21 VIEWS OF BILLY WILDER'S APARTMENT--(NOT THE MOVIE!)

By Raymond De Felitta -

Yes, it's true. Billy Wilder's Wilshire Blvd. cooperative apartment--his home from 1957 until his death in 2002--is up for sale. In fact a deal seems to be pending on it as I write this. His wife, the glammy Audrey, stayed on for another ten years until her death last year and now whoever controls the estate is letting the place go for a very reasonable million bucks and change.

Click here to view the listing. And if you want to know why this is of special interest to me, click here to read one of my more obsessive and interesting posts. For years I wondered why the Wilders lived in this relatively modest abode--surrounded, of course, by his incredibly immodest art collection--and now that I've seen the place firsthand (confession: I pretended to be an interested would-be buyer and wasted a very nice real estate agents time one afternoon a few weeks ago), I can honestly say: I have no idea why they chose to live in this relatively modest abode. It's not that it's not a pleasant place. It's just so very...simple...of its time...even a little limited.

Indeed, there are larger (and frankly more suitable) apartments in the building that Audrey and Billy might have chosen and for some reason it frustrates me that they didn't. The building has penthouses with big terraces and views--a very suitable urban retreat for a world class filmmaker (see below video tour). But that isn't the apartment they went for. (They were among the initial buyers in the building, so we can't use the "maybe they weren't available" excuse). There are even larger units on the non-penthouse floors as well--several with front and side window exposures. But that's not where Audrey and Billy selected to live either. Instead, the Wilder's place is in the center of the building, thus allowing only front window exposures. Though there was a terrace, at some point it was enclosed. The kitchen is small, the living room modest and the views--though they at one time must have been semi-impressive--now look onto neighboring Wilshire Blvd. apartment buildings--and larger and newer ones at that.

The pictures you see displayed on the above link show the place "staged"--i.e., furnished by the realty company with rented stuff to give the environs a lived in, sleeked-up air. Interestingly they chose to stage it with pieces and paintings quasi-similar to the one's the Wilders owned--though I hasten to add that the stuff pictured is entirely knock-off quality and the attempt at emulating Wilder's impressive taste falls quite seriously short. However, several portraits of Wilder were hanging in the place when I paid my visit a few weeks ago and there was a charming framed picture of Audrey and Billy from the late fifties in their bedroom--about the time they moved there.

Perhaps the most notable (and charmingly eccentric) feature of the place was the master bedroom/bathroom suite. Apparently the Wilders purchased a small adjacent apartment and turned this into their bed/bath commode. The dressing room takes up most of the space (it's well documented visually above). An enormous tub. Counters and closets galore. Dressing areas. Walk-ins. Seating areas. And then, off of all of that, a smallish bedroom. It made me smile as I thought of one of my favorite Wilder anecdotes. While shooting "Love In the Afternoon" in Paris (in 1957--the year they moved into this apartment), Audrey--back in LA and decorating the place--wrote to Billy to bring back a bidet for their luxe new bathroom. Wilder wired back: "UNABLE TO OBTAIN BIDET. STOP. SUGGEST YOU DO HANDSTANDS IN SHOWER."







 Subscribe in a reader

Popular posts from this blog

'BE BIG'--A LAUREL AND HARDY MISSING SCENE

By Raymond De Felitta -
Image
Having very much enjoyed 'Stan and Ollie', the Laurel and Hardy biopic, I've been immersed for the past few days in gathering up the shards of unseen L&H material that for some reason I've missed over the years. Mostly this consists of their silent films, which I never had any real interest in--what are L&H without their voices? Well, I was wrong. The silents are delightful and I'm plowing through them at a rapid rate. Then there are the lousy Fox films of the early-mid forties of which I've only seen two--'Jitterbugs' and 'The Bullfighters' and which, honestly, I feel it might be better off to avoid. L&H without Hal Roach simply were not themselves--I have a feeling that Stan would have resented hearing that, but Roach provided them with the freedom to work at their best and most comfortable level (and beside, he had that Marvin Hatley music). Then there are the multi language shorts which are interesting to behold, in a limited ...
Read more

LUCY AND RICKY: THE NEW YORK YEARS

By Raymond De Felitta -
Image
Above is one of the strangest show-biz artifacts I've ever come across. Apparently there is a Lucy/Desi museum in Jamestown New York (birthplace of both Lucille Ball and Lucy Ricardo). Among the large collection of memorabilia is a full reconstruction of the set of the Ricardo's apartment. Above you'll see a short, shaky but quite delightful look at it. It's in color too, thus giving the much-viewed set a strikingly strange reality. The spinet piano is there, residing in the center of the room under the bay window, as is the fireplace, the couch, the kitchen--the whole sheer. I always loved the way the address of the building changed from episode to episode (though it was always on East 68th Street). I also dug how loopy the floorplan was. The Mertz's building was a brownstone which would have been no more than 20 feet wide, but somehow the three rooms are stretched out over a space that would have to be at least 40 feet wide, with the kitchen incongruously on a...
Read more

VETERANS DAY SPECIAL PT. 2: VISIT A PARK IN 1930

By Raymond De Felitta -
Image
Above is another one of those priceless documentary looks at New York life in the late 20s/early 30s courtesy of the Fox Movietone News camera, an early sound-on-film system that enabled recordings of everyday life and events without having to set up cumbersome equipment which in turn would usually freeze the on-camera participants--these glimpses feature entirely natural behavior of people who are only dimly aware at best that they're being filmed. Here we see a group of children, ages 5-7 roughly, playing in a park on West End Avenue and 106th Street in January of 1930. A teacher leads them in a couple of songs while their mothers sit by on the benches, wearing those funny 1920s Cloche women's hats that so symbolize 20s fashion that to wear one now would be a clear indication that you were on your way to a 1920s themed party. What has this to do with Veterans Day you may ask? As I estimated the children's ages as I did, that would mean they were born somewhere between...
Read more