Robert Wise

Robert Earl Wise (September 10, 1914 – September 14, 2005) was an American film director, producer, and editor.

In the 1930s, RKO was a budget-minded studio with "a strong work ethic" and "willingness to take artistic risks", which was fortunate for a newcomer to Hollywood such as Wise.

At RKO, Wise became an assistant to T.K. Wood, the studio's head sound-effects editor.

In 1933, due to the family's poor financial situation during the Great Depression, Wise was unable to return to college for his second year and moved to Hollywood to begin a lifelong career in the film industry.

Wise's older brother, David, who had gone to Hollywood several years earlier and worked at RKO Pictures, found his younger brother a job in the shipping department at RKO.

Wise worked odd jobs at the studio before moving into editing.

Wise began his film career at RKO as a sound and music editor.

Wise's first screen credit was a ten-minute short subject called A Trip through Fijiland (1935), which was made from RKO footage salvaged from an abandoned feature film.

As Wise gained experience, he became more interested in editing film content, rather than sound, and went to work for RKO film editor William "Billy" Hamilton.

Wise's first film as Hamilton's assistant was Alfred Santell's Winterset (1936).

Wise continued to work with Hamilton on other films, including Stage Door (1937), Having Wonderful Time (1938) and The Story of Vernon and Irene Castle (1939).

In The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1939) and 5th Ave Girl (1939), Hamilton and Wise, as assistant film editor, shared screen credit; it was Wise's first credit on a feature film.

Wise's first solo film editing work was on Bachelor Mother (1939) and My Favorite Wife (1939).

He was also nominated for Best Film Editing for Citizen Kane (1941) and directed and produced The Sand Pebbles (1966), which was nominated for Best Picture.

At RKO, Wise worked with Orson Welles on Citizen Kane (1941) and was nominated for the Academy Award for Film Editing.

Wise was the film's last living crew member.

Though Wise worked as an editor on Citizen Kane, it is likely that while working on the film he became familiar with the optical printer techniques employed by Linwood Dunn, inventor of the practical optical printer, to produce effects for Citizen Kane such as the image projected in the broken snowglobe which falls from Kane's hand as he dies.

In Citizen Kane, Welles used a deep-focus technique, in which heavy lighting is employed to achieve sharp focus for both foreground and background in the frame.

Wise later used the technique in films that he directed.

Wise also worked as editor on Welles' next film for RKO, The Magnificent Ambersons (1942).

While working as a film editor, Wise was called on to shoot additional scenes for the film.

After Welles was dismissed from the studio, Wise continued editing films such as Seven Days Leave (1942), Bombardier (1943) and The Fallen Sparrow (1943), before he received his first directing assignment.

For Wise, connecting to the viewer was the "most important part of making a film."

Wise also had a reputation for a strong work ethic and budget-minded frugality.

In addition, he was known for his attention to detail and well-researched preparation for a film.

Among his other films are The Body Snatcher (1945), Born to Kill (1947), The Set-Up (1949), The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951), Destination Gobi (1953), This Could Be The Night (1957), Run Silent, Run Deep (1958), I Want to Live! (1958), The Haunting (1963), The Andromeda Strain (1971), The Hindenburg (1975) and Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979).

Welles' Citizen Kane also influenced Wise's innovations in the use of sound in films such as The Set-Up (1949), where Wise limited music to in-film sources, and in Executive Suite (1954), which used no music.

In addition, biographical films or biographical profiles of fictionalized characters such as Charles Foster Kane were often the subjects of Wise's later work, including Somebody Up There Likes Me (1956), I Want to Live! (1958), The Sound of Music (1965), So Big (1953), Run Silent, Run Deep (1958) and The Sand Pebbles (1966), among others.

For example, before directing Until They Sail (1957), set in New Zealand during World War II, Wise traveled to New Zealand to interview women whose lives were similar to those portrayed in the film.

He won the Academy Awards for Best Director and Best Picture for his musical films West Side Story (1961) and The Sound of Music (1965).

He was the president of the Directors Guild of America from 1971 to 1975 and the president of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences from 1985 through 1988.

Wise achieved critical success as a director in a striking variety of film genres: horror-noir, western, war, science fiction, musical and drama, with many repeat successes within each genre.

Wise's meticulous preparation may have been largely motivated by studio budget constraints, but advanced the moviemaking art.

He received the AFI Life Achievement Award in 1998.

Wise was born in Winchester, Indiana, the youngest son of Olive R. (née Longenecker) and Earl W. Wise, a meat packer.

He had an elder brother, David.

The family moved to Connersville, Fayette County, Indiana, where Wise attended public schools.

As a youth Wise's favorite pastime was going to the movies.

As a student at Connersville High School, Wise wrote humor and sports columns for the school's newspaper and was a member of the yearbook staff and poetry club.

Wise initially sought a career in journalism and following graduation from high school attended Franklin College, a small liberal arts college south of Indianapolis, Indiana, on a scholarship.