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Jack Lemmon Biography |
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Jack Lemmon was born in an elevator at Newton-Wellesley Hospital in Newton, Massachusetts, a suburb of Boston. He was the son of Mildred Burgess LaRue (née Noel), and John Uhler Lemmon, Jr., who was the president of a doughnut company. Lemmon attended John Ward Elementary School in Newton. He later revealed that he knew he wanted to be an actor from the age of eight. Lemmon attended Phillips Academy (Class of 43) and Harvard University (Class of 47), where he was an active member of several Drama Clubs - becoming president of the Hasty Pudding Club. At twenty-two years of age, Lemmon graduated from Harvard University and joined the Navy, received V-12 training and served as an ensign. On being discharged, he took up acting professionally, working on radio, television and Broadway. He studied acting under Uta Hagen. He also became enthused with the piano and learned to play it on his own. He could also play the harmonica and the bass fiddle.
Lemmon`s film debut was a bit part as a plasterer/painter in the 1949 film The Lady Takes a Sailor, but he was not noticed until his official debut opposite Judy Holliday in the 1954 comedy, It Should Happen to You. Lemmon worked with many legendary leading ladies of the cinema screen, among them Marilyn Monroe, Natalie Wood, Betty Grable, Janet Leigh, Shirley MacLaine, Doris Day, Kim Novak, Judy Holliday, Rita Hayworth, June Allyson, Virna Lisi, Ann Margret, Sophia Loren, Grace Lee Whitney, Kathryn Grant and many, many more. He was also close friends with Tony Curtis, Ernie Kovacs, and Walter Matthau. He made two films with Curtis and eleven with Matthau. He became a favorite actor of director Billy Wilder, starring in his films Some Like It Hot, The Apartment, Irma La Douce, The Fortune Cookie, Avanti!, The Front Page and Buddy Buddy. Wilder felt Lemmon had a natural tendency toward overacting that had to be tempered; the Wilder biography Nobody`s Perfect quotes the director as saying, "Lemmon, I would describe him as a ham, a fine ham, and with ham you have to trim a little fat". The biography also quotes Jack Lemmon as saying, "I am particularly susceptible to the parts I play... If my character was having a nervous breakdown I started to have one". Lemmon recorded his own album in 1958 while filming Some Like It Hot with Marilyn Monroe. Twelve jazz tracks were created for Lemmon and another twelve tracks were added which were the soundtracks to the film. Lemmon also played the piano and recorded his own versions of Monroe`s trademark songs, I Wanna Be Loved By You and I`m Through With Love, for the album, which was released in 1959 as A Twist of Lemmon/Some Like It Hot. Lemmon was awarded the Best Supporting Actor Oscar in 1956 for Mister Roberts (1955), and the Best Actor Oscar for Save the Tiger (1973), becoming the first actor to achieve this double. He was also nominated for a Best Actor Oscar for his role in the controversial film Missing in 1982 and for his role in Some Like it Hot. In 1988, the American Film Institute gave him its Lifetime Achievement Award. Days of Wine and Roses (1962) was one of his favorite roles. He portrayed Joe Clay, a young, fun-loving alcoholic businessman. In that film, Lemmon delivered the line, "My name is Joe Clay ... I`m an alcoholic." Three and a half decades later, he admitted on the television program, Inside the Actors Studio, that he was not acting when he delivered that line, that he really was a recovering alcoholic Biography Credit: en.wikipedia.org |
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Kevin Spacey
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Ernie Kovacs
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Tony Curtis
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John Uhler Lemmon, Jr
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Mildred Burgess LaRue
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Walter Matthau
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Trivia and QuotesQuotes "I won`t quit until I get run over by a truck, a producer or a critic." "Nobody deserves this much money - certainly not an actor." It`s hard enough to write a good drama, it`s much harder to write a good comedy, and it`s hardest of all to write a drama with comedy. Which is what life is." [on Judy Holliday] She was intelligent and not at all like the dumb blonds she so often depicted. She didn`t give a damn where the camera was placed, how she was made to look, or about being a star. She just played the scene -- acted with, not at. She was also one of the nicest people I ever met. [on Marilyn Monroe] Difficult? Yes. But she was a wonderful comedienne and she had a charisma like no one before or since. [on Walter Matthau] Walter is a helluva actor. The best I`ve ever worked with. "If you think it`s difficult to meet new people, try picking up the wrong golf ball." "The worst part about being me is when people want me to make them laugh." Accepting his award at the 2000 Golden Globes: "In the spirit of Ving Rhames, I`m going to give this award to Jack Lemmon."Trivia An accomplished, self-taught pianist, he wrote the theme for the movie Tribute (1980) and played jazz in a Bobby Short TV special. Described his flamboyant, authoritarian mother as "Tallulah Bankhead on a road show." Laughs about how she used to hang out with her girlfriends at the Ritz Bar in Boston, and tried to have her cremation ashes, placed on the bar. (Management refused). He once had a flavor of ice cream named after him, ("Jack Lemmon" flavor); the eponymous treat was created, marketed and sold by Baskin & Robbins 31 Flavors. It was still being produced in the early 1980s but has since been discontinued and is not currently listed on the Baskin & Robbins website. He was pleasantly shocked by Golden Globe-winner Ving Rhames in 1998 when Rhames called him up to the stage and all but gave him the award for Best Actor in TV Movie he had just won, to express his admiration to the veteran actor. In Harvard, he was in Navy ROTC and graduated with a degree in "War Service Sciences." Lemmon admitted to having had a serious drinking problem at one time, which is one reason he looks back on his Oscar-winning role as Harry Stoner in Save the Tiger (1973) as perhaps the most gratifying, emotionally fulfilling performance of his career. Lemmon`s dad, a bakery executive, didn`t approve of his son taking up acting, but told him he should continue with it only as long as he felt passion for it, adding: "The day I don`t find romance in a loaf of bread..." His dying words to Jack were: "Spread a little sunshine." Since his middle initial was U., Jack had to deal with ribbing from kids who taunted him with: "Jack, u lemon." Was born February 8, 1925, in an elevator at a Newton, Massachusetts, hospital. Was president of the Harvard Hasty Pudding Club. US Navy Reserve 1945-1946 | ||
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