USPS to issue Billy Wilder stamp

LOS ANGELES, Aug. 23 (UPI) -- The United States Postal Service announced Tuesday it will issue a stamp in 2012 honoring the late Oscar-winning film director Billy Wilder.

Richard Maher, spokesman for the Los Angeles and Orange County, Calif., offices of the USPS said Wilder will be on a "forever" stamp, which is always equal to the first-class, 1-ounce rate.

Wilder's issue is part of the postal service's four-stamp Great Film Directors series and will join stamps honoring Frank Capra John Ford and John Huston for their artistry in creating iconic, vivid and deeply personal motion pictures.

In 2000, the American Film Institute ranked Wilder's 1959 farce "Some Like It Hot," which he wrote with his frequent partner, I.A.L. Diamond, and starred Marilyn Monroe, Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon, the greatest American comedy film of all time.

Among Wilder's many other films are the William Holden, Gloria Swanson classic "Sunset Boulevard," "The Apartment," "Stalag 17," "The Spirit of St. Louis," "Double Indemnity" and "The Seven Year Itch."

Wilder died in 2002.