1934 - Billy Wilder becomes a naturalized U.S. citizen

One of Hollywood’s most prolific directors, Billy Wilder was born Samuel Wilder in a part of the Austro-Hungarian empire that is now in modern-day Poland. He went to Vienna as a young man to work as a journalist, a career path took him to Berlin, where he tried his hand at screenwriting. He fled Germany with Hitler’s rise in the 1930s and found himself in Hollywood. He quickly overcame his limited English skills and went on to write and direct such classic films as Double Indemnity, Sunset Boulevard, The Lost Weekend and Some Like it Hot. (© AP Images)