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]
After collaborating closely and happily on the editing of Citizen Kane (1941) with Orson Welles, Wise was assigned to edit The Magnificent Ambersons (1942). When Welles left the country following the filming of that film, Though Wise initially refused the assignment in respect of Welles' vision, he relented and allowed RKO put him in charge of a drastic editing of "Ambersons" that would result in a new ending and over 40 minutes of Welles' film being lost forever. For this, Welles greatly resented Wise for most of his life...until 1984, when they reconciled publicly by shaking hands on stage when the Directors Guild of America honored Welles with its Lifetime Achievement Award.
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.
Awarded honorary membership in the Society of Operating Cameramen (SOC). [1982]
Biography in: "The Scribner Encyclopedia of American Lives". Volume 7, 2003-2005, pages 582-584. Farmington Hills, MI: Thomson Gale, 2007.
Biography in: John Wakeman, editor. "World Film Directors, Volume One, 1890-1945." Pages 1210-1219. New York: The H.W. Wilson Company, 1987.
Celebrated his 91st birthday the weekend prior to his death. [2005]
Directed nine different actors in Oscar-nominated performances: Nina Foch, Susan Hayward, Rita Moreno, George Chakiris, Julie Andrews, Peggy Wood, Steve McQueen, Mako, and Daniel Massey. Hayward, Moreno and Chakiris won Oscars.
He has a son, Robert E. Wise, and a step-daughter, Pamela Rosenberg. He has one granddaughter.
He was awarded the American National Medal of the Arts by the National Endowment of the Arts in Washington, DC. [1992]
He was made a Fellow of the British Film Institute in recognition of his outstanding contribution to film culture.
In preparation for the scene in I Want to Live! (1958) in which Susan Hayward's character is executed, Wise attended a real execution.
Interviewed in "It Came from Horrorwood: Interviews with Moviemakers in the SF and Horror Tradition" by Tom Weaver (McFarland, 1996).
Interviewed in Tom Weaver's "It Came from Weaver Five" (McFarland & Co., 1996).
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 there western 'True Grit (2010)'.
President of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences. [1985-1988]
President of the Directors Guild of America (DGA), and later also headed the Special Projects Committee for 24 years. [[BAD_DATE_LOCALE en] 1971]
Profiled in "Conversations with Directors: An Anthology of Interviews from Literature/Film Quarterly", E.M. Walker, D.T. Johnson, eds. Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, 2008.
Received the American Film Institute Life Achievement award. [1998]
Retrospective at the 53rd San Sebastián International Film Festival in Spain. [2005]