In Memoriam: Actor Jack Lemmon

Read the Full Transcript

• JACK LEMMON:

  Doc! Doc, there's a girl in my place who took some sleeping pills. You better come quick. I can't wake her up.

• SPENCER MICHELS:

  Jack Lemmon was once called Hollywood's greatest worried . Here in "The Apartment," a 1960 film, he's a drone in an big corporation whose apartment is the scene of almost all the action.

• ACTRESS:

  Where am I going, honey?

• JACK LEMMON:

  Good night.

• ACTRESS:

  Good night?

• JACK LEMMON:

  The party's over.

• SPENCER MICHELS:

  Born in a hospital elevator in 1925, Lemmon was the son of a Boston doughnut maker. In the late '40s, after Harvard and the navy, he moved to New York and began his career in radio and later in TV.

• JACK LEMMON:

  We're going to heave a firecracker under that old man's bunk, and bam, bam, bam! Wake up, you unpatriotic old slob! It's V.E. Day.

• SPENCER MICHELS:

  In the 1955 classic "Mister Roberts," his fifth film, he played the mischievous Ensign Pulver. Lemmon won the Oscar for best supporting actor. In "Some Like it Hot," a movie Lemmon considered his best comedy, he and Tony Curtis portrayed musicians pretending to be women in an all-girls band featuring Marilyn Monroe.

• JACK LEMMON:

  Look at that. Look how she moves. That's just like jell-o on springs. She must have some sort of built-in motor or something. I tell you, it's a whole different sex.

• SPENCER MICHELS:

  Before long, Lemmon added serious drama to his repertoire. He played an alcoholic in "Days of Wine and Roses," and a dress manufacturer in "Save the Tiger." That role won him his second Oscar, this time for Best Actor

• JACK LEMMON:

  My God, you've got a short memory. Have you forgotten I knew you when your name was Saul? You were running packages and going to a drawing school. Don't interrupt me. Who paid for that drawing school, Rico? Who took you by the hand, led you across this country? Who introduced you to his friends, the buyers, and they showed you about all the minis, the midis, the maxis, the fabrics, silks, satins?

• ACTOR:

  But I delivered, didn't I?

• JACK LEMMON:

  Delivered? Half your creations are copies.

• ACTOR:

  Everybody copies.

• JACK LEMMON:

  You're right, so don't come off like a half-assed genius.

• ACTOR:

  Harry, we're going to have to have a talk.

• JACK LEMMON:

  Not today, we don't.

• SPENCER MICHELS:

  In seven movies, including "the odd couple," Lemmon teamed up with actor Walter Matthau, often portraying a well-intentioned, middle-class square.

• WALTER MATHAU:

  Listen, you want to talk to me, buddy, put down that spoon.

• JACK LEMMON:

  Spoon? You dumb ignoramus, that is a ladle! You did not know that's a ladle!

• WALTER MATTHAU:

  Get a hold of yourself.

• JACK LEMMON:

  You think it's so easy? Go ahead, the kitchen's yours, all yours. You go make a meatloaf for four people who come a half hour late.

• WALTER MATTHAU:

  I'm arguing with a mouth of gravy.

• JACK LEMMONS:

  I took your fishing pole.

• WALTER MATTHAU:

  That damn fishing pole. You can shove that pole. You can shove that pole. You think a lousy old pole is going to replace her?

• JACK LEMMON:

  Are you crazy?

• SPENCER MICHELS:

  Lemmon's wide range earned him roles in Broadway plays, like the 1985 revival of Eugene O'Neill's "long day's journey into night." He worked almost to the end of his life. Last year, he made "Tuesdays with Morrie," a TV movie for which he won an Emmy.

• JACK LEMMON:

  I have no intention of retiring until I get run over by a truck or a producer, one or the other.

• SPENCER MICHELS:

  Along with his two Oscars, Lemmon has received at least two lifetime achievement awards, as well as this tribute at the 2000 Oscar ceremony from actor Kevin Spacey.

• KEVIN SPACEY:

  I first have to say that I would like to dedicate this to the man who inspired my performance, a man who has been my friend and my mentor and since my father died a little bit like my father, whose performance in "The Apartment" stands as one of the finest we've ever had. Jack Lemmon, wherever you are, thank you, thank you, thank you. (Applause)

• SPENCER MICHELS:

  Lemmon's acting career reflected much of post- war America, both in comedy and serious drama.

• JACK LEMMON:

  (1996) I don't have a preference of comedy over drama, it is just for the individual parts. As an actor, I would like to be remembered mainly just as a good actor, hopefully as good as I can become.

• SPENCER MICHELS:

  Lemmon died last night after a battle with cancer almost a year to the day after the passing of his friend Walter Matthau. He was 76.