He was one of the greatest film directors dealing with musicals. In decades of work Wise has provedto be able to take many different paths and always with great skill and professionalism. He was born on September 10, 1914 in Winchester, Indiana. Third of three brothers from a German-Dutch family, at the age of 19 he enteredat the RKO Pictures. In 1941 he edited nothing less than Orson Welles’ masterpiece Citizen Kane. He has also been an added director in the controversial The Magnificent Ambersonsin 1942. Between 1944 and 1945 he directed two very great classics of horror cinema as The Curse of the Cat People and The Body Snatcher. Another cult classic of 1949, The Set-Up,takes place in the boxing world, while in 1951 he directed a cult science fiction film, The Day the Earth Stood Still. Until then movies had been considered second class and Wise took his leap in 1956 with the film Somebody Up There Likes Me with Paul Newman, for whom this was the second cinema movie (after The Silver Chalice, and a lot of TV appearances) and the first as the leading role. In 1961 it was the turn of West Side Storyfor which he won the first two Oscars for Best Director and Best Picture. He also got Susan Hayward re-evaluated and she won an Academy Award in 1958 for the great anti-death penalty movie I Want to Live!. Wise didn’t lose sight of his B series-movies always filmed with great zeal, but he gave another great jibeto Hollywoodin 1965 with The Sound of Music with Julie Andrews (the beloved Mary Poppins) for which he won two more Academy Awards for directing and producing. We should also mention the science fictionmovies The Andromeda Strain and the first Star Trekmotion picture, and the horror films The Haunting and Audrey Rose. He died in 2005 at the age of 91 and his last famous film isRooftopsin 1989.
