Austrian-born American film director, screenwriter, and producer Billy Wilder tells an inspiring story while accepting the Irving G. Thalberg Award at the 1987 Academy Awards. On YouTube now, please trust that it would be very well worth your less than eight minutes to view.
Wilder accepts the prestigious lifetime-achievement award by thanking an American consular official in Mexicali, Mexico, whose name he did not remember.
It was the 1930s. Wilder’s six-month visitor’s visa to America was expiring, and he wants to stay in the country. As required, he exits the U.S. to apply for a new visa that would allow re-entry. At the American consulate in Mexicali—just across the southern border of California—he is being interviewed by the official, who can authorize such a visa and thus his re-entry.
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