Celebrity Biographies
Jack Lemon
The neighbor next door, the charming gray guy, overtaken (or not?) by events. Jack Lemmon (Boston, USA, 1925), succumbed to cancer on June 27, 2001 in Los Angeles. Nobody is perfect. Although the great actor touched that perfection in his performances, two of which gave him the Oscar. Lemmon is mourned by his second wife, Felicia (in 1950 he married Cynthia Stone, whom he divorced six years later), his two sons, Christopher and Courtney, and his stepdaughter Denise. It is to be hoped that Walter Matthau, who undertook his “last journey” seven months earlier, has prepared a place for him in paradise.
That he wanted to be an actor, Lemmon saw very quickly. Not in vain he enrolled in dramatic art at Harvard University. But getting to the top was not bed of roses. World War II touched him in his youth, and once the conflict ended he combined his work as a pianist in a bar with radio, theater and television performances. His film debut didn’t come until 1954: A Blonde Phenomenon was a delightful George Cukor comedy starring Judy Holliday . Luck smiled on him, because the following year he won the Oscar for his comedic role in Stopover in Hawaii , despite the fact that the film is not John Ford ‘s best . Also in 1955 he makes My sister Elena , fromRichard Quine ; with him he repeated in I fell in love with a witch (1958), The untamed and the millionaire (1959), The mysterious lady in black (1962) and How to kill one’s own woman (1965). Although perhaps Billy Wilder is the director that the memory of the film buff most associates with Lemmon, since he directed him in the indisputable classics Like Crazy (1959), The Apartment (1960), Sweet Irma (1963), On a Silver Platter (1966), What happened between my father and your mother? (1972), Front Page (1974) and Here’s a Friend (1981).
In the aforementioned titles, Lemmon demonstrated an unusual virtue: that of combining the appearance of an ordinary guy, and even vulgar, with well-controlled comedian skills, which never fell into histrionics. He was the typical average American who was thrown into a situation that was beyond his control. Often paired with Walter Matthau , with whom he made memorable films. In addition to three of those directed by Wilder, he highlighted above all The Odd Couple (1968), which had a much inferior late sequel.
But Lemmon knew how to alternate comedy and drama with astonishing ease. His problems with alcohol in Days of Wine and Roses (1962), his unsuccessful and pathetic character in Save the Tiger (1973) -awarded with an Oscar-, his father anguished by the son who disappeared in Chile in Disappeared (1982) are unforgettable. or his way of dealing with the nuclear crisis in The China Syndrome (1979). He also dared with European cinema in Macaroni (1984), a film by Ettore Scola that paired him with Marcello Mastroianni ; and with the direction, in the failed Kotch (1971), in which Matthau starred.
His last memorable role was offered in Glengarry Glen Ross (Success at any price) (1992), an adaptation of the play by David Mamet . His insurance salesman who “doesn’t sell a broom” moved the viewer to compassion.