I think we can all agree on one point: Ving Rhames knows everything. He knows how to wear hats... He knows how to make a cool imposing side kick in every single movie he's in... He knows to give props to Jack Lemmon.
Though mercifully teased as a child due to his name, Jack U. Lemmon became an icon of cinema through collaborations with Billy Wilder and Walter Matthau. As an impetuous youth my Father was constantly telling me about the great films that Lemmon was a part of. Being young, and uninterested in anything that wasn't shiny and moving, I didn't give Lemmon much credit. Even watching him in class it makes me wonder if a seemingly simple guy like Lemmon could be a star today.
He's not great looking, his voice is strangely distinct. Wilder says that Lemmon was a ham. Jack Warner of the Warner Brothers wanted him to change his name. Lemmon kept his name and went on to star in numerous succesful comedies as well as dramas, picking up awards and accolades along the way.
He also inspired one of the greatest Simpson's characters of all time: the constantly struggling, sweating, tie-pulling Gil Gunderson. It seems that Lemmon was blessed. The comedy gods smiled upon him, bestowing Wilder and Matthau upon him. He had an ice cream at Baskin Robbins named after him... and after all there's only 31 flavors.
So how did he do it? What was the Jack Lemmon secret? In my humble estimation it has something to do not only with wit and comic timing, but the gentle ease that Lemmon brings to his performances. There is something uninhibited and effortless about Lemmon's comedy. I read, while completing my paper on Harold Lloyd, that Lloyd and Lemmon had been friends. Lemmon asked Lloyd for the secret of film comedy, and Lloyd replied, "Whatever you think you have to do... do less." It seems like Lemmon took that note to heart. His performances, while riveting, are easy going. He doesn't force it, he lets it come to him and he keeps it simple. There is a link between Lloyd and Lemmon. They are both very normal. But they both spin their seeming normalcy into hilarity.
Jack Lemmon has since left us, but like the man who directed him in so many films (Wilder) he managed to leave us with one final joke... on his tombstone.
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