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© St. Petersburg Times, published June 27, 2002
Screenwriter I.A.L. Diamond was the silent partner in one of Hollywood's greatest collaborative teams, writing many of the words that director and co-writer Billy Wilder turned into classics. Diamond never spoke to the actors or interrupted shooting, in order to keep his ideas true. Wilder told interviewer Cameron Crowe in the book Conversations with Wilder that Diamond made his points quietly but effectively:
"If it was no good, or a line was muffed, or it was not clear -- if he had anything to say, any observation or something that was wrong -- he would come up and whisper to me," Wilder said.
"When I thought I had a print, I'd look at him. And he does this (an imperceptible nod) and that means no words had been left out and it made sense. But if something displeased him very highly, he would just kind of make a little movement with his hands or eyes. He was never loud. It was always, the better the joke, the softer he is. It was just understanding, you know, really collaboration."
As a result, Diamond remained fairly anonymous until his death in 1988 at age 67. Born in Romania on this date in 1920, his real name was Itek Domnici but that changed to I.A.L. Diamond when he emigrated to the United States at age 9. The "I" stood for Isadore, and he preferred to be call Izzy. Diamond always claimed the "A" and "L" didn't stand for anything but the letters looked interesting together. Or else he joked that his initials meant: "Interscholastic Algebra League."
The best way to know I.A.L. Diamond was through his humor, filtered most often through Wilder's talent and displayed in these home video suggestions.
Monkey Business -- Diamond brainstormed with co-writers Harry Segall and Ben Hecht for his first hit, directed by Howard Hawks. Cary Grant plays a chemist devising a formula for youth that regresses him and his wife (Ginger Rogers). Marilyn Monroe plays Grant's leggy secretary, her third time using Diamond's dialogue after Love Nest and Let's Make It Legal.
Love in the Afternoon -- The string of Wilder pairings begins. Gary Cooper stars as a playboy falling in love with the daughter (Audrey Hepburn) of a private eye trailing him. Sluggish, but occasionally sparkles with wit.
Some Like It Hot -- Named the best comedy of all time in an American Film Institute survey. Jack Lemmon and Tony Curtis disguise themselves as female musicians to escape the mob. Joe E. Brown's closing line -- "Nobody's perfect" when Jack Lemmon admits to being a man -- was Diamond's idea.
The Apartment -- An Oscar winner for best picture. Lemmon plays a corporate pimp falling in love with the call girl (Shirley MacLaine) hired for his boss (Fred MacMurray).
Irma La Douce -- Another Lemmon-MacLaine matchup, another tale of prostitution. She's a French hooker and he's a policeman trying to make her go straight.
Kiss Me Stupid -- Dean Martin plays a singer stranded in a small Nevada town and Kim Novak is the prostitute he mistakes for another man's wife before bedding her. The film was too racy for 1964 standards and was drastically edited. That footage has been recently restored and the film is in limited theatrical release.
The Fortune Cookie -- Lemmon and Oscar winner Walter Matthau scheme to defraud an insurance company for injuries incurred on the sidelines of a pro football game.
Avanti! -- The most underrated Wilder-Diamond film featured Lemmon as an American traveling to Italy to reclaim his father's corpse. He discovers the old man had an affair with a younger woman (Juliet Mills), and he picks up where dad left off.
Cactus Flower -- Diamond's final box office hit was an stage-play adaptation starring Matthau as a bachelor dentist conning his girlfriend (Oscar winner Goldie Hawn) into believing he's married.