I. A. L. Diamond - Career and Later Life

Career and Later Life

A succession of limited-term contracts ensued, notably at Paramount Pictures where he worked on projects without ultimately receiving a writing credit. He then moved to Universal, where in 1944 he worked on his first credited feature script, Murder in the Blue Room. It was a year later, at Warner Brothers, that he achieved his first real success and consequent recognition with Never Say Goodbye in 1946. He worked at 20th Century Fox from 1951–55, eventually deciding to become independent.

In 1957 he began a collaborative relationship with Billy Wilder on the movie Love in the Afternoon. From there, the pair had a string of hits with Some Like It Hot; The Apartment (which won an Academy Award for Best Screenplay); One, Two, Three; Irma la Douce; the Oscar-nominated The Fortune Cookie; the sex comedy Kiss Me, Stupid; and The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes. Diamond also had a hit with his 1969 solo adaptation of the play Cactus Flower into the movie of the same name.

In total, Diamond and Wilder wrote twelve movies together over 25 years. Some of these films feature characters engaged in never-ending but friendly squabbling, such as Joe and Jerry in Some Like it Hot and Holmes and Watson in The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes. Diamond's widow claims that these characters were based on her husband's relationship with Wilder.

In 1980, Diamond and Wilder were given the Writers Guild of America's Laurel Award for career achievement in screenwriting. Wilder had previously received the Laurel Award in 1957 for his screenwriting partnership with Charles Brackett.

Diamond died in Beverly Hills, California in 1988.