William Wyler

William Wyler (1902-1981) was one of the most honored and successful directors from Hollywood's Golden Age. One of the film industry's most influential artists he received three Academy Awards twelve nominations for his direction and five nominations for his work as a producer. No film director in history has guided more actors to Academy Award nominations (thirty-one). During his fifty-year career he directed some of Hollywood's most enduring films­-among them Ben-Hur Jezebel The Letter The Little Foxes Mrs. Miniver Wuthering Heights the documentary Memphis Belle and the musical Funny Girl. William Wyler: Interviews spans his career and includes three previously unpublished exchanges. Despite the accolades Wyler has not received the kind of academic and critical appraisal lavished on contemporaries such as John Ford Orson Welles Frank Capra George Stevens and Billy Wilder. In his later interviews he seems good-natured about this neglect but it clearly rankled. He dismisses detractors by explaining that he was always interested in trying out new forms variety being more important to him than mining the same territory.Gabriel Miller is professor of English at Rutgers University Newark. He has published books on Daniel Fuchs John Irving Clifford Odets and Fred Zinnemann and he is the author of The Films of Martin Ritt: Fanfare for the Common Man (University Press of Mississippi).