TIWH: June 30th

June 30, 2010 | by Daniella Flores

June 30, 1949
Billy Wilder & Audrey Young

Not much is known about this famous director and the former actress and singer. What is known is that Billy Wilder and Audrey Young met on the set of the 1945 film The Lost Weekend, in which Young played a bit-part as a hat-check girl.

She had been entirely cut out of the film–well, almost. Her arm was the only thing left onscreen, the arm that handed actor Ray Milland his hat.

“I only saw the arm, and I fell in love with the arm,” Wilder stated as he recalled the editing process.

Wilder began an affair with Young while still married to his first wife, Judith Iribe. During that time Young was still living with her parents in the La Brea area in Los Angeles.

Wilder would tell her, “I would worship the ground you walk on, Audrey, if only you lived in a better neighbourhood.”

The couple married in 1949 and remained together until Wilder’s death in 2002. Though he had a daughter from his marriage to Iribe, he and Young had no children.