THE WINNING WAY OF WILLIAM WYLER.

Byline: Gene Vier Special to the Daily News

Title: ``A Talent for Trouble: The Life of Hollywood's Most Acclaimed Director''

Author: Jan Herman

Data:500 pages, Putnam; $35

Our rating: Four Stars

The subtitle of Jan Herman's biography of William Wyler is ``The Life of Hollywood's Most Acclaimed Director.'' Whether Wyler was Hollywood's greatest director is debatable; that he had a track record no other filmmaker can match is not.

The auteur theory critics prefer to characterize Wyler as an outstanding ``craftsman'' rather than a great artist. Then again, these people give the same short shrift to John Huston. What Herman's long and highly readable opus stresses again and again is how much opposition from producers Wyler had to overcome in his pursuit of excellence - something the auteur dissidents apparently don't take into account.

The description of Wyler's childhood in the Alsatian town of Mulhouse is fascinating. Born in 1903, he witnessed the French troops' return to their former territory on Aug. 8, 1914, without firing a shot; the Germans simply withdrew. Then they came back.

Recalled Wyler: ``... there we were - Catholic, Protestant and Jewish - all in the middle of the cellar.'' (He and a friend watched the battle through a grating.) ``We'd spend the night in the cellar. ... Then we'd come out in the morning to see whether we were French or German.'' The Germans finally reoccupied the town and held it until the end of the war. (He watched aerial dogfights from the roof of his house.)

Mulhouse had three movie theaters, and the privations of war didn't interfere with Wyler's movie-viewing habit. During the next four years, he also attended concerts, plays and operas. When the front stabilized, the Germans encouraged culture in the area to gain the populace's allegiance. Wyler recalled: ``We had some of the best opera companies. My mother always got me to go to the theater and all the operas.'' (Later he became the acknowledged master of transferring Broadway plays to the screen.) Nevertheless the townspeople cheered when the French eventually won.

Wyler's assimilated Jewish family was reasonably prosperous. ``Willy'' was sent to an excellent boarding school in Switzerland, but lasted only 10 months. Biographer Harman writes that it ``proved to be a defining experience in his clash with authority. ... It tested Willy's independent character and set him on the unorthodox path that eventually led to Hollywood.''

His mother decided he would never be a shopkeeper and took Willy to Zurich to meet her first cousin Carl Laemmle, who headed Universal Studios. Uncle Carl (as he was called) offered Willy a job at $25 a week and loaned him the money to set sail on the Aquitania, to be paid back at $5 a week. Later, Wyler requested a transfer from Manhattan to the West Coast.

Herman describes the transformation of Los Angeles in the early '20s: ``... movies were the sine qua non ... and the great medium of national expression. They not only reflected the twenties ethos, they helped spawn it in all its wild contradictions.''

Wyler was a 19-year-old new arrival and looking for thrills. He rode a motorcycle and ended up serving a three-day sentence on a San Fernando Valley prison farm for flouting speed laws. An amused Uncle Carl began calling him ``Jailbird Willy.''

Nonetheless, he attached himself in relatively obscure positions to several of the studio's most promising pictures. ``I never felt I could act, or write,'' he said. ``But, I felt I could direct.'' After a stint as a first assistant, he became the youngest director on the Universal lot at age 23. He directed a bunch of two-reel westerns. ``It was a hell of a good school for learning the fundamentals of making films, which lie in movement,'' he explained.

In the next few years, it was five-reel westerns; at one period he did 25 in 15 months. In 1928, he directed his first nonwestern, the highly successful ``Anybody Here Seen Kelly?'' Wyler scored again with a light comedy talkie, ``The Love Trap,'' and followed it with ``Hell's Heroes,'' which was a huge success, despite his difficulties with Carl Laemmle Jr., who began running the studio at the start of the Depression (1930).

Of the eight big studios during the early Depression years, only MGM and Columbia remained in the black. Nevertheless, Wyler commanded $875 a week.

With one hit after another, Wyler became by far the top director at Universal. In 1933, he directed ``Counsellor-at-Law,'' (John Barrymore's outstanding performance in the talking picture era). Wyler had the good fortune to have Elmer Rice adapt the script from his Broadway success. (When the picture shows up on TV, not a line feels dated.)

``The Gay Deceptions,'' with Francis Lederer and Frances Dee, brought Wyler to the attention of Sam Goldwyn. In 1936, he made ``These Three'' and ``Dodsworth'' for the irascible mogul who wasn't afraid to spend money. His contract allowed Wyler to accept outside projects, but it also gave Goldwyn the right to suspend him when Wyler refused material he didn't like - and this happened more than once.

``Dead End'' (1937) and ``Jezebel'' (1938) added to his reputation. ``Wuthering Heights'' - considered by many to be the greatest love story in cinema history - came out in 1939. The performance he extracted from Merle Oberon was extraordinary and, of course, Laurence Oliver as Heathcliff is a legend. But Wyler's least remembered classic is ``The Letter'' (1940) on a loan-out to Warner Bros. - probably Bette Davis' greatest performance. This was followed by ``The Westerners,'' ``The Little Foxes'' and, in 1942, by the blockbuster ``Mrs. Miniver'' for MGM.

``Miniver'' received 12 Oscar nominations. Today, the film can be seen as an outstanding piece of war propaganda and certainly doesn't match his ``The Best Year of Our Lives,'' which received only eight Academy Award nominations.

During the war, Maj. Wyler badly damaged his hearing due to the risks he took on missions over Germany, but that failed to undermine his talent. Back as a civilian, he made ``Best Years,'' ``The Heiress,'' ``Detective Story,'' ``Carrie'' and ``Roman Holiday'' (which made a star overnight of an unknown Audrey Hepburn).

His biblical epic ``Ben-Hur'' captured more Academy Awards than any film in history, 11 out of 12 nominations; 1959 was a bad year for pictures. Six years later, ``The Collector'' garnered Samantha Eggar and Terence Stamp the top acting awards at Cannes, and three years after that, Wyler helped Barbra Streisand capture an Oscar for her film debut in ``Funny Girl.''

Wyler had all the happenstance of destiny to make him the great director he became - and the God-given instinct to know when a performance was just right ... plus a genius to know when to use dialogue and when to use the physical. He was also blessed with enough strength of character to withstand an ever-encroaching deafness, and the stubbornness to withstand Sam Goldwyn.

Wyler's pictures won 38 Oscars on 127 nominations - half in the best picture, director and actor categories; more than twice that of any other director. He died in 1981.

Herman's book is astonishingly well-researched, perhaps too much so. At nearly 500 pages, it seems a trifle long. He writes very well, but tells too many stories about other people. Nevertheless, his book undoubtedly will remain the definitive one.

MEMO: Author Gene Vier has just completed a book on the Los Angeles Times.

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Photo: William Wyler, directing Bette Davis, is the subject of a definitive biography by Jan Herman.