A finale on Sunset Boulevard ... Hollywood maestro Wilder dies at 95

The film director Billy Wilder, who more than anyone else combined Hollywood's yearning for movies with meaning with its need for commercial success, has died aged 95.

The news of Wilder's death was released yesterday by George Schlatter, a producer and friend of 40 years.

Schlatter said Wilder had been in poor health recently and he believed the director had been suffering from pneumonia when he died at his Beverley Hills home.

Wilder masterminded some of the darkest and funniest movies Hollywood has produced. His credits include Some Like it Hot, where he despaired of directing Marilyn Monroe, Sunset Boulevard, Hollywood's hardest look at itself, and The Lost Weekend, a searing portrayal of alcoholism. Most directors would have been eulogised at their passing for just one of these classic films. But Wilder was behind these films, and then so many more that generations of film lovers cannot help but praise.

Last night there were a string of anecdotes about the Jewish refugee from Nazism who became such an adroit player in Hollywood's factory of dreams. One was about how Wilder quipped to a woman he was pursuing romantically: "I'd worship the ground you walk on if you lived in a better neighbourhood." That was Audrey Young, who saw beneath his surface and became his second wife, and who survives his death.

Wilder won six Oscars out of a score of nominations. His 1960 movie The Apartment, which he co-wrote and produced, garnered three Academy awards.

His other films included Double Indemnity, The Seven Year Itch, Stalag 17, Witness for the Prosecution, Ace in the Hole, and The Front Page.

"Making movies is a little like walking into a dark room," Wilder once said. "Some people stumble across furniture, others break their legs, but some of us see better in the dark than others. The ultimate trick is to convince, persuade."

He directed, produced or wrote 69 movies over a career that spanned six decades.

Dale Olson, a longtime Hollywood publicist said: "He's the idol of almost every other director who's come along."

He was born Samuel Wilder in Vienna in 1906, and after a stint as a newspaper crime reporter moved to Berlin where he worked as a screenwriter. Once the Nazis took power he fled. His mother, grandmother and stepfather were murdered at Auschwitz.

He arrived in Hollywood in 1934 knowing 100 words of English and started as a screenwriter.

Wilder married Young, a former starlet and band singer, in 1949.

For many years they lived in a spacious penthouse apartment in Westwood, surrounded by works by Picasso, Miro and other masters.

He said there were 10 commandments in his film making philosophy: "The first nine are, thou shalt not bore. The tenth is, thou shalt have the right of final cut."

Like it, or not

Wilder on audiences
"I never overestimate the audience, nor do I underestimate them. I just have a very rational idea as to who we're dealing with, and that we're not making a picture for Harvard law school, we're making a picture for... the people you see on the subway. Just normal people."

On making Some Like It Hot in black and white
"When I run into people they say, 'I saw Some Like It Hot, it was wonderful', and I say, 'How did you like the colour photography?' They say, 'It was great, it was absolutely great'. It's less important than the content of the picture."

On Marilyn Monroe
"She was very tough to work with. But what you had, by hook or crook, once you saw it on the screen, it was just amazing. Amazing, the radiation that came out. And she was, believe it or not, an excellent dialogue actress."