There aren’t many actors in the world who leave you with a feeling of inner warmth and a fixed gaze on the character portrayed. Among the golden years of cinema, there was an actor who was known in Los Angeles studios, rehearsal rooms and coffee shops as Mr Nice Guy.

He once said that “the worst part of being me is when people want me to make them laugh.” the humor melted into a pure second nature to him, so I think he would have shrugged with his natural modesty, wondering what the fuss was about.

Born John Uheler Lemmon III in February 1925, he began life in one of the most enclosed and confined spaces ever created by man. From between floors in a hospital elevator, he came into the world destined not to follow in the flour-making footsteps of his father, head of a donut company, but to achieve one of the longest and most award-winning careers in the second most confined and Closed spaces know man. Hollywood.

However, he became the president of the Harvard Hasty Pudding Club, make that what you will, but still, his father was not at all happy to find out that his son wanted to become an actor, but agreed to support him. him as long as he had the urge to do so. Jack never lost the drive for him. He is reported to have said, ‘…I won’t do it until I get hit by a truck, or a producer, or a critic…’ Fortunately, none of these three things happened.

One thing that has led me to write a brief account of the life of one of my all-time favorite comedic actors is that it recently occurred to me that since the days of Lemmon and his fellow comic book innovators Walter Matthau, Danny Kaye, and Jerry Lewis, that something has gone terribly wrong in the world of comic genius. Granted, we now rely heavily on visual humor in the form of Jim Carey because all the best jokes have been made, but what happened to the legacy these great men left behind when we are subjected to yet another poorly produced movie that shows a confusing gag after gag in a washed-out rendition of an ’80s teen movie that now comes in the overweight form of Jack Black. I ask, do ‘teenagers’ really find these things inspiring and imaginative? I doubt it, and if so, why aren’t we educating them on the language and understanding of the definition of the words ‘comedic talent’? I guess a generation of moviegoers over a certain age (including me) will probably never know. Back to the plot…

Rising steadily through the ranks of minor movie stars, he found no effort in playing shy, naive young men fumbling their way through life: paranoid, terrified characters who believe the world is an uncompromising, bad place, as well as characters trying to create something good out of a bad situation by going through one roller coaster after another, frantically trying to adapt to the world around them. These ‘hide-behind-the-hand’ type roles came instinctively to Lemmon and, unknowingly, he was one of the first actors, in that sense, to be cast. Either way, he somehow played himself or at least he became the character in real life whether he liked it or not. He said that he was ‘…particularly susceptible to the parts…’ that he played. Perhaps upon discovering that he once had a drinking problem, we begin to wonder if the movie and the character he played managed to trigger alcoholism. Years later he admitted that his moving portrayal of a middle-aged man experiencing a nervous breakdown in his 1973 film ‘Save The Tiger’ was therapy for him and a crucial turning point in his life. It was this film that earned him his first Academy Award for Best Actor.

Despite being an AA candidate and a first marriage that lasted only six years, he racked up more awards and nominations over a period of nearly thirty years than any other comedy actor of his generation. Perhaps the nominations that stand above the rest even today were for Best Actor in the 1959 film, ‘Some Like It Hot,’ starring Tony Curtis and Marilyn Monroe, where after some heavy friction during filming where Curtis had compared kissing Monroe to kissing Hitler, it was Lemmon who took the frail Monroe under his wing. This insane explosion of an all-girl jazz band meets two musicians on the run after accidentally witnessing the Valentine’s Day massacre made all the more deliciously bubbly through black-and-white film and subtle, cheeky-yet-sweet humor. Irresistible by Billy Wilder. It was a film that catapulted Lemmon’s career into the great unknown and genius of Wilder. Moments followed in which a beautiful relationship of respect and admiration grew between actor and director. Another nomination followed in quick pursuit of Lemmon’s bashful, single appearance opposite bright-eyed stranger Shirley MacLaine in the 1960 film, ‘The Apartment.’ Once again, Lemmon, who seems to play himself, an innocent, home-loving, boss-pleasing figure, in a complicated intertwining of comic foul play.

Both films are considered legendary landmarks in Lemmon and Wilder’s expansive career. There hasn’t been another comedy partnership that sticks in the mind than Matthau and Lemmon. Within their ten movies together, they inspired some ridiculously cool timing that was second to none. Bringing Neil Simon’s hit American comedy show ‘The Odd Couple’ to movie screens in 1968, it was surprisingly Tony Randall from the TV series who would play Felix Unger. Lemmon took the role and made it his own. He followed it up with a new interpretation and somewhat lackluster flop as “The Odd Couple II” in 1998.

Jack Lemmon’s career has not only been a full circle of diversity spanning over four decades, but his world has consisted of serious moments of equal depth and quality. The aforementioned ‘Save The Tiger’ was a definitive interpretation of Lemmon’s serious and deep side. Proving again in 1982’s “Missing” that he was more than just a handsome face with a winning smile, he played the painfully difficult role of a father struggling to find his missing son. Both earned him the Best Actor award at Cannes.

Tipping the scales ever so slightly towards the end of his career, he turned to other talents both fruitful and not so fruitful. He forayed into a directing position in 1971’s ‘Kotch’, and if only his golf skills had been the same as his contemporaries; Bing Crosby perhaps to name just one, then he would have put another string to his bow, but after an astonishing thirty-three years on the course, he failed to get any grades. Fortunately, he didn’t leave us without throwing in our direction a few more movies that showed us that old Lemmon was just a good actor and a god of comedy to be reckoned with when he put out a short series of ‘Grumpy Old Men Films’ (1993). , 1995) with the elderly teacher and lifelong friend Walter Matthau. Here they have certainly shown that something improves with age, not just wine. ‘My Fellow Americans’ was another jailhouse harking back to the days of the brilliant Lemmon when he played one of the former presidents alongside another wonderful name, James Garner in 1996.

This charismatic and kind actor who played everything from the funniest characters to the deepest and most emotional roles with equal amount and feeling and an ‘extend a touch’ realism calmly took the last bus home, hung up his smile and put his humor away from star. him for the last time on June 27, 2001 at the age of 76. After fighting a silent and private two-year battle against bladder cancer, he will be remembered for every beautifully delivered line he spoke captured on celluloid. It was widely reported that before each take, he would whisper, “It’s magic time,” as if he tuned into a magical wavelength. He really loved the art of it and it shined bright and is still there today and as fresh as the day it was filmed. With his tombstone reading simply, ‘Jack Lemmon In…’ is a perfect and very fitting epitaph for a man who lived the life of a true Hollywood star, dignified and incredibly enviable.

If it’s more than just a brilliant classic film, it left us with a legacy of its own, he wrote, “It’s hard enough to write a good drama, it’s much harder to write a good comedy, and the hardest thing of all is to write a drama.” with comedy. What is life…’

For the only Hollywood star of great wealth and fame who refused a driver to and from the studio, but preferred to take the bus with a piece of paper under his arm, he was, among a display of humanoid celluloid figures we call stars, simply an ordinary person, like the rest of us…

Movies to watch;

‘Mr Roberts’ 1955

‘Some Like It Hot’ 1959

‘The Apartment’ 1960

‘The Odd Couple’ 1968

‘Save the tiger’ 1973

‘Missing’ 1982

’12 Angry Men’ 1997

©Michelle Hatcher 2006

(sat1942 bye and dooyoo)