In what town, now in Poland, was Billy Wilder born?

Billy Wilder was born in Sucha, a town now known as Sucha Beskidzka in Poland.

At Wilder’s birth in 1906, Sucha was in Galicia, a region within the Austro-Hungarian Empire. It is now located in Poland’s Lesser Poland Voivodeship. The town’s modern name, Sucha Beskidzka, helps distinguish it from other places called Sucha, but “Sucha” is the concise historical name used in biographies of Wilder.

Wilder’s family had a successful cake shop at the town’s railway station, later developing it into a chain of railroad cafés. His early surroundings were therefore closely connected with travel and railways, themes that would reappear in some of his films.

He moved to Vienna in 1916 and later worked as a journalist in Berlin. After fleeing the rise of Nazism, he eventually relocated to Hollywood, where he became an acclaimed director and screenwriter.