Actress, Singer. A Big Band performer and veteran of about two dozen movies from the late 1940s, she is better remembered via her long marriage to legendary filmmaker Billy Wilder. Raised in Southern California, she was a part time model when she joined Paramount as a contract player and made her silver screen bow in the 1944 "Lady in the Dark." Audrey met Wilder on the set of 1944's Oscar-winner "The Lost Weekend," from which her scene as a hat check girl was cut, though just when a romance developed is unclear as Audrey continued being seen in such features as "Out of this World" (1945), the 1946 "Blue Skies," "Danger Street" (1947), and 1949's Easy Living," and had just finished a gig with the Tommy Dorsey Band when she married Wilder in 1949. From then on she was mostly 'Mrs. Billy Wilder' though she did make one more flick, appearing as a jungle girl in 1955's "Love Me or Leave Me," and was to be a costume consultant on Wilder's "Some Like it Hot" (1959) and 1960's "The Apartment." Following her husband's death Audrey returned his six Oscars to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences so that they could be kept together and also donated $5 million to found the Billy Wilder Theater at UCLA's Hammer Museum. She lived out her days in Westwood and at her death some of her performances were preserved on DVD.
Actress, Singer. A Big Band performer and veteran of about two dozen movies from the late 1940s, she is better remembered via her long marriage to legendary filmmaker Billy Wilder. Raised in Southern California, she was a part time model when she joined Paramount as a contract player and made her silver screen bow in the 1944 "Lady in the Dark." Audrey met Wilder on the set of 1944's Oscar-winner "The Lost Weekend," from which her scene as a hat check girl was cut, though just when a romance developed is unclear as Audrey continued being seen in such features as "Out of this World" (1945), the 1946 "Blue Skies," "Danger Street" (1947), and 1949's Easy Living," and had just finished a gig with the Tommy Dorsey Band when she married Wilder in 1949. From then on she was mostly 'Mrs. Billy Wilder' though she did make one more flick, appearing as a jungle girl in 1955's "Love Me or Leave Me," and was to be a costume consultant on Wilder's "Some Like it Hot" (1959) and 1960's "The Apartment." Following her husband's death Audrey returned his six Oscars to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences so that they could be kept together and also donated $5 million to found the Billy Wilder Theater at UCLA's Hammer Museum. She lived out her days in Westwood and at her death some of her performances were preserved on DVD.
Bio by: Bob Hufford
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