Arena - Season 18 / Year 1992

Billy Wilder discusses his career with German film-maker Volker Schlondorff. From Marlene Dietrich to Marilyn Monroe, Humphrey Bogart to Gary Cooper, Wilder directed the film industry's greatest legends.

Normally a private man, here he reminisces about his early years in Hollywood with fellow emigres Fritz Lang and his mentor, Ernst Lubitsch, and describes working with Dietrich on his emotional return to postwar Berlin.

Second of three in-depth conversations with film director and writer Billy Wilder. He recalls his memories of the great Hollywood stars - 'Mae West walked out of the door all white gold and feathers. She looked like a locomotive.' He also talks about working with silent film star Gloria Swanson on Sunset Boulevard, the tensions of working with Humphrey Bogart and the consummate artistry of Gary Cooper.

Last of a special three-part presentation in which American director Billy Wilder discusses his career. He remembers working with Marilyn Monroe on Some Like It Hot "With Monroe life was a surprise - sometimes she knew eight pages of dialogue by heart, sometimes she had a total block."
He discusses the craft of screenwriting, the problems of working with Raymond Chandler and Agatha Christie, and the creative pleasure of improvising with his lifelong collaborator, I.A.L. Diamond.

When pop artist Peter Blake confessed that his fantasy was to be the mysterious masked wrestler Kendo Nagasaki, little did he know what the consequences would be.

A profile of the late Linda McCartney, focusing on her career in photography.