Editing Billy Wilder (section)

===Early work===
[[File:Douglas-Ninotchka.jpg|right|thumb|175px|[[Greta Garbo]] and [[Melvyn Douglas]] in ''[[Ninotchka]]'']]
After writing crime and sports stories as a [[Stringer (journalism)|stringer]] for local newspapers, he was eventually offered a regular job at a Berlin [[Tabloid (newspaper format)|tabloid]]. Developing an interest in film, he began working as a screenwriter. From 1929 to 1933, he produced twelve German films. He collaborated with several other novices ([[Fred Zinnemann]] and [[Robert Siodmak]]) on the 1930 film ''[[Menschen am Sonntag|People on Sunday]]''. Eschewing the [[German Expressionism (cinema)|German Expressionist]] styles of [[F. W. Murnau]] and [[Fritz Lang]], ''People on Sunday'' was considered as a groundbreaking example of the [[Neue Sachlichkeit]] or [[New Objectivity]] movement in German cinema. Furthermore, this genre of Strassenfilm ("street film") paved way to the birth of [[Italian neorealism]] and the [[French New Wave]].<ref name="Hamrah_AS" /> He wrote the screenplay for the 1931 film adaptation of a novel by [[Erich Kästner]], ''[[Emil and the Detectives (1931 film)|Emil and the Detectives]]'', also screenplays for the comedy ''[[The Man in Search of His Murderer]]'' (1931), the operetta ''[[Her Grace Commands]]'' (1931) and the comedy ''[[A Blonde Dream]]'' (1932), all of them produced in the [[Babelsberg Studio]]s in [[Potsdam]] near Berlin.<ref name="100 Facts about Babelsberg">{{cite book|author=Stielke, Sebastian|title=100 Facts about Babelsberg – Cradle of movie and modern media city|publisher=bebra Verlag|year=2021|isbn=978-3-86124-746-3}}</ref> In 1932, Wilder collaborated with the writer and journalist Felix Salten on the screenplay for "Scampolo".<ref>Jacques Le Rider, "Les Juifs viennois á la Belle Époque," Paris: Albin Michel, 2013, p. 194</ref> After [[Adolf Hitler's rise to power]], Wilder went to Paris, where he made his directorial debut film ''[[Mauvaise Graine]]'' (1934). He relocated to Hollywood prior to its release.{{Citation needed|date=June 2013}} Wilder's mother, grandmother and stepfather were all victims of the [[Holocaust]]. For decades it was assumed that it happened at [[Auschwitz Concentration Camp]], but, while researching Polish and Israeli archives, his Austrian biographer Andreas Hutter discovered in 2011 that they were murdered in different locations: his mother, Eugenia "Gitla" Siedlisker, in 1943 at [[Plaszow concentration camp|Plaszow]]; his stepfather, Bernard "Berl" Siedlisker, in 1942 at [[Belzec concentration camp|Belzec]]; and his grandmother, Balbina Baldinger, died in 1943 in the ghetto in [[Nowy Targ]].<ref>{{cite news|url=http://www.nzz.ch/aktuell/feuilleton/film/gitla-stand-nicht-auf-schindlers-liste-1.12844017|title=Gitla stand nicht auf Schindlers Liste|author=Andreas Hutter and Heinz Peters|newspaper=Neue Zürcher Zeitung |date=October 6, 2011|publisher=[[Neue Zuercher Zeitung]]|language=de}}</ref>

After arriving in Hollywood in 1934, Wilder continued working as a screenwriter. He became a naturalized citizen of the United States in 1939, having spent time in Mexico waiting for the government after his six-month card expired in 1934, an episode reflected in his 1941 ''[[Hold Back the Dawn]]''.<ref name="Armstrong2004">{{cite book |first=Richard |last=Armstrong |title=Billy Wilder, American Film Realist |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=pYuACgAAQBAJ&pg=PA9 |date=2004 |page=9 |publisher=[[McFarland & Company]] |isbn=978-0-7864-2119-0}}</ref> Wilder's first significant success was ''[[Ninotchka]]'', a collaboration with fellow German immigrant [[Ernst Lubitsch]]. The [[romantic comedy]] starred [[Greta Garbo]] (generally known as a [[tragedy|tragic]] heroine in film [[melodrama]]s), and was popularly and critically acclaimed. With the byline "Garbo Laughs!", it also took Garbo's career in a new direction. The film marked Wilder's first Academy Award nomination, which he shared with co-writer [[Charles Brackett]] (although their collaboration on ''[[Bluebeard's Eighth Wife]]'' and ''[[Midnight (1939 film)|Midnight]]'' had been well received). Wilder co-wrote many of his films with Brackett from 1938 to 1950. Brackett described their collaboration process: "The thing to do was suggest an idea, have it torn apart and despised. In a few days it would be apt to turn up, slightly changed, as Wilder's idea. Once I got adjusted to that way of working, our lives were simpler."<ref>Brackett, Charles, It's the Pictures That Got Small, Columbia University Press, 2015, pg. 92</ref>