Jack Lemmon: America's Everyman | The Hollywood Collection

like everybody's staring it with those legs are you crazy now come on he has a line that he says just before it they start shooting he says that there's bethe magic time it's magic time and I never asked him about it but I worked three pictures with him so I know he does it all the time listen you want to talk to me buddy put down that spoon food are you dumb ignoramus that is a ladle he gets inside of the character he never plays for the laugh he plays for the honesty of the moment and I think what he has more than anything else is conviction more than any actor I've ever seen I think it's unbelievable Jack's conviction challenge champ you can't really analyze it too much it's within Jack he can get inside a wide range he has an imagination he immerses himself completely in what he's doing and whether it's comedy or tragedy jack is going to give all that they can give I think so many people identify with that character person is put upon and helpless and frustrated what's interesting about Jack is that in spite of that character that he plays I think he has a great deal of strength that's very appealing that someone has both of those qualities every time they say he's my favorite actor I've always tried to figure that out I wonder if that's because he does represent the everyman and what every person thinks of themselves so identifiable what really drove me is the same thing that drives me today and that is passion a passion for acting I love it and if I had not succeeded in making a living as an actor god knows where I would be I mean out in the street aside when I was ill prepared in my mind to do anything else and never wanted to do anything else well I was born just outside of Boston in Newton Massachusetts my father was in the baking industry all of his life with various companies he ended up with the donut Corporation of America my mother had always wanted to be a singer she had a very nice voice not a great voice but a very good one but her family apparently just said no you don't do that our daughter is not going into show business when I was a kid I was a sickly kid by the time I was about seven to eight years old and yes I had missed about a year of school altogether the thing that pushed me into acting was a year accident by replacing a boy in a school play you had one monologue when I got into Billy's hat and cape which is what he was wearing was a big wide black hat like the bad guys in the westerns his head is about 18 times the size of mine it seemed that this thing came down though the ears flopping down like this the cape which was was supposed to come down around his ankles was dragging behind me like a Marie Antoinette strain or something so I made my entrance got a laugh right away the way I looked from that day on not obviously because of any talent displayed whatsoever because it was none but purely because I was accepted by my peers I loved it I got into every play I possibly could while I was at school and I would start telling stories that I'd make up at night instead of doing my homework the unusual thing is to know what you want to do by the time you're 8 or 9 or 10 years old and I really knew by then that that this is it by the time I was about 10 or 11 years old the doctor did a very smart thing he said I want this boy could run every day or he's going to be sick all of his life as a result I got in terrific shape as a kid and became a very good runner and a very strong runner and had a couple of Records for kids my age in distance running by the time I was into my teens what's extraordinary to me about Jack is the little that I know about his background in terms of his father and his education and his upper middle-class upbringing is that he had that free soul that needed to be an artist that needed to express itself I had no conception of what else I might ever be able to do I wasn't equipped despite the fact that God bless my father I was given an education that was the greatest Phillips Andover Academy and then Harvard I worked as an apprentice in summer stock building sets and this and that and then when I was about 17 became an apprentice with the Marblehead players and not only was building sets and pulling curtain and doing all of the menial jobs but also the the apprentices got to play small parts now and then if they were right for them the first thing I ever knew about Jaclyn was from helen eggs my wife Ruth Gordon and Helen Hayes were great friends we were calling on her one day after performance of a play and she said to us there's a boy in this company that I'd like you to meet and I said to her I don't eat any boys in the company and she said well he's now on the stage he's part of the stage management but he's really talented and she brought him in and he was the freshest son-of-a-gun anybody has ever met and whether it was nerves or showing off or trying to make a hit he just was all over the place he was jumping around the dressing room as though we had come to see him and finally I said to him I will remember you what's your name and he said Jack Lemmon I said huh nice fella he said what Eliane and I had a two nd yeah okay I said I'll remember you because you are running fresh young son of a gun when I was at Harvard I was in the drama club and the Hasty Pudding Institute who was the president of that only I think because they decided it would be fun to run lemon against a guy named Apple and I won by about two votes I think in the drama club but I did a number of shows and at one point we were very fortunate out a lady named Maude pow from the abbey players somebody got her to direct a version of Playboy of the Western world but I didn't play Christie Khalid I played his father he was 110 I do remember that I blacked out one of my teeth with some wax and the first thing I did is I made my entrance and I came I faced the audience and lift their artifacts I said something in the tooth ended up somebody's lap in the front row so there were that my father loved the baking industry and when I went to borrow money from him after graduating from Harvard I wanted to borrow a couple hundred bucks and see what would happen in New York try to get an agent and I remember then he said you need to do this and I said yeah I've got to find out so the next thing he said was do you love it and I said yes I do and he said good because the day I don't find romance in a loaf of bread I'm going to quit it was the greatest thing I said of it said to me and when I was in New York in that delicious period as I called it all that in other words the good old days although as usual we think of the good old days but we didn't know they were the good old days then the only employment that I got out of years or two was at a place called the old make music hole which was on Second Avenue what they had was a bunch of tables to sawdust on the floor and everything they have on old movies I play the piano too at the drums with the Valentino and broad the Keaton and Chaplin also I was the emcee and the bouncer at 148 pounds 143 pounds and bartender now and then and bit part player in other words and comedy sketches of whatever I'd played everything or anything it was really kind of fascinating to be able to watch the technique of some of the area for instance if someone said why did everybody love Charlie Chaplin because he was an incredibly talented and very funny but also there was an identification with him and above all I think if there was one thing that endeared him to the public and without the public ever knowing why it was the fact that he was constantly in dire straits and great trouble but never ever did he let it make him feel sorry for himself he never did that because that is distasteful to most people if he got very very hungry you wouldn't think oh god what am I gonna do in flexion mum trying to get your sympathy he got your sympathy totally but without feeling sorry for himself shortly after this period where I was working at the old Nick several things that were very fortunate happened number one I began to get a little work in radio and soap operas had a running part on brighter day and young dr. Brent and that that meant that I was getting some kind of an income either $35 or $70 usually a week that was terrific for me because I could eat for two bits I've forgotten the exact year 48 49 I met and started to work with who the Hagen who is a genius and one of our greatest actresses chairman came to study with you was one of my very first students what struck me most about him was that he had enormous enthusiasm that he had a love of theater that everything about him was joyous he was tremendously hard-working dedicated obviously had a fabulous sense of humor we left all the time and that's how he came to me he wanted to play Shakespeare what comes to my mind really was working with her as a director more than in in class she directed Tolstoy power of Darkness which is pretty heavy and I played Nikita the young lead the real fun came after a couple of years finally got a foot through a few doors in early television when it was still alive there was no tape no film god I think I've been through everything in the world that you can go through on live shows but I never had a show that couldn't be completed no matter what happened in 1956 I did a special for CBS the day Lincoln was shot with the Raymond Massey playing Lincoln Lillian Gish playing mrs. Lincoln and Jack playing John Wilkes Booth the show was live on dress rehearsal Jack fired the shot that killed Lincoln said his Sic Semper Tyrannis and jumped over the railing as Booth had done he caught his spur on the flag underneath the railing fell to the floor on both knees and came very close to breaking his ankle as John Wilkes Booth had done it would have been a total disaster for us we were going on the air if you are a couple of hours later and we bound him up he went ahead Woodley performance did the leap but it was one of those sort of four moment television nightmares where we could have wiped out an actor on dress rehearsal I did hundreds of shows I must have done four to five hundred at least altogether in a period of about five or six years sometimes 20 lines or ten lines and sometimes the lead musical dramas comedies along came a revival of room service which was a famous old warhorse very funny play and I got the wounded fortunately I got good reviews in this and man named acts are no at Columbia films had the New York office checked me out in the play and they all agreed that I should be tested to play opposite Judy Holliday and he came in and he bounced all of the room full of personality and Junie said what he left she said I don't think so I don't think you do and we said why not she said boys he's much too young for me and and we said well well keep thinking and and then the rules of charge and she spoke fell very seriously I she's now listen you've just made it you've made good don't stand in anybody else's way now you have the authority now you important give someone else a chance and she convinced Chui and he brought up with the park you remember my name yeah at what yeah well do me a favor so they're still on for Friday lunch I feel very romantic the first two weeks the Judy and I were doing our scenes George would continually at the end of the take with the camera he would say cut wonderful wonderful that was absolutely wonderful he says we're gonna print that just one more let's do just one more Jack less a little less less and Judy and I went through about the third take top-to-bottom along about two and a half to three pages in one and we knew that we had really kicked the bejesus out of that one and George sure enough said cut and he said wonderful and he gave Judy a kiss and then he turned to me said Jack just one more at less just a little less and I which was uncustomary of me because I never blow up at a director I couldn't help it I said are you trying to tell me not to act at all and he said oh yes god yes oh god yes it was the best piece of direction I ever got in other words behave and in a way but don't act don't let it show that it happened at that point I had married Cynthia stone who was in the production our darkness we bought a little house out in West Los Angeles the only trouble I had in those early days at at Columbia was with Harry Cohen who was the notorious head of Columbia Harry turned everybody off he was a tyrant he was as tough as nails and he could be downright cruel how he had this long office and I came and I walked down the long carpet I got to his desk and he was just staring at me like this all the time I walked down there and I said how are you mr. Cohen and I put my hand out like that he lifted his hand up with a riding crop in it and he took it and he went bow like this on the top of the desk and he said it's got to go that name has got to go I said what he said lemon who the hell is named lemon he say you kidding all of the critics will be saying lemon is a lemon Cohen's got a lemon the pictures of lemon everything's a lemon it's got to go he says I got a name and I said what is it he said Lenin jokingly I said Lenin is that how you pronounce it he says yeah Lenin I said they think I'm a Russian revolutionary he says no no I looked that up smart guy that's Lenin finally I said I don't want to change it and I would rather not sign the contract that changed my name well the long and short of it is as I was leaving he said did you really go to Harvard the next morning he called Harvard to double check he didn't believe that he could have an actor under contract that went to Harvard he thought that was terrific he gave me bigger billing than my contract called for this cruel man at Columbia when he arrived here to co-star in his first picture opposite Judy Holliday he was the gifted young actor that everybody at hopes would become a movie star his third picture was mr. Robbins and right off the bat he one Academy Awards Best Supporting Actor and to be able to get that part in a production like that in just your third film is incredible when I did my very first test for the Judy Holliday film they also tested me for a film that John Ford was about to start at Columbia called the long gray line but Ford told Harry Cohen look I don't want an unknown kid trying to play this part and one day I walked into the studio just to see what was going on and I thought I'd drop in on the set and see the great Ford I walked on and this old guy who had had had a patch on I and a cap pulled down over his head and he was chewing on a hankerchief I thought he was one of the grips he came over and he said are you that kid lemon and I said yeah and he said someone told me you wanted to play pover I said I would die for it and he said you really want to play it huh I said yeah and he said well spit in your hand I said what he said it's an Irish custom spit in your hand and he went and toking Lee he sort of spit in his hand so I went and he shook my hand and he said your Pulver and I'm Ford and I fainted they flew in last night knockouts and one big blonde especially see of course she went from me right away naturally so I started to turn on your own personality you know and I said isn't there anything in the world that'll make you come out to this ship with me and she says yeah she said yes there is one thing and one thing only saw something last night that just about knocked me out and I finally got to meet the great trio of Hank Fonda Jimmy Cagney and Bill Powell I would just flabbergasted that I was going to work with these three people they were all wonderful to me powder this ain't no pop gun it's a firecracker I used fulminate of mercury oh hello my name is Jacqueline just about everybody here is trying to get a date with Eileen would you like to with him I'm not sure I think judy holliday who was supposed to do the part of my sister Eileen and I think she got sick I'm not sure exactly what happened I was in London playing variety with my husband Larry parks and I got this call that I was to come to California and being my sister Eileen oh I'm terribly sorry I don't know you do it I think I fell in love with Jack I know I had a big crush on him I mean I don't be to infer any hanky-panky we were both very solidly married at that time he's one of the easiest person to work with because he likes to rehearse which I like to do at the same time it doesn't matter if you don't want to rehearse we had a scene where he tries to seduce me and at one point he gives me some brandy in a snifter and he has his brandy and he throws the brandy snifter into the fireplace of course it makes a big crash so then it came to my close up and dick Klein the director said I at this time Jack don't throw the glass because we won't see that we're just close up on Betty's face and I said oh please you know please throw the glass because nothing will match the reaction I had unless I really hear that crash dick said no no no because it'll delay shooting we'll have to clean it up afterwards and besides it's now there's cameras and stuff all around the fireplace and and it might hurt somebody and I was really distressed but I had to accept that and we got to the scene and Jack swirled he was off-camera who was just and I'm watching this chat of this brandy go around in this snifter and then all of a sudden he gets to the point and he throws that glass into the fireplace and I the most wonderful reaction because I didn't expect him to do it and then he waked at me and then he turned to dick and he said it just slipped out of my hand I'm sorry I've worked with all sorts of actors and actresses some were stars who had no talent at all they were just stars and some who had a lot of talent who somehow couldn't make it and never did make it but Jack Lemmon I think because he was fearless he was not intimidated by anyone not by directories loved by producers of my writers and he brought his own talent he brought his abilities he brought his experience or his charm and he presented him and he presented them very very well she needed no help he needed less help than any actor I've ever worked it was probably close to the second week of working with Billy before I realized that one of two things was going on either I was in something that was going to be a complete failure or I was in something that could be a classic not since the Marx Brothers so much comedy not since the 7-year itch so much Maryland goodnight sugar I know how good the script was but whether people would rebel against it in other words Billie's taste detector as long as it was just pushing the envelope but not busting it we'd be all right you stay here as long as you like I remember the day when we were testing them in their dresses and he was dressed like he plated like his mother and till he hit that hair fix that did this drills and into shorts there is that everything Tony Curtis was who dressed in the woman's dress and hid the long hair and did now it turned out that he was too scared to get out of his dressing room enter Jack Lemmon took him by the hand like a nanny and dragged him out of the talk to the stage in front of the camera my feeling was that I should never ever worry about the fact that I was in drag for 90% of the food nor should Tony but especially my character let it go there it's impossible for this character in other words almost impossible for him to go over the top too much because of the way he was and Tony was always the steadying influence there anyway Joey Brown and Jack Lemmon is a woman they went to a nightclub and they're dancing a tango together now when is the billionaire says the back to Palin Monroe and climbs up to the second or third floor there and she comes into the world is Jack Lemmon lying on the bed and turn with his maracas in his head and then stops the same which has captured like 20 big big laughs have I got things to tell you what happened I'm engaged congratulations who's the lucky girl I am now beaver very much afraid that turn that that the audience is going to is going to laugh over many straight lines that they're going to lose like five or six big jokes so the idea was to give him a pair of maracas and after the joke he will go down pum pum pum but I don't what Osgood proposed to me we're planning a June wedding they're cutting back and forth we could we could manipulate to think that we knew exactly how long dis left is going to last and how or how short is going to last so this may be my last chance to marry a millionaire here does not over assert himself he just does it all very subtly but he is delete he does not have to press the tube you know because too much to space comes out no no no he doesn't do anything that is exaggerated is not a cloud he's just an actor who has mastered do to do out of cavity but you don't understand I'm good oh I'm a man well nobody's perfect no Jack Lemmon is perfect he was totally wrong not to marry him we dressing for dinner you know all just come as you are so you're pretty good with that racket you should see my back end I think the apartment was over all it was in no way an attempt like some like it hot to be a broad comedy but it was without question one of the most brilliant scripts that I bet I've ever had Wilde won three Academy Awards that year for Best Film that script and Best Director that's about all you can do Billy really grew a rose in a garbage pail is the way I have always described this film he had a love story that was valid and honest but it was grown in a garbage pail because he was making great social comment about a lack of morals and principles in the business community and he had the guts to take his leading man and make him a pseudo pimp in a way who to get ahead was willing to sacrifice or just be blind to any sense of morality hello you see a girl a couple of times a week just fell handsome by the way they think you're going to divorce your wife the event is that favors probably unfair the especially to your wife there he was meeting to somebody he very much regrets it at the very very end that he's be made a vice president I don't know but he goes to Fred MacMurray and gives you back the key and he could says job in other words she was a pimp against his phone will but when the big promotion is ready for him he walks out on it did you hear what I said miss Kubek I absolutely adore you shut up and deal I loved working with Shirley who is totally spontaneous if anybody ever hated to rehearse it Shirley she loves to just kind of let it happen which I understand this one way of working I can rehearse I'll rehearse for five weeks for one Scene he had the ability to commit to commit totally so that in the long run you believe what he's doing and you and you understand why he's doing it circumstances fulfillments of his own desires of his own fear of his job fear of friendships wanting to be well-liked so he when he commits you also understand why he commits when we made my sister Eileen he was married to Cynthia and I think they came to a kind of understanding that it wasn't working for them as far as I know he courted Felicia for years before she gave in and said okay I think my best friend is my wife Felicia far we met when we were both under contract to Columbia Pictures a million years ago I think that one of the reasons our marriage has been so successful is the fact that the both of us love to laugh up until then almost every film I had done there were all comedies and Hollywood of course you do a comedy and as successful you can bet you're going to have some more comedies on your doorstep the next day but I was dying to do a drama because I felt that in my experience I had certainly shown back in live TV and elsewhere that that and on stage that I could do drama as well as comedy and I wanted to do both for my own self-satisfaction as an actor along came days of wine and roses and I was having lunch with my then agent Lenny Herschel at William Morris and he suddenly said did you have a C days of wine and roses on Playhouse 90 and I said no I missed it but I've heard it was absolutely marvelous and he said how would you like to do it with Lee Remick and Blake Edwards directing and I said yes and going all around town the picture was rejected except that the last place and that was Jack Warner at Warner Brothers who agreed to make the film Jack Warner approached for the 15th times said okay listen you give me a happy ending where the mother and the father and the little child are together they're both off the booze and they've got a nice life coming ahead of them and I'll do the film I'll give you ten cents and you can do the film so we all immediately said yes with no intention to putting a happy ending on and anyway my agency is throwing a party all got a we're inviting the people for our party on peace I read the bills y'all the audience has sucked in in the beginning of the picture laughing at Jack Lemmon the Jack Lemmon they know until they get involved in the story and start to realize that this is not a common this is a drama on the surface this would seem to be a shockingly sensational type of situation but the qualities of Joe clay story are not that easily revealed and when I read this script I know that I wanted to play this part more than any part I have ever been lucky enough to play one thing you said to me a while back he said if it scares me I've got to do it well that means he's been a stretch that means he's going to explore areas that he hasn't been to before and I think that process of Investigation is where some of the greatest work for any actor comes out and I really think you can almost see that it worked in a lot of my father's performances I truly think you can see it in days of wine and roses now here he was being labeled as a comedic actor and he knew he knew the depth of his of his abilities at the time and he knew he was so much more than what people were saying and here was his opportunity to show you know to show what he had Joe and Christy they fall in love completely in love these other days of wine and roses I remember sort of feeling like this before this is the same man how can you be so different what happened to Joe clay and from that day to this whenever I've started to turn a film down and say well I think I'm going to have a conflict or there's another audition that if I basically stop and think are you afraid of this if the answer is yes then I'll do the film I represent Harry Hinkle the cameraman was heard of the game today yes well this may be of some interest to you I'm suing CBS at Cleveland Browns at a municipal stadium for $1,000,000 Matthau and lemon they got together for the first time in the picture I did something called the fortune cookie and they have become now Laurel and Hardy to belong together something I really believe strongly and there is a phrase I use good actors do not act at you they act with you and believe me an awful lot of actors don't they they act at you you could have a dummy sitting there and when they hear a cue they'll say their lives at the dummy they are not really with you and they don't listen by listening that never means listening to the words but listening to the soul listening to what's inside what the real intent of the other actor is I can with Walter it's like sitting down and having breakfast with him we can do it without rehearsal practically well we seem to bounce off each other and were different physically he's short and ugly I'm tall and handsome when I work with Walter and it and it and it is working that there are three stars as maid there's Walter and there's the two of us and I think that's right with any good combination how many maybe you see one one cheap chiseling shyster lawyer who of all people had to die my system nice talk I'm handing you a quarter of a million dollars on a silver platter what makes a team what makes a man go right for the certain woman a man with a man if I knew the answer to that question I probably wouldn't be sitting here I'd be a multi-millionaire lying in the Sun Florida it's something that we don't know we don't know why that suddenly happens why there's an explosion when two characters get together having Walter and Jack in the Odd Couple it was probably the best thing that's ever happened to me in my film career I'm telling you you're the only one of its kind in the world chemistry not even chemists can explain why it happens between two people when it's right than when it's not right they were probably right from the day they when they first met well maybe they were wrong I mean maybe they hated each other's guts which worked for them and they got to love each other I have no idea of the birth of it thank God it was born now listen why don't you just take a tranquilizer go to your room that's just all settle down huh when we did the scene pretty famous scene now of Jack in the luncheonette and in The Odd Couple suddenly getting these adenoidal attacks and making these sort of moose calls as Oscar would call them Jack surprised me because I didn't even know what to expect but I've done well what are you doing I'm trying to clear up my ears yeah you create a pressure inside your head it opens up the eustachian tube yeah yeah it open up fat huh I think I sprained my throat okay well I think Jack was right for the out-of-towners I think Jack saw in that story what I saw is the common man the little man coming to New York and battling not only what New York City has to offer but what the world puts upon us to deal with but Jack was going to do it the comic vein he went very far in that film but he went there in stages very small stages and he was always looking out for his wife always calming her as he was falling apart all of his anger all of his frustration came out it was my frustration it was my own anger he was my voice in that piece but what an instrument he was I mean it's a Stradivarius if you think of the out-of-towners and even the prisoner of second Avenue these were people that are common people who find that it's not easy to survive in today's society but in the end he survives and when he got to the point where he had some power it was inevitable that he would use it and say now I want to make a picture about this because I think this is important I think I I could have probably even seen that in Jack in those early days when we're making my sister Eileen which is like a cream puff but he struck you as a person with with a sense of justice and and fairness I remember when I did save the tiger which is one of my favorite films because again I felt that it had something to say that that he could enlighten people whether people agreed with his premise or not I was profoundly moved by something that Jack guildford said in character and that was that it used to be a crime to do such-and-such the crime today is to get caught enjoy doing this film what the hell else am I gonna do just tell me we invented a new kind of arithmetic last year but we survived we kept our people working 71 girls 14 salesmen secretary all making a living until the government has another word for survival and it's called fraud you be fraud but you haven't been out in that street for 38 years you wanna start looking for a job now well neither do I wanna be loved something idea dog cat he's a complete actor and he showed that time and time again in his career which started with him as a sort of a cookie of bright young fast talking comedian in his early movies and we all know that he's progressed into being the closest thing to an American Olivier that we have at least in my opinion and Jack Lemmon was the winner for save the tiger and I don't think I ever had a more enjoyable satisfying moment but then being able to hand Jack his mister for the best performance of the year the characters that I have played in the important films have one thing in common the character has to make a choice he has to decide where the priorities are what's right and what's wrong the guy in the black hat is saved the tiger the guy in the white hat is in China Syndrome oh it sounds like the powers of them will be at full power by mid no you cannot run it at 4:00 we can't risk a lot of scram drinking what the hell are you talking about drinking for Christ's sake there may be a defect in the power support special achievement I got my orders there was a vibration dad so help me God a sudden surge could kick that off again his choice of roles seemed to fit his personality which you know is one of somebody that's very liked therefore could be somebody that's taken advantage of as he was in the apartment but at the same time he's had heroic qualities such as China Syndrome when he stood up against the establishment okay leave it there Jim Jesus Christ jack just get out and what's so wonderful about it is that you don't know when it's gonna come it just suddenly comes like a thunderstorm a clap of thunder and it's there and it shocks you and gives you a sense of relief of thank God he finally is saying it he's finally opening up I remember in the film missing when he finally just cracked and had it with his people who were hiding the facts what happens in his son and something jack is King Lear I mean he is just going the wind is going howling I think that there is a interesting weather it's been by design or just by happenstance in Jack's career that there is a reoccurring theme of fathers and sons I know his relationship with fathers were important to him and talks they deal about the donut king what I drew on really was just an emotional feeling out of the relationship that I had with my dad and my feelings about the kind of man that my father was Dodd knows how many times I have thought of my father whom I loved and respected immensely in various roles in general I've been attracted especially in film to contemporary parts because I think that I identify with them and understand the problems of the average person because I go through them the problems that I face as a father as a husband as a member of our society are basically very close to those of everybody else I try you know as an actor to study uh what is it about my father that makes him so true I mean of course you can't please all the people all the time but God he comes damn close and maybe off screen is where I've seen or Google's do what that's all about and I'll tell you where it was it was at Pebble Beach every single green we walk up on to every tee box every fairway every bunkering lord knows my father finds every bunker there screaming Jack you're gonna do it this year you're gonna make the cut this year as we know he hasn't he's been trying for 30 years and hasn't done it yet but everyone is rooting him on and I mean everyone and I'm trying to figure out what is it not only here on the golf course but in films so many people identify what is it and I think that he embodies how do I put it the everyman quality they see him struggling down the fairway finding every bunker taking triple bogeys on a hole and it it's them struggling down the fairway taking triple bogeys on every hole and they're rooting for themselves as they root for him I think the same thing happens in his films all through his career you've looked at the work that he's done with so many great actors or teams whether it's meth our MacLean Tony Curtis and had his ability to adapt to both drama and comedy and always be true to the material and always be listening and always be aware and and sharing the space there's no doubt that he's a star but he's a star with such a lack of ego he works well with everyone but it just fooled you all the time because you don't think he's going to be able to do that but he does in other actors of today big stars of today work in the same area they're brilliant at it but they don't open up into something else that will surprise you Jack as they're opening up all the time actually what we are you know The Odd Couple we did it in the movies well now with the old couple with the old Odd Couple we're still fighting with each other and we're still calling each other names but was four buddies his palette is full of the most wonderful color and he uses it but he uses it sparingly that lesson that mr. chuka Buick it paid off beautifully we identify with him no matter what walk of life or in the middle what age we are and that's something that you're just born with and I imagine it goes back to the way he was raised and the kind of relationship he had his father and things that just come naturally to him that's sort of for whatever reason when that camera gets turned on and and Jack says as he does before every single take and every night before we walked on to the stage in long day's journey Jack just whispers under his breath magic time and it truly is magic time with Jack Lemmon if anybody had said to me back when I was starting and I was a kid in summer stock that any of this that's happened to me would happen I'd say you're kidding aren't you you

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Rating: 4.7715321 out of 5

Keywords: hollywood collection, director, steve mcqueen, theater, actress, biopic, michael caine, documentary, theatre, bio, movie, clint eastwood, stage, biography, filmmaker, hollywood, charlton heston, star, audrey hepburn, shirley temple, marilyn monroe, lassie, film, free, actor, cinema

Id: 8FQOpuaTBmA

Length: 50min 38sec (3038 seconds)

Published: Tue Feb 23 2016