Robert Wise

In 2019 he was credited as one of the Co-Executive Producers of Unsolved Mysteries (2020), about 14 years after his death in 2005.

Interviewed in "Conversations with Directors: An Anthology of Interviews from Literature/Film Quarterly", E.M. Walker, D.T. Johnson, eds. Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press (2008).

Retrospective at the 53rd San Sebastián International Film Festival in Spain (2005).

Biography in: "The Scribner Encyclopedia of American Lives". Volume 7, 2003-2005, pages 582-584. Farmington Hills, MI: Thomson Gale (2007).

Received the American Film Institute Lifetime Achievement Award (1998).

Interviewed in "It Came from Horrorwood: Interviews with Moviemakers in the SF and Horror Tradition" by Tom Weaver (McFarland, 1996).

He was awarded the American National Medal of the Arts by the National Endowment of the Arts in Washington, D.C. (1992).

Attended and graduated from Connersville High School in Connersville, Indiana (1932). On November 3, 1990, the Robert E. Wise Center for Performing Arts in the high school's auditorium was named in his honor.

His last theatrical film, Rooftops (1989), proved that he was a filmmaker still in full command of his craft in his 80s. The carefully composed images, tight editing, and unflagging pace make one wish that Wise had not stayed away from the camera for very long.

Accepted the Oscar for "Best Actor in a Leading Role" on behalf of Paul Newman, who was absent from the awards ceremony, for his performance in The Color of Money (1986) (1987).

From 1985 - 1988, he was President of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS).

Awarded honorary membership in the Society of Operating Cameramen (SOC) (1982).

He was convinced to accept the position as director of Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979) by his wife Millicent Wise, who was a huge fan of Star Trek: The Original Series (1966). His wife was also instrumental in convincing him to campaign Leonard Nimoy for the project.

From 1971 - 1975, he was President of the Directors Guild of America (DGA), and later also headed the Special Projects Committee for 24 years.

Agreed to direct The Sound of Music (1965) after it had been abandoned by William Wyler on the condition that 20th Century Fox agree to finance The Sand Pebbles (1966). Wise, who also produced the musical, won his second Best Director Oscar and the Best Picture Oscar. The next year, "The Sand Pebbles" was nominated for Best Picture and Wise was awarded the Irving Thalberg Award, the highest honor for producers.

When he and Jerome Robbins won the Best Director Oscar in 1962 for West Side Story (1961), it was the first time that a directing Oscar was shared among collaborators.

Only four times in Academy Award history have director-collaborators been nominated for Best Directing Oscars: Wise and Jerome Robbins for West Side Story (1961), Warren Beatty and Buck Henry for Heaven Can Wait (1978), and Joel Coen and Ethan Coen for No Country for Old Men (2007). (Wise/Robbins and the Coens actually won the award). In 2011, the Coens were again nominated for a best directing-duo, for their Western True Grit (2010).

He was awarded a Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6340 Hollywood Boulevard in Hollywood, California on February 8, 1960.

In preparation for the scene in I Want to Live! (1958) in which Susan Hayward's character is executed, Wise attended a real execution.

He has directed three films that have been selected for the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically or aesthetically" significant: Day the Earth Stood Still, The (1951), West Side Story (1961) and The Sound of Music (1965). He has also edited three films that are in the registry: Dance, Girl, Dance (1940), Citizen Kane (1941) and The Magnificent Ambersons (1942).

When his first assignment under his 20th Century-Fox contract was shelved, his first film under his new deal was a loan-out to Warner Brothers for Three Secrets (1950).

Around 1941, Orson Welles was in need of an editor for Citizen Kane (1941), and Wise did a splendid job. Welles really liked his work and ideas. Wise started as a director with some B-movies, and his career went on quickly, and he made many classic movies.

His favorite film is Cecil B. DeMille's epic The Ten Commandments (1923).

Robert Earl Wise was born on September 10, 1914 in Winchester, Indiana, the youngest of three sons of Olive R. (Longenecker) and Earl Waldo Wise, a meat packer. His parents were both of Pennsylvania Dutch (German) descent. At age nineteen, the avid moviegoer came into the film business through an odd job at RKO Radio Pictures. A head sound effects editor at the studio recognized Wise's talent, and made Wise his protégé.

Biography in: John Wakeman, editor. "World Film Directors, Volume One, 1890-1945." Pages 1210-1219. New York: The H.W. Wilson Company (1987).