Billy Wilder

Wilder found himself in the middle of Hollywood's intrusion into the Sinclair campaign for governor. Studios deducted from paychecks a contribution to Sinclair's opponent! Wilder, a struggling writer new to the country, found his paycheck short.

Take the young writer Billy Wilder over at the Fox studio, for example. Wilder, who was still trying to salvage Raoul Walsh's “East River,” received his latest paycheck, normally $250, only to find $50 missing. "There's something wrong," Billy said to the studio cashier in his heavily accented English. "There's been a mistake." "There was no mistake," she replied. "They took fifty dollars from everyone to give to Governor Merriam. If you have any complaints, talk to Mr. Sheehan." Billy didn't know what this was all about, but he knew one thing: he desperately needed that fifty dollars to make the rent on his tiny room at the Chateau Marmont and to pay for his English lessons.

Grave of Billy Wilder

"Shouldn't I have the privilege of making the donation myself?" Billy asked innocently. "No, the house is burning down," the exec said, "and we need as much water as possible to put it out. That son of a bitch bolshevik Sinclair must be stopped." "And my hard-earned fifty dollars is going to stop him?" Wilder wondered. Billy was aghast. It seemed childish, foolish, and incipiently fascist at the same time. And he knew something about fascism.

Wilder was out of fifty dollars and left with two conflicting thoughts concerning the forced donations. One was: It may not be democratic, but it's a brilliant idea. Maybe if businessmen in Germany had deducted fifty marks from their workers to stop Hitler, Europe would be a safer place today. The other was: I fled fascism for THIS?