20 Questions: Jack Lemmon

Syndicated television reporter Nancy Collins met with Jack Lemmon in the presidential suite of the Westwood Marquis Hotel in Los Angeles. Lemmon had just spent three days hyping and interviewing for his movie "Tribute," for which he received an Academy Award nomination. Collins tells us: "It was perhaps one o'clock in the afternoon and Lemmon was sipping a martini and smoking a cigar. He was relaxed and extraordinarily warm. He really likes questions about his wife, Felicia Farr. He is noticeably very much in love with her after 18 years of marriage."

1.

[Q] Playboy: There are those who would argue that the roles you played in Days of Wine and Roses, Save the Tiger and now Tribute are very similar to one another. What is a Jack Lemmon character?

[A] Lemmon: I have busted my ass to make sure that I don't know. The biggest problem I've had is not being pigeonholed. I pick material that you can't put a label on. Tribute is a marvelous blend of comedy and drama, which is very difficult. The last role I had that really worked as well was in The Apartment.

2.

[Q] Playboy: You play men who have a lot of miles on them; men having mid-life crises--whether they're 20 or 30 or 40. Since you have obviously studied him a lot in order to play him over the years, who is the American male today in terms of how the movies see him?

[A] Lemmon: Damned if I know. I just identify when I'm reading a character. A lot of the scripts I get now are heavier, which reflects the increasing pressure on us. It's just the worst goddamned time in history. The world is no longer just a small town. Ten minutes after something happens, we all know about it. A kid on the street has no naïveté by the time he's ten, because of the tube. We are affected by everybody else's problems. It's impossible to be an isolationist and survive. Those pressures are affecting us on every damned level. The divorce rate keeps increasing. American men are confused about the family and how to treat it, about marriage and its value. Middle-aged men are confronting the younger generation's morality. It's enticing to them, but they don't know how to handle it. I have seen it affect a lot of people I know. It was hysterical: guys in their late 50s or 60s growing their hair long and opening three buttons on their shirts. They had 18 pounds of gold hanging around their necks and they looked totally fucking ludicrous. But what they were trying to do was not let the parade pass.

3.

[Q] Playboy: What kept you from getting involved in all that?

[A] Lemmon: I don't know. I just didn't, thank God, but maybe I'm not old enough yet. I'm 56. Maybe I've got to wait until I'm 60 or 65 and suddenly try to be a youth again. Fortunately, my marriage has worked; I haven't had that enticement to go roaring off.

4.

[Q] Playboy: Why has your marriage been so successful?

[A] Lemmon: It's a combination of things. My wife has great appeal as a woman. The excitement that dissipates in a marriage is a direct parallel to the release of a film. A movie can be a great hit. But how long is it going to be a hit? Usually, it begins to dwindle and slowly fade. So it's a matter of how long it stays a hit. Well, we stayed a hit. The attraction is there. The physical thing is absolutely as strong. My wife is very, very bright. A good sense of humor. A lot of laughing, I think, is vital. Plus, she's not afraid to criticize me--she's the most honest woman I've ever known--which can be infuriating, because I have my own ego and vanity, but, oh, I listen. She's one of the handful of people I really go to for advice. Her taste is on a very high level. I have done a few pieces of shit about which she said, "Guess what's going to happen?" and she's been right.

5.

[Q] Playboy: Did you meet her in Hollywood?

[A] Lemmon: Yeah; she was under contract to Columbia when I was. It was, God's truth, a love-at-first-sight thing. I was absolutely knocked on my ass when I met her. There was a chemistry, an electric thing that happened.

6.

[Q] Playboy: Did you just go over and say, "I'm knocked out"?

[A] Lemmon: Damned near. In retrospect, I realize that I psyched myself right out. I was married when I met Felicia, but the impact of our meeting had nothing to do with my first marriage's failure. It was two years later when I saw Felicia again and then I was free. We went together for three or four years. I think we were both petrified to marry.

7.

[Q] Playboy: What qualities do you find appealing in a woman?

[A] Lemmon: Intelligence and the lack of a need to come on. Trying to be sexy totally turns me off. But women turn me on. I love women.

8.

[Q] Playboy: How important to you has your career been?

[A] Lemmon: When I was young, it was everything. It has to be in this crazy profession, because the dedication you must have in order to make it is overwhelming. Even with talent, you've got to be able and willing to stick against an awful lot of odds, because luck is involved. You may not get the chance to show the talent.

9.

[Q] Playboy: Did it ever occur to you to stop?

[A] Lemmon: No, it didn't, but there was an awful lot of fear and insecurity the first few years. Still, I would not have quit. The terrible thing is that it isn't a matter of just getting a little job now and then or a small part. An actor really can't begin to know how good he might or might not be until he actually gets a couple of good parts, with a good cast, in a good piece, with a good director. The rest of the time, you don't really know. And it may be ten years and then you're going to have to look in the mirror, finally, after all of that time, and say, "I'm a journeyman," or, "I can't cut it."

10.

[Q] Playboy: What advice would you give a young actor today? Would you tell him to go into the business?

[A] Lemmon: Boy, (concluded on page 194)Jack Lemmon(continued from page, 185) it's very tough to give advice. The experience is very tough to get, compared with when I was young and television was wide open, and there were no stars and you could get big parts. A complete education is a great help, and not just concentrating on the theater or acting at the expense of everything else. An education broadens your horizons. It teaches you how to think.

11.

[Q] Playboy: Do you have any heroes?

[A] Lemmon: Beyond me, you mean? I don't really have heroes per se, but there are people in different walks of life I admire. Like Jack Nicklaus. There is something about the way that man handles himself. He has immense innate dignity. And I also know him. So I know it's not a put-on. That's why a lot of people respect him. Also, what that man can do professionally! There isn't anything more frightening to a golfer when he's coming down the stretch than to hear Nicklaus' footsteps behind him. Nicklaus can sink a four-mile putt on the 18th hole with more consistency, under that kind of pressure, than anybody who ever lived.

12.

[Q] Playboy: What is your worst fault?

[A] Lemmon: Ha! I'm a very compulsive person. I have a tremendous amount of nervous energy and everything is on tap. If I'm really excessive, it's about emotion, but I can't help it. I let emotions ruin me if I'm not very careful. I have probably cried at more comedies than anyone who ever lived. When something is done well, really well, I cry. I have sat in comedies in a theater or in a movie and seen a scene and the actors are doing it so brilliantly, it moves me and I cry.

Actors are lucky. They can be a little sadder than the average person under any circumstance, or under circumstances that would never bother the average person. By the same token, they can appreciate and see things--that other people won't see--that are quite beautiful. They retain a capacity for excitement. Sensitivity and intelligence go hand in hand. I never met a really good actor who was dumb.

13.

[Q] Playboy: Why is it so hard for the studios to make a good love story?

[A] Lemmon: Maybe because we're all so damned confused now. For at least ten years, I've been looking for a love story about--at this point, obviously--a middle-aged man. But I would love to do a really good love story. I'd love to do it with Sophia Loren or with Audrey Hepburn. A story about people old enough to know something, who don't just go with the flesh.

14.

[Q] Playboy: You have a 15-year-old daughter, Courtney. Do you want her to be an actress?

[A] Lemmon: Only if she wants to, just as with my son, Chris. I never pushed him at all. If he drove a cab and that was what he loved to do, Godspeed. My old man was in the baking industry. He did not have a college education--just about got through high school--but ended up as a senior officer in a large company in the baking industry. He would have loved it if I had started at the bottom, as he did, and worked my way on up. You know, I think every father would like that. After I got out of Harvard, I asked him if I could borrow 300 bucks, which I would pay back, and go to New York and try to be an actor. I had already done some summer stock, but now I was going to go save the theater. Except nobody would let me. So he said, "OK. You don't want to come into my business?" He knew. I said, "I got to find out, or I'll live always wondering." And he said, "You love it," and I said, "Yes," and he said, "Well, that's good, because the day I don't find romance in a loaf of bread, I'm going to quit."

15.

[Q] Playboy: Are you going to write your autobiography?

[A] Lemmon: I have no desire to. It's a bloody bore to me, because I know what's going to happen on the next page.

16.

[Q] Playboy: How will your epitaph read?

[A] Lemmon: That's simple. Jack Lemmon in --

17.

[Q] Playboy: Who are the best actresses you've worked with?

[A] Lemmon: That's like asking, "Who's your favorite leading lady?" I always say Walter Matthau, because I don't want to slight anybody. I've never worked with anybody I didn't get along with or didn't like. I've never had any of that temperamental bullshit going on.

Judy Holliday has to be up on the top; she was the first lady I ever worked with. Not only was she a great actress, she was the Carole Lombard of her time, as far as being able to do comedy. She was one of the reasons I really began to concentrate on films. I did my first and third pictures with her and those experiences were so sensational. Annie Bancroft and Lee Remick are just sensational. Shirley MacLaine is one of the best instinctive actresses I've worked with. She would rather work spontaneously, which is fine by me. And how can I not include Jane Fonda, who may be rapidly becoming the best actress of her generation? Working with her is heaven. She's not only an incredibly bright lady but also totally professional--and fun. All of those actresses have one thing in common: When you're working with them, you never, ever get a feeling that they give one goddamn about how the lighting is on their faces or where the camera is. It's into the eyeballs and you do the scene and you act with the person and not at her. Ninety percent of actresses are listening for cues, but they're not listening to the point that's being made.

18.

[Q] Playboy: Who's your best friend?

[A] Lemmon: I've got three or four of them. Walter Matthau and Billy Wilder and there are a few others you wouldn't know--Freddie Jordan, Dick Elliott--guys I've known for a large part of my life. Freddie and I went to school together. He now owns Producer Studio.

19.

[Q] Playboy: What is it about Matthau that you like so much?

[A] Lemmon: I don't know, but he's got a lot of it, whatever the hell it is. I love Walter. I respect him immensely as an actor. He's never been tapped. He's bright and terribly funny. And that face! It's the map of the world. It really should be on Mount Rushmore.

20.

[Q] Playboy: There are a number of extremely talented young actors in Hollywood these days. Are you ever jealous of them?

[A] Lemmon: No. The emergence of incredibly serious, immensely talented younger stars--Hoffman and De Niro and Pacino, just to name a handful--is sensational. I'm delighted that guys like them are immediately recognized by the public for the marvelous actors they really are, and not as sex symbols or something. And, me, jealous, when I'm the greatest? No, I'm not jealous. But I'm only half joking with that. Of whom should I be jealous? Nobody's had it better. As an actor, nobody has had more marvelous parts over the years. Christ, a good actor would give anything just once in his life to have one of those parts and I've had a number of them.

"Sensitivity and intelligence go hand in hand. I never met a really good actor who was dumb."