert, Don Ameche, and John Barrymore. His first American directing credit was for 1942's The Major and the Minor, a wartime romantic comedy.

Wilder went on to create some of the most unforgettable films made in the mid-20th century, including 1945's The Lost Weekend, a riveting examination of alcoholism that won him Academy Awards for Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Screenplay—which Wilder co-authored. Ray Milland also won Best Actor for his portrayal of an alcoholic on a four-day bender. Wilder was at his peak in the 1950s and '60s, creating such classics as 1950's Sunset Blvd., 1953's Stalag 17, 1954's Sabrina, 1959's Some Like It Hot, 1960's The Apartment, and 1963's Irma La Douce. Wilder was equally at home with comedy or drama, and was famous for his willingness to delve into previously forbidden territory in either genre.

In the early 1950s, Wilder held the rank of colonel in the US Army, which was then occupying West Germany. His job was to prevent former Nazis from making or performing in new films or theatrical productions. Wilder continued to make films through the late 1970s, but never achieved the success he had reached during the fifties and sixties. In 1991, New York Times film critic Vincent Canby described Wilder as "the brightest, wittiest, most perceptive, most resourceful and most long-lived film talent of his generation."

In addition to numerous Academy Awards, Wilder was honored by his peers in 1979 at the Cannes International Film Festival, where The Lost Weekend had won the Palme d'Or in 1945. He won a Writers' Guild Laurel Award in 1980, a tribute from the Film Society of Lincoln Center in 1982, and the American Film Institute's Life Achievement Award in 1986. In 1987, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences presented him with an Irving Thalberg Award for his many contributions to the industry. Wilder often said he would trade all his awards for the opportunity to make one more film.

He died the same week that saw the passing of early-television comedian Milton Berle and film actor and pianist/composer Dudley Moore. Wilder's filmography can be viewed on the Internet Movie Database.