He was hot! |
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"It's magic time" is what Jack Lemmon (John Uhler Lemmon III) said before every take. While I'm sure not every single take in his career was magic, he certainly was.
I know it's going to be a good day when TCM has a Jack Lemmon day. A charismatic, mesmerizing actor, Jack was fluent as a comedic, dramatic, and romantic lead. While he partnered on the screen with some of the greatest actors and directors of all time, he is best remembered for his relationships with Walter Matthau and Billy Wilder, respectively. In fact, no one was surprised with Lemmon and Matthau died within a year of each other. That's what often happens with spouses, even platonic ones.
Want to get your Lemmon on? I present you with Lemmon's 11 greatest performances.
Note: An amazing number of the films below have won Oscars and been put on American Film Institute lists. I'm tempted to list everything, but I'd have to mention an award every other sentence.
1. SOME LIKE IT HOT. Jack Lemmon and Tony Curtis have to run from the mob, so they hide in an all girl band. When they meet Marilyn Monroe, Curtis turns on an amazing Cary Grant impression. And poor Jack Lemmon? He gets stuck being pursued by an old man with some surprisingly liberal ideas about dating. One of the funniest movies of all time.
2. THE ODD COUPLE. The t.v. show was good, but the movie was amazing. Lemmon and Matthau play off each other beautifully, as Lemmon's character repeats all the mistakes with his friend and 
My favorite odd couple |
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roommate that he made with his soon-to-be ex-wife. One could read this as a story about the repudiation of femininity (or at least marital femininity), but I prefer to laugh. An inside joke: Neil Simon, who wrote the screenplay, named the two women upstairs Gwendolyn and Cecily, a call back to the female characters in Oscar Wilde's THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING EARNEST, which also featured two friends who made an odd couple.
3. THE DAYS OF WINE AND ROSES. Lemmon plays one half of an alcoholic couple. When he decides to go to AA, he has to choose between sobriety and the woman he desperately loves. This is a powerful film. It was also powerful when Jack Lemmon admitted on INSIDE THE ACTOR'S STUDIO that he was an alcoholic, something most people didn't know. If you would only like to see a parodic version of this film, check out THE DAYS OF WINE AND D'OHSES (of THE SIMPSONS). Barney plays Lemmon's character.
4. GLENGARRY GLEN ROSS. This is the script every male actor I know loves to quote from. It might be because of all the swearing and the masculine angst. It might be because it's incredibly written. This is the story of a real estate office under pressure. Lemmon plays Shelley, who not only needs to land a sale so he won't get fired, but also so he can pay his daughter's hospital bills. But his office isn't about relationships; it's about economic survival, so capitalism here leads to lies, back-stabbing, and theft. The actors on set knew what this play really 
Spacey thanked Lemmon in his Oscar speech |
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was and nicknamed it: DEATH OF A FUCKING SALESMAN.
5. THE APARTMENT. Jack Lemmon's character lets his boss talk him into loaning him the keys to his apartment. Why? His boss wants a convenient place to meet with his mistress. Soon, every guy at the office is using it and poor Jack's character can't go home. (By the way, this was released in 1960. Take note—at the end of the 1950s, affairs were commonplace enough for comedy (if married men were having them, anyway)). When Lemmon finds a co-worker he has a crush on (Shirley MacLaine) in his bed (after attempting suicide), he has to rethink the arrangement.
6. IRMA LA DOUCE. This is one of those weird 1960s films where the characters are French, but most don't even attempt a French accent. Lemmon is a cop who organizes a sting on a house of ill repute. This upsets everyone, the cops, the pimps union, and his boss (who's caught in the sting). He befriends Shirley MacLaine and unwillingly replaces her pimp, though he wants to be her only customer.
7. THE FORTUNE COOKIE. This Billy Wilder movie is the first pairing of Lemmon and Matthau. Matthau plays Lemmon's lawyer brother-in-law who convinces Lemmon to fake an injury after a football player knocks him over. Lemmon wants the attention of his ex-wife, Matthau wants the money, the football player wants his life not to be ruined, and the insurance company wants to catch Lemmon in a lie.
8. THE OUT OF TOWNERS. Lemmon's character and his wife try to go 
Frank Ormand doll--feel free to send me one of these |
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on a vacation in New York. Think you've had a trip where absolutely everything went wrong? Well, unless you're my friend Tiffany, whose guide got her lost in the rainforest, or you're these characters, you're wrong. Steve Martin remade this film with Goldie Hawn in 1999.
9. GRUMPY OLD MEN. This movie is one of the reasons I won't live in snow. After filming this in the cold of Minnesota, Matthau got pneumonia. But the movie is a gem. Matthau and Lemmon are bitter neighbors, who become incredibly antagonistic when a hot old woman moves into the neighborhood.
10. THE CHINA SYNDROME. With Jane Fonda and Michael Douglas, Lemmon rounds out the cast of an amazing film about nuclear energy safety and the responsibility of the press. Jack plays the one decent guy at the plant, who wants to tell the world about the accident that happened there. We're not as worried about nuclear energy anymore (or about its waste, though we've had less success dealing with the latter), but the Three Mile Island disaster happened less than two weeks after this film opened.
11. THE TWISTED WORLD OF MARGE SIMPSON (THE SIMPSONS). Lemmon voiced "Frank Ormand," the unassuming man who convinces Marge to try her hand at selling pretzels. The writers intentionally wrote the character to resemble Jack's character in GLENGARRY GLEN ROSS. In fact, "Shelley" was reincarnated as "Gil," the forever hapless and unsuccessful salesman on THE SIMPSONS. Lemmon remains the inspiration, if not the voice.
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Dr. Karma discusses all things comic, from the classics to what may become classics. Laugh with, but not at, her, please.
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| Karma Waltonen |
Dr. Karma is a silly, nerdy know-it-all, but in a good way. She brings all her overeducation to discuss that which truly matters: comedy. As some famous guy once said: “And if I laugh at any mortal thing, ‘tis that I may not weep.” Or something like that.
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