DIRECTOR · BORN 1902 · DIED 1981
William Wyler
- Born
- 1 July 1902, Mülhausen, Alsace-Lorraine, German Empire [now Mulhouse, Haut-Rhin, France]
- Died
- 27 July 1981
- Known for
- The Best Years of Our Lives (1946), Dodsworth (1936), The Oscars (1953), Five Came Back (2017)
36 archived facts 4 topics 1 source Last reviewed Sep 2026
11 Facts From William Wyler's Career
- #001
William Wyler directed 31 different actors in Oscar-nominated performances, more than any other director: Bonita Granville, Walter Huston, Maria Ouspenskaya, Claire Trevor, Bette Davis, Fay Bainter, Laurence Olivier, Geraldine Fitzgerald, Walter Brennan, James Stephenson, Patricia Collinge, Teresa Wright, Greer Garson, Walter Pidgeon, Henry Travers, May Whitty, Fredric March, Harold Russell, Olivia de Havilland, Ralph Richardson, Eleanor Parker, Lee Grant, Audrey Hepburn, Eddie Albert, Anthony Perkins, Burl Ives, Charlton Heston, Hugh Griffith, Samantha Eggar, Barbra Streisand and Kay Medford. Davis, Bainter, Brennan, Wright, Garson, March, Russell, de Havilland, Hepburn, Ives, Heston, Griffith and Streisand won Oscars for one of their performances in a Wyler film.
- #002
Laurence Olivier said Wyler taught him how to act in films. During the shooting of Wuthering Heights (1939), Wyler constantly pushed Olivier after many takes, with jibes such as "Lousy!" When Olivier asked the director, notorious for not communicating with actors, what he wanted, Wyler replied: "Stop trying to reach the third balcony of the Manchester Opera House." Olivier reined in his tendency to grandstand and earned the first of his 10 acting Oscar nominations for the role. Olivier had scorned cinema, but after working with Wyler he began to respect the medium.
- #004
Laurence Olivier asked Wyler to direct Henry V (1944), for which the British government allowed him to film serving members of the Royal Naval Air Service to boost public morale. Wyler, then in England as the officer in charge of the US Army Signal Corps film unit attached to the US Army Air Forces, turned down the offer and told Olivier to direct the film himself. Still regarded as the finest film adaptation of Shakespeare, "Henry V" earned Olivier a special Oscar and his third Best Actor nomination.
- #005
Wyler directed thirteen films nominated for the Best Picture Oscar: Dodsworth (1936), Dead End (1937), Jezebel (1938), Wuthering Heights (1939), The Letter (1940), The Little Foxes (1941), Mrs. Miniver (1942), The Best Years of Our Lives (1946), The Heiress (1949), Roman Holiday (1953), Friendly Persuasion (1956), Ben-Hur (1959) and Funny Girl (1968). Mrs. Miniver, The Best Years of Our Lives and Ben-Hur won the category. He is the only person to have won three Best Picture Oscars.
- #007
After directing her Oscar-winning performance in Jezebel (1938), Bette Davis credited Wyler with making her a box-office star.
- #009
According to screenwriter Joe Eszterhas's 2004 autobiography "American Animal," producer Martin Ransohoff removed three-time Oscar-winning director Wyler from The Americanization of Emily (1964) because Wyler wanted to change Paddy Chayefsky's screenplay. It was a rare instance of a producer backing a screenwriter over a director of Wyler's caliber. Since Chayefsky, himself an Oscar winner, was known to write contractual guarantees protecting his screenplays into his contracts, Ransohoff may have had no choice but to replace Wyler with Arthur Hiller.
- #011
Wyler's friendship with actor Gregory Peck nearly ended during the stressful shoot of The Big Country (1958), where the two men clashed so often that they barely spoke by the end of production, and Wyler was reported to have told the press he would never make another film with Peck. The pair repaired their friendship a year later, after Wyler's Oscar win for Ben-Hur (1959), but they never worked together again.
- #015
Wyler is one of four directors to have directed Oscar-winning performances in all four acting categories. The others are Elia Kazan, Hal Ashby and Martin Scorsese.
- #019
Wyler directed ten films selected by the Library of Congress for the National Film Registry as "culturally, historically or aesthetically significant": Dodsworth (1936), Jezebel (1938), Wuthering Heights (1939), Mrs. Miniver (1942), The Memphis Belle: A Story of a Flying Fortress (1944), The Best Years of Our Lives (1946), The Heiress (1949), Roman Holiday (1953), Ben-Hur (1959) and Funny Girl (1968).
- #022
Wyler received a record twelve Oscar nominations for Best Director: Dodsworth (1936), Wuthering Heights (1939), The Letter (1940), The Little Foxes (1941), Mrs. Miniver (1942), The Best Years of Our Lives (1946), The Heiress (1949), Detective Story (1951), Roman Holiday (1953), Friendly Persuasion (1956), Ben-Hur (1959) and The Collector (1965), winning for Mrs. Miniver (1942), The Best Years of Our Lives (1946) and Ben-Hur (1959).
- #025
With twelve nominations, Wyler became the most-nominated director in Oscar history, but he won only three times.
Sources & editorial notes
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