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The extraordinary lifethe firstof the legendary, undercelebrated Hollywood director known in his day as Wild Bill and he was! Wellman, whose eighty-two movies six of them uncredited, many of them iconic many of them sharp, cold, brutal others poetic, moving all of them a lesson in close-up art, ranged from adventure and gangster pictures to comedies, aviation, romances, westerns, and searing social dramas. Among his iconic pictures the pioneering World War I epic Wings winner of the first Academy Award for best picture, Public Enemy the toughest gangster picture of them all, Nothing Sacred, the original A Star Is Born, Beggars of Life, The Call of the Wild, The Ox-Bow Incident, Battleground, The High and the Mighty... David O. Selznick called him one of the motion pictures greatest craftsmen.