Director Robert Wise was a Master Craftsman: Nominated for Academy Awards as Producer, Director and Editor

Robert Wise, the multiple-Oscar-winning producer and director renowned during his lifetime as a master craftsman as both editor and director, was born in Winchester, Indiana on September 10, 1914. The youngest of three brothers, he grew up in the small town of Connersville, located halfway between Indianapolis and Cincinnati, Ohio.

There were three movie theaters in town, and Wise used to go almost as often as the bills changed. A big fan of Douglas Fairbanks Sr., the young Wise loved the movies not just because they entertained him, but because they enabled him to get outside of himself and "travel" to far away lands and "experience" different situations and circumstances.

One summer, Wise won a contest whose prize was a free pass to all the movies for the whole summer. Although he said of the experience, "I was in heaven," at the time, he had no idea that his career would in film-making.

He had to drop out of college in 1933 due to the Great Depression. After attending Franklin College, a small college near Indianapolis, on scholarship for a year, he had no money to go back for his sophomore year. His father's business was financially troubled, so at his family's urging, Wise decided to move to Los Angeles as his older older
brother worked at RKO Studios. Through his brother's connections, he got a job at RKO, where he was hired by the head of the film editing department.

His work as an editing assistant entailed duty in the film shipping room, carrying prints of films up to the projection room for executives, and checking prints and patch leader. It was a lucky break being hired by the editing department as the head of the props department with whom he had first interviewed didn't have an opening, and editing would be Wise's entrée into the big leagues of Hollywood filmmaking. Wise thrived in the environment.