Robert Wise - Early Years

Early Years

Wise was born in Winchester, Indiana, the son of Olive R. (née Longenecker) and Earl W. Wise, a meat packer. Wise attended Connersville High School in Connersville, Indiana, and its auditorium, the Robert E. Wise Center for Performing Arts, is named in his honor. Wise began his movie career at RKO as a sound and music editor, but he soon grew to being nominated for the Academy Award for Film Editing for Citizen Kane in 1941. Wise was that film's last living crew member.

Though Wise worked only as 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. Though Wise was never known as a special-effects-driven director, echoes of this 1940s high-tech special effects technology were to emerge in several of his important later films, such as The Day the Earth Stood Still, West Side Story, and Star Trek: The Motion Picture. Wise could also make a movie special in the use of technique borrowed from one genre but applied to another genre; in his hands, a science fiction movie might acquire mood from a "haunted house" film, and vice versa. Wise sought never to waste the time (or salary) of the talented people who produced his features; the result was an impressively prolific series of films which showcase the talents of director, cast, and crew.

In March 1987, Wise accepted the Academy Award for Best Actor, on behalf of his absent friend, Paul Newman, who won for his performance in The Color of Money.