Surely it is difficult to find within the film scene an actor who loved his profession as much as Jack Lemmon. From a very young age, he was already clear about it.
A theatrical performance when he was four years old at the Rivers County (Boston) school where he studied opened his eyes to a new world and since then he no longer wanted to be anything other than getting into the skin of different characters and earning a living. life with it. His contagious smile, his ability to gesticulate non-stop, his appearance as an honest man, and, above all, his tenacity and the passion he put into each of the more than fifty films he shot throughout his long career, made him a versatile actor and one of the most loved by the public.
Lemmon was a man everyone liked and easy to work with. He got fully into his roles and always made them believable. He stood out above all in comic characters such as his unforgettable Jerry from With Skirts and Like Crazy (Billy Wilder, 1959) or with his inseparable friend Walter Matthau in The Odd Couple (Gene Saks, 1968) or On a Silver Platter (B.Wilder, 1966), but he more than demonstrated his talent for drama in films such as Days of Wine and Roses (Blake Edwards, 1962), Save the Tiger (John G. Avildsen, 1973) or Disappeared (Costa-Gavras, 1982).
When he finished his drama degree at Harvard University in 1947, he decided to try his luck in New York. He took a loan from his father, the president of the Donut Corporation, who told him if he really needed to be an actor. Jack said yes. His mother made it clear to him that it was not a stable profession and that he should only continue in the film industry as long as he was passionate about his work. These words marked his entire life and it is clear that Jack never stopped loving the cinema.
In the Big Apple, he began working at the Old Nick Saloon, a place where silent movies were shown. Lemmon entertained them by playing the piano, which he had always been very fond of. He soon made the leap to the radio and then to the theater, where he had the great teacher Uta Hagen as a teacher, who always highlighted her talent, her sense of humor, and her ability to work.
On television, he took part in numerous famous shows of the time, and his hilarious performances, where he gave free rein to his overflowing expressiveness, led him to the Broadway tables and later to his successful film debut.
He was the actor who best embodied the prototype of the middle-class man of the second half of the 20th century. He made us laugh and he made us cry. June 27 marks the 15th anniversary of his death from cancer.
He was 76 years old and he worked until the last moment with a smile on his lips because for him the sensation he experienced when a take began and he spent hours in front of a camera defined it as a magical time. On the occasion of the anniversary, we review some curiosities of this acting magician who lived intensely and left us an extraordinary film legacy.
