Robert Wise

Who was Robert Wise?

Robert Earl Wise was an American film director, producer and editor. He won Academy Awards for Best Director and Best Picture for both West Side Story and The Sound of Music. He was also nominated for Best Film Editing for Citizen Kane and directed and produced The Sand Pebbles, which was nominated for Best Picture.

Among his other films are The Body Snatcher, Born to Kill, The Set-Up, The Day the Earth Stood Still, Destination Gobi, This Could Be The Night, Run Silent, Run Deep, I Want to Live!, The Haunting, The Andromeda Strain, The Hindenburg and Star Trek: The Motion Picture.

Wise 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 1984 through 1987.

Often contrasted with auteur directors such as Stanley Kubrick, who tended to bring a distinctive directorial "look" to a particular genre, Wise has been viewed as a craftsman, inclined to let the story concept set the style.