That Time I Met Billy Wilder
He was donating a bunch of stuff to USC's Film School. Tom and I were told to go meet him and haul the stuff he was donating. It was mostly junk, some old beat up cases. One jewel stood out.
My buddy Tom (Johnson) and I got to meet Billy Wilder when we were in film school. He was donating a bunch of stuff to USC and Tom and I were told to go meet him and haul the stuff he was donating back to USC. We went up to this old Post-Production place in Hollywood, met the owner and waited, for Billy to show up.
The stuff was mostly junk, some old beat up film cases, stuff like that.
A jewel stood out among the crap. It was Billy Wilder's personal upright Moviola (film editing machine). An old black model (the later ones were mostly green) probably out of the early 1950's with his initials painted in script on the side. Now that was cool.
(The photo is not his actual Moviola, just an example about the same vintage)
Billy Wilder finally shows up driving this huge mid 1970's Cadillac El Dorado.
The car was enormous and when Billy got out he was tiny. He introduces himself to us, like we didn't know who he was. He is one of my favorite writer/directors of all time. I was dying to ask him a ton of questions about his films.
He takes a look at the stuff stacked up in this room and asks the owner where the rest of it is? The guy says this is every thing.
The owner and Billy get into this shouting match and Wilder is screaming at him, “You’re ripping me off! Where is all of the good stuff?” For a writer known for his rapid fire dialogue and witty reparte’ this was pretty unimpressive. Just shouting and swearing. Not even a memorable insult…
This goes on for a good 10 minutes. All this time Tom and I are dutifully loading the truck and trying to stay out of this argument. Finally the owner of the place throws up his hands and storms away.
Billy comes over to us and apologizes, although he keeps calling this guy a thief and a crook.
He tells us we look like nice kids.
We look like thugs! I have a long pony tail and a bushy black beard, Tom has long flaming red hair and a big red beard,
Billy pulls a twenty dollar bill out of his wallet and tells us to have a nice lunch on him. Then he gets into his whale of a Cadillac and drives off.
Tom and I never got to ask him a single question. But we met him.
Of course I wrote a story about this adventiure, which is featured in my book, Dennis Barton Is A Bastard And Other Stories.
Recently my friend and fellow alumni, Ammiel Najar, told me Billy’s Moviola is now on display at USC.
Follow this link to read the full story, Billy Wilder Is Crazy, with a few embellishments of course…
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