Claim: Billy Wilder is a film director.

Samuel `` Billy '' Wilder -LSB- ˈwaɪldər -RSB- -LSB- ˈvɪldɐ -RSB- -LRB- June 22 , 1906March 27 , 2002 -RRB- was an Austrian-born Jewish-American filmmaker , screenwriter , producer , artist , and journalist whose career spanned more than five decades . He is regarded as one of the most brilliant and versatile filmmakers of Hollywood 's golden age . With The Apartment , Wilder became the first person to win Academy Awards as producer , director , and screenwriter for the same film .   Wilder became a screenwriter in the late 1920s while living in Berlin . After the rise of the Nazi Party , he left for Paris , where he made his directorial debut . He moved to Hollywood in 1933 , and in 1939 he had a hit when he co-wrote the screenplay for the romantic comedy Ninotchka , starring Greta Garbo . Wilder established his directorial reputation with an adaption of James M. Cain 's Double Indemnity -LRB- 1944 -RRB- , a film noir . Wilder co-wrote the screenplay with crime novelist Raymond Chandler . Wilder earned the Best Director and Best Screenplay Academy Awards for the adaptation of a Charles R. Jackson story The Lost Weekend -LRB- 1945 -RRB- , about alcoholism . In 1950 , Wilder co-wrote and directed the critically acclaimed Sunset Boulevard , as well as Stalag 17 in 1953 .   From the mid-1950s on , Wilder made mostly comedies . Among the classics Wilder created in this period are the farces The Seven Year Itch -LRB- 1955 -RRB- and Some Like It Hot -LRB- 1959 -RRB- , and satires such as The Apartment -LRB- 1960 -RRB- . He directed fourteen different actors in Oscar-nominated performances . Wilder was recognized with the American Film Institute -LRB- AFI -RRB- Life Achievement Award in 1986 . In 1988 , Wilder was awarded the Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award . In 1993 , he was awarded the National Medal of Arts .