Carroll O'Connor - who died June 21st at the age of 76 - will be best remembered for portraying Archie Bunker on TV's All in the Family but his career actually was much more extensive. Born in New York on August 2nd, 1924, O'Connor served in the merchant marine during World War II before attending the University of Montana where he worked on the school newspaper. Before graduating, he followed his brother to another college in Ireland (he would later get a Masters in speech from Montana). It was in Ireland that O'Connor started acting in several local productions. He returned to the U.S. for his Broadway debut in 1958 and shortly after started to appear on numerous TV shows like The Untouchables and Naked City. His first film was Parrish (1961) though he eventually acted in over a dozen films during the Sixties including Cleopatra (1963), Marlowe (1969), Hawaii (1966) and Point Blank (1967). O'Connor even auditioned for the part of the Skipper in the TV series, Gilligan's Island, but it was his role as Archie Bunker in a 1971 sitcom that made him a star. All in the Family was an American version of the British sitcom Till Death Do Us Part that met some initial resistance (ABC rejected the first two pilots) but quickly captivated American audiences and became the country's top-rated TV show. Archie became such an icon that his chair is now preserved in the Smithsonian. The series lasted until 1979 and brought O'Connor four Emmys, even leading to a four-year spinoff Archie Bunker's Place starring O'Connor. (It also produced one of TV's oddest spinoffs in1994's 704 Hauser about a multi-racial family living in Archie Bunker's old house. It had no cast members from the earlier series and only lasted six episodes.) In 1988, O'Connor took the role of a Southern sheriff in a TV series based on the movie In the Heat of the Night and found himself in another hit, this one lasting until 1995. He also occasionally played Helen Hunt's father on Mad About You. By all accounts, O'Connor was nothing like Archie Bunker; in fact, O'Connor was an active anti-drug crusader, partly the result of his son's drug-related suicide.
By Lang Thompson
TCM REMEMBERS JACK LEMMON 1925-2001
Whether playing a cross-dressing jazz bassist or a bickering roommate, Lemmon has kept his fans in stitches for fifty years. But beneath that comedian's facade, the actor had a very serious side, which occasionally surfaced in such films as Days of Wine and Roses (1962) or Costa-Gavras' political thriller Missing (1982). Lemmon was truly a one-of-a-kind actor and his track record for acclaimed performances is truly remarkable: 8 Oscar nominations (he won Best Supporting Actor for Mister Roberts (1955) and Best Actor for Save the Tiger (1973), a Life Achievement Award from the American Film Institute, 8 British Academy Award nominations, 4 Emmy Award nominations, numerous Golden Globe nominations, a two-time Best Actor winner at the Cannes Film Festival, the list goes on and on.
Lemmon entered the world in a completely novel fashion; he was born prematurely in an elevator in Boston in 1925. The son of a doughnut manufacturer, Lemmon later attended Harvard University but was bitten by the acting bug and left the prestigious college for Broadway. Between theatrical gigs, he played piano accompaniment to silent films shown at the Knickerbocker Music Hall in New York. Later, Lemmon claimed that he learned more about comic technique by watching these Chaplin, Keaton and Harold Lloyd two-reelers than acting school could have ever taught him.
From Broadway and early TV appearances to Hollywood, Lemmon moved West to make his screen debut in It Should Happen to You (1954), opposite Judy Holliday in a variation of her 'dumb blonde' persona that had won her an Oscar for Born Yesterday (1952). In It Should Happen to You, Holliday plays a struggling actress who soon wins fast fame as the product of promotion. Lemmon plays her levelheaded boyfriend but finds himself on the sidelines when the suave and sophisticated Peter Lawford appears on the scene. It Should Happen to You, directed by George Cukor, was a popular success and Lemmon and Holliday were quickly teamed again in Phffft! (1954), another lightweight romantic comedy. A year later, Lemmon hit the major leagues when he supported Hollywood heavyweights Henry Fonda, James Cagney and William Powell in Mister Roberts (1955). As Ensign Pulver, a deckhand who avoids work whenever possible, Lemmon won a Best Supporting Actor Oscar®.
Onscreen, Lemmon's characters often found that they were the wrong men for their jobs. In Cowboy (1958), Lemmon plays a city slicker venturing out on the wild frontier. His romantic visions of the West are soon changed by the hard-living, hard-drinking reality. Cowboy is based on the autobiography of Frank Harris, and, like the author, Lemmon found himself adapting to the rough and tumble lifestyle on the trail.
Lemmon brought a new comic persona to Hollywood films. He combined elements of screwball and slapstick comedy with his own self-deprecating humor to create satiric portraits of the contemporary American male. The sometimes cynical comic sense of director Billy Wilder provided Lemmon with the perfect complement. Together they made seven films, but it was their first, Some Like It Hot (1959), that captured the sheer comic genius of their collaborations together.
From sexual antics to social critique, Lemmon and Wilder sharpened their comic knives on the hypocrisies they saw in American culture. The Apartment (1960) focused on a working stiff who lends his home to his supervisors for their extramarital affairs. Problems arise when Lemmon falls for his boss's paramour - it gets even more complicated when she tries to kill herself in his pad! Though The Apartment was a comic success, with each passing year the film's serious side seems even more dark and derisive. Illicit love and the corruption of big business might not seem to be the stuff of hit comedies, but Wilder and Lemmon found humor in the most unlikeliest of places. Director and comic star went on to make five more films: Irma la Douce (1963), The Fortune Cookie (1966), Avanti! (1972), The Front Page (1974) and Buddy Buddy (1981).
Billy Wilder and Lemmon's lifelong comic foil Walter Matthau (nine collaborations with Lemmon in 32 years, including their most popular film, The Odd Couple, 1968) brought some of the comedian's finest funny moments to the screen. But there was a serious side too. Lemmon waived his salary to act in Save the Tiger (1973), the 'great American tragedy' of a businessman at the end of his rope. Lemmon won his second Academy Award for the film. In Missing (1982), directed by the uncompromising Costa-Gavras, Lemmon played a patriotic father searching for his kidnapped son in Latin America. The closer he gets to his goal, the clearer it becomes that a government conspiracy is behind his son's disappearance. Missing was inspired by a true story - the production was condemned by the Reagan administration and awarded the Golden Palm at the Cannes film festival.
Very few actors today can match Lemmon's range on the screen. He has acted in everything from lightweight sex farces (How to Murder Your Wife, 1965) to musicals (My Sister Eileen, 1955) to social dramas (Days of Wine and Roses, 1962) to political thrillers (The China Syndrome, 1979). Turner Classic Movies cherishes the memory of this remarkable talent.
By Cino Niles & Jeff Stafford
ANTHONY QUINN, 1915-2001
Not many actors can boast that they've inspired a Bob Dylan song but Anthony Quinn - who passed away June 3rd at the age of 86 - was one of the select few. But that's just one of many incidents in a life that can only be described as colorful. If a novelist had invented a character like Quinn, she would be accused of unbelievable invention. But in Quinn's case, it's all true.
Quinn was born April 21, 1915 in Mexico. His parents were involved in Pancho Villa's revolutionary struggle and must have made a striking couple since the father was half Irish and mother Mexican Indian. The couple were married on a train of rebel soldiers. After Quinn's birth, the family soon moved to East Los Angeles (after a quick Texas detour) where Quinn grew up in the shadow of Hollywood. (A branch of the Los Angeles County Public Library now occupies the site of Quinn's childhood home; in 1981 it was renamed in his honor.) At the age of 11 he won a sculpture award and shortly after began studying architecture under Frank Lloyd Wright. It was Wright in fact who suggested the possibility of acting to Quinn and even paid for an operation to cure a speech impediment. Along the way, Quinn also dabbled in professional boxing (he quit after his 17th match, the first he lost) and street-corner preaching. He continued to sculpt and paint for the rest of his life while also becoming a noted art collector.
Quinn's acting debut was in 1936 initially in a handful of barely noticable spots as an extra until he landed a speaking role in Cecil B. DeMille's The Plainsman, supposedly on the recommendation of the film's star, Gary Cooper. One unanticipated result was that Quinn married DeMille's daughter the following year; they appeared together in Phil Karlson's Black Gold (1947) and had five children. Quinn also appeared on stage in 1936 playing opposite Mae West. Quinn continued in film parts that gathered acclaim: Crazy Horse in They Died With Their Boots On (1941), a gambler in The Ox-Bow Incident (1943), a soldier in Guadalcanal Diary (1943).
But it was the 1950s when Quinn broke out. Viva Zapata!(1952) provided him a wonderful role which he used to win a Best Supporting Actor Academy Award. Oddly enough, in Viva Zapata! Quinn worked with Marlon Brando who he had replaced in the original Broadway production of A Streetcar Named Desire. (Director Elia Kazan tried to start a rivalry between the two actors but they were great admirers of each other.) Quinn again won Best Supporting Actor playing painter Paul Gauguin Lust for Life (1956) which at the time was the shortest on-screen time to win an acting Oscar. The following year came was a Best Actor nomination for George Cukor's Wild Is the Wind (1957). As he did throughout his career, Quinn rarely hesitated to take work whereever he found it, which resulted in dozens of potboilers like Seven Cities of Gold (1955) but also a few cult favorites like Budd Boetticher's The Magnificent Matador (1955). It was a trip to Italy that brought Quinn one of his most acclaimed roles: a simple-minded circus strongman in Federico Fellini's La Strada (1954). Quinn directed his only film in 1958, The Buccaneer, a commercial failure he later attributed to producer Cecil DeMille's interference. Towards the end of that decade he appeared in Nicholas Ray's The Savage Innocents (1959) as an Eskimo, inspiring Bob Dylan to write "Quinn the Eskimo" (a Top Ten hit for Manfred Mann in 1968). In 1965, his relationship with an Italian costumer created a minor scandal when it was revealed that the couple had two children. Quinn divorced DeMille's daughter and married the costumer.
He continued the same mix of classics and best-forgotten quickies throughout the 1960s and '70s. A key role in Lawrence of Arabia (1962) only confirmed his talents while he again earned a Best Actor nomination for the unforgettable lead role in Zorba the Greek (1964). The gritty crime drama Across 110th Street (1972) is one of the best American movies of its decade, enhanced by Quinn's turn as an embattled police captain. Quinn was a pope in The Shoes of the Fisherman (1968), an Islamic leader in The Message (1976), a thinly disguised Aristotle Onassis in The Greek Tycoon (1978) and an assortment of gangsters, con men, military leaders and what have you. The rest of his career might be summed up by the year 1991 when he gathered critical acclaim for his appearance in Spike Lee's Jungle Fever, was nominated for a Razzie as Worst Actor in Mobsters, co-starred with Bo Derek in Ghosts Can't Do It, worked beside John Candy and Macaulay Culkin in Chris Columbus' Only the Lonely and made a film so obscure it appears to have never appeared on video. Quinn married his third wife in 1997; they had one son. He had just completed the title role in Avenging Angelo (with Sylvester Stallone) at the time of his death.
By Lang Thompson
Return to Me
Brief Synopsis
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Set in Chicago, a contemporary fairy tale about a recently widowed architectural engineer, Bob Rueland, whose life takes a horrible turn when his wife's life is suddenly taken. He is haunted by her memory, and is still desperately in love with his wife. To cover his pain, and avoid dealing with his
Cast & Crew
Read More
Bonnie Hunt
Director
Bonnie Hunt
Minnie Driver
Lilliana Vitale
Tom Hunt
Lindsay Allen
Film Details
Also Known As
Dos Vidas Contigo, Droit au coeur, Feitico Do Coracao
MPAA Rating
Genre
Drama
Medical
Romance
Romantic Comedy
Release Date
2000
Distribution Company
METRO-GOLDWYN-MAYER STUDIOS INC. (MGM )
Location
Chicago, Illinois, USA
Technical Specs
Duration
1h 55m
Synopsis
Set in Chicago, a contemporary fairy tale about a recently widowed architectural engineer, Bob Rueland, whose life takes a horrible turn when his wife's life is suddenly taken. He is haunted by her memory, and is still desperately in love with his wife. To cover his pain, and avoid dealing with his loss, Bob buries himself in work. Bob is trying to 'get his life back' when he meets Grace Briggs, a waitress working in an Irish-Italian restaurant. who has just received a new lease on life through a long-awaited heart transplant. The surgery will save her from the medical fate that took her own mother's life when she was still a child. A recluse until now, Grace is exhilarated and frightened by the whole new world in front of her. Drawn together by the playful fates, they must prove that love is made possible by much more than a few fast heartbeats.
Director
Bonnie Hunt
Director
Cast
Bonnie Hunt
Minnie Driver
Lilliana Vitale
Tom Hunt
Lindsay Allen
Don Lake
Robert Loggia
Carroll O'connor
Holly Biniak
Joely Richardson
Paola Sebastiani
Darryl Warren
Adam Tanguay
William Bronder
Edward Balldog
James Belushi
Austin Samuel Hibbs
Peter B Spector
Dick Cusack
David Alan Grier
David Duchovny
Eddie Jones
Marianne Muellerleile
William Zirko
Brian Howe
Angelo Ricco
Lataunya Bounds
Joey Gian
Walt Jacobs
Chris Barnes
Holly Wortell
Tim O'malley
Jack Cooper
Harry Teinowitz
Warren Luening
Performer
Tamara Tungate
Tyler Spitzer
Patrick Hunt
Karson Pound
Romano Ghini
Franklin E Jones
Claire Lake
Carol Hunt
Scott Troha
Lead Man
Gabriella Arena
Alice Hunt
Becky Veduccio
Rudy Gabor
Tom Senderak
Tom Virtue
Jennie Lew Tugend
Kevin Hunt
David Pasquesi
Laura Larsen
Crew
Jane Alderman
Casting
Robert Allen
Song
Jennifer Desplinter Anderson
Assistant Camera Operator
Jennifer Apel
Assistant Editor
Bridgett Baron
Accountant
Bill Bartlet
Color
Stacy M. Basil
Animal Trainer
Jacqueline Beatka
Costumes
Odin Benitez
Editor
Ron Berkeley
Makeup
Gaston Biraben
Dialogue Editor
Alphone Blumenthal
Lighting Technician
Lis Bothwell
Costume Designer
Patrizio Bramucci
Lighting Technician
Julian Bratolyubov
Other
Antonio Bruno
Unit Manager
Doctor Charles D Campbell
Special Thanks To
Agata Cannizzaro
Other
Marco Carosi
Camera
Benny Carter
Song Performer
Patrick Caulfield
Costumes
Jim Champagne
Assistant Engineer
Andrew Charles
Graphic Designer
Brian Cho
Rights & Clearances
Patrick Clancey
Visual Effects
Daniel Clancy
Set Decorator
Janis Clark
Hair Stylist
Alfred Cleveland
Song
Cy Coleman
Song
Nancy Collini
Costumes
Tyson Contor
Other
Steve Copley
Foley
Garth Craven
Editor
Willow Craven
Post-Production Assistant
Luigi Creatore
Song
Steve Cudzilo
Assistant Location Manager
Bill Danaher
Assistant Editor
Gerrit Dangremond
Camera Operator
Sandy De Crescent
Music Contractor
E Decurtis
Song
G B Decurtis
Song
Jennifer Deigl
Production Assistant
Dan Del Negro
Song
Greg Dennen
Assistant Engineer
Piernicola Di Muro
Other
George Dileonardi
Transportation Coordinator
Daniel Diminno
Song
Peter Doell
Assistant Engineer
Marylou Eales
Music Coordinator
Mark A Echevarria
Animal Trainer
Kira Edmunds
Assistant Sound Editor
Joy Ellison
Consultant
Ed England
Construction Coordinator
C. O. Erickson
Executive Producer
C. O. Erickson
Unit Production Manager
Frank Ferran
Other
Mali Finn
Casting
Marcie Friedman
Art Department Coordinator
Fabio Galliano
Propman
Jim Gaudio
Other
Gary Gegan
Sound Mixer
George Gershwin
Song
Ira Gershwin
Song
Joan Giammarco
Adr Editor
Joey Gian
Song
Joey Gian
Song Performer
Jackie Gleason
Song
Avram D Gold
Adr Editor
Brad Good
On-Set Dresser
Samantha Goodman
From Story
Doctor Alexander Gordon
Special Thanks To
Melanie Greene
Executive Producer
Robert Grieve
Sound Editor
Walter Gross
Song
Jeanne Byrd Hall
Script Supervisor
Gary Happ
Foreman
Mark Harper
Stunt Player
Philip Harrelson
Other
Lorenz Hart
Song
Catherine Head
Casting Associate
Chris Helcemanas-benge
Photography
Phil Hetos
Color Timer
Kathryn Hibbs
Accountant
Cindy Hochman
Production Coordinator
Mark Hogan
Special Effects Foreman
Bonnie Hunt
From Story
Bonnie Hunt
Screenplay
Bonnie Hunt
Song
Doctor Kevin Hunt
Special Thanks To
Matthew Iadarola
Sound Mixer
Nadya Ichinomiya
Assistant
Mark Intravartolo
Art Department
Craig Jackson
Set Designer
Mike Jay
Music Editor
C David Jones
Production Assistant
Don Julien
Assistant Director
John P Keating
Other
Richard King
Foreman
Rodman Kiser
Special Effects Coordinator
Eric Knight
Assistant
George Kohut
Camera Operator
Laszlo Kovacs
Director Of Photography
Lindsey Hayes Kroeger
Casting Associate
David Krummel
Art Director
Robert Krzeminski
Grip
Peter Kuttner
Assistant Camera Operator
Kevin Kuwada
Matte Painter
Sergio Ladera
Production Supervisor
Don Lake
From Story
Don Lake
Screenplay
Felice Lattes
Other
Jack Lawrence
Song
Rick Lefevour
Stunt Coordinator
Carolyn Leigh
Song
Morgan Michael Lewis
Key Grip
Stephanie Lococo
Production Assistant
Carmen Lombardo
Song
David Low
Music Contractor
Tom Lowell
Stunt Player
Diane Lucas
Adr
Doctor Kristen Lukas
Special Thanks To
Anthony J Lullo
Lighting
Maurizio Lupi
Hair Stylist
Doctor Frank J Lutrin
Special Thanks To
Jen Macneill
Foley
Kathryn A Madden
Other
Dean Martin
Song Performer
Timothy J Maxwell
Transportation Captain
James R Mcallister
Location Manager
J D Mccarthy
Assistant Property Master
Annie F Mccarthy-winn
Property Master
Susan Mcgill
Production Assistant
Mickie Mcgowan
Voice Casting
Robert W Mclain
Craft Service
Vittorio Melloni
Sound Engineer
Joseph Meyer
Song
Charlie Midnight
Song
John Mikels
Other
Leslie Mikol
Set Production Assistant
Michael Morreale
Executive Producer
Stefania Nicosia
Assistant Director
Alessandro Orlandi
Art Director
Jeremy Oswald
Production Assistant
Willard Overstreet
Assistant Sound Editor
Bobbi Page
Song Performer
Nadine Pages
Post-Production Coordinator
Ginny Parrillo
Negative Cutting
Brian Pawlowski
Production Assistant
Alfredo Pedro
Other
Hugo Peretti
Song
Linda Perlin
Stunt Player
Nicholas Pike
Music
Nicholas Pike
Original Music
Nicholas Pike
Song
Cole Porter
Song
Alicia Pritchett
Production Assistant
Gilberto Provenghi
Makeup
Mark Purkart
Dolly Grip
Anna Raisor
Assistant Production Coordinator
Mark A Ridge
Extras Agent/Coordinator
Linda R Rizzuto
Hair Stylist
Artist Robinson
Assistant Director
William Robinson Jr.
Song
Richard Rodgers
Song
Peter De Rose
Song
Todd Rosenberg
Photography
Earl Sampson
Boom Operator
Kerry Sanders
Set Designer
Nina Saxon
Main Title Design
Michelle Schubert
Foley
Kristine Scott Schultz
Other
Emily Schweber
Casting Associate
Janine Selfridge
Production Assistant
Allen Sides
Song Performer
John Sievert
Foley Artist
Carl Sigman
Song
Joel Sill
Music Producer
Frank Sinatra
Song Performer
Scott Smith
Sound Recordist
Jonilyn Spracklen
Accounting Assistant
Seve Spracklen
Accounting Assistant
Deanna Stadler
Assistant Director
Greg Steele
Adr Mixer
Andrew Stern
From Story
John Stevens
Other
Brian Sullivan
Special Thanks To
Terrence Sweet
Transportation Co-Captain
Marc Swersky
Song
Brent Thomas
Production Designer
Doriano Torriero
Key Grip
Jennie Lew Tugend
Producer
Dirk Vahle
Helicopter Pilot
Jeff Vermillion
Other
Dan Wallin
Music
Amy Jo Weinstein
Assistant
George David Weiss
Song
Paul Westerbeck
Color
Thomas E Whalen
Video Assist/Playback
Jennifer White
Other
Jonathan Wickens
Assistant Location Manager
Film Details
Also Known As
Dos Vidas Contigo, Droit au coeur, Feitico Do Coracao
MPAA Rating
Genre
Drama
Medical
Romance
Romantic Comedy
Release Date
2000
Distribution Company
METRO-GOLDWYN-MAYER STUDIOS INC. (MGM )
Location
Chicago, Illinois, USA
Technical Specs
Duration
1h 55m
Articles
TCM Remembers - Carroll O'Connor
TCM Remembers - Carroll O'Connor
Carroll O'Connor - who died June 21st at the age of 76 - will be best remembered for portraying Archie Bunker on TV's All in the Family but his career actually was much more extensive. Born in New York on August 2nd, 1924, O'Connor served in the merchant marine during World War II before attending the University of Montana where he worked on the school newspaper. Before graduating, he followed his brother to another college in Ireland (he would later get a Masters in speech from Montana). It was in Ireland that O'Connor started acting in several local productions. He returned to the U.S. for his Broadway debut in 1958 and shortly after started to appear on numerous TV shows like The Untouchables and Naked City. His first film was Parrish (1961) though he eventually acted in over a dozen films during the Sixties including Cleopatra (1963), Marlowe (1969), Hawaii (1966) and Point Blank (1967). O'Connor even auditioned for the part of the Skipper in the TV series, Gilligan's Island, but it was his role as Archie Bunker in a 1971 sitcom that made him a star. All in the Family was an American version of the British sitcom Till Death Do Us Part that met some initial resistance (ABC rejected the first two pilots) but quickly captivated American audiences and became the country's top-rated TV show. Archie became such an icon that his chair is now preserved in the Smithsonian. The series lasted until 1979 and brought O'Connor four Emmys, even leading to a four-year spinoff Archie Bunker's Place starring O'Connor. (It also produced one of TV's oddest spinoffs in1994's 704 Hauser about a multi-racial family living in Archie Bunker's old house. It had no cast members from the earlier series and only lasted six episodes.) In 1988, O'Connor took the role of a Southern sheriff in a TV series based on the movie In the Heat of the Night and found himself in another hit, this one lasting until 1995. He also occasionally played Helen Hunt's father on Mad About You. By all accounts, O'Connor was nothing like Archie Bunker; in fact, O'Connor was an active anti-drug crusader, partly the result of his son's drug-related suicide.
By Lang Thompson
TCM REMEMBERS JACK LEMMON 1925-2001
Whether playing a cross-dressing jazz bassist or a bickering roommate, Lemmon has kept his fans in stitches for fifty years. But beneath that comedian's facade, the actor had a very serious side, which occasionally surfaced in such films as Days of Wine and Roses (1962) or Costa-Gavras' political thriller Missing (1982). Lemmon was truly a one-of-a-kind actor and his track record for acclaimed performances is truly remarkable: 8 Oscar nominations (he won Best Supporting Actor for Mister Roberts (1955) and Best Actor for Save the Tiger (1973), a Life Achievement Award from the American Film Institute, 8 British Academy Award nominations, 4 Emmy Award nominations, numerous Golden Globe nominations, a two-time Best Actor winner at the Cannes Film Festival, the list goes on and on.
Lemmon entered the world in a completely novel fashion; he was born prematurely in an elevator in Boston in 1925. The son of a doughnut manufacturer, Lemmon later attended Harvard University but was bitten by the acting bug and left the prestigious college for Broadway. Between theatrical gigs, he played piano accompaniment to silent films shown at the Knickerbocker Music Hall in New York. Later, Lemmon claimed that he learned more about comic technique by watching these Chaplin, Keaton and Harold Lloyd two-reelers than acting school could have ever taught him.
From Broadway and early TV appearances to Hollywood, Lemmon moved West to make his screen debut in It Should Happen to You (1954), opposite Judy Holliday in a variation of her 'dumb blonde' persona that had won her an Oscar for Born Yesterday (1952). In It Should Happen to You, Holliday plays a struggling actress who soon wins fast fame as the product of promotion. Lemmon plays her levelheaded boyfriend but finds himself on the sidelines when the suave and sophisticated Peter Lawford appears on the scene. It Should Happen to You, directed by George Cukor, was a popular success and Lemmon and Holliday were quickly teamed again in Phffft! (1954), another lightweight romantic comedy. A year later, Lemmon hit the major leagues when he supported Hollywood heavyweights Henry Fonda, James Cagney and William Powell in Mister Roberts (1955). As Ensign Pulver, a deckhand who avoids work whenever possible, Lemmon won a Best Supporting Actor Oscar®.
Onscreen, Lemmon's characters often found that they were the wrong men for their jobs. In Cowboy (1958), Lemmon plays a city slicker venturing out on the wild frontier. His romantic visions of the West are soon changed by the hard-living, hard-drinking reality. Cowboy is based on the autobiography of Frank Harris, and, like the author, Lemmon found himself adapting to the rough and tumble lifestyle on the trail.
Lemmon brought a new comic persona to Hollywood films. He combined elements of screwball and slapstick comedy with his own self-deprecating humor to create satiric portraits of the contemporary American male. The sometimes cynical comic sense of director Billy Wilder provided Lemmon with the perfect complement. Together they made seven films, but it was their first, Some Like It Hot (1959), that captured the sheer comic genius of their collaborations together.
From sexual antics to social critique, Lemmon and Wilder sharpened their comic knives on the hypocrisies they saw in American culture. The Apartment (1960) focused on a working stiff who lends his home to his supervisors for their extramarital affairs. Problems arise when Lemmon falls for his boss's paramour - it gets even more complicated when she tries to kill herself in his pad! Though The Apartment was a comic success, with each passing year the film's serious side seems even more dark and derisive. Illicit love and the corruption of big business might not seem to be the stuff of hit comedies, but Wilder and Lemmon found humor in the most unlikeliest of places. Director and comic star went on to make five more films: Irma la Douce (1963), The Fortune Cookie (1966), Avanti! (1972), The Front Page (1974) and Buddy Buddy (1981).
Billy Wilder and Lemmon's lifelong comic foil Walter Matthau (nine collaborations with Lemmon in 32 years, including their most popular film, The Odd Couple, 1968) brought some of the comedian's finest funny moments to the screen. But there was a serious side too. Lemmon waived his salary to act in Save the Tiger (1973), the 'great American tragedy' of a businessman at the end of his rope. Lemmon won his second Academy Award for the film. In Missing (1982), directed by the uncompromising Costa-Gavras, Lemmon played a patriotic father searching for his kidnapped son in Latin America. The closer he gets to his goal, the clearer it becomes that a government conspiracy is behind his son's disappearance. Missing was inspired by a true story - the production was condemned by the Reagan administration and awarded the Golden Palm at the Cannes film festival.
Very few actors today can match Lemmon's range on the screen. He has acted in everything from lightweight sex farces (How to Murder Your Wife, 1965) to musicals (My Sister Eileen, 1955) to social dramas (Days of Wine and Roses, 1962) to political thrillers (The China Syndrome, 1979). Turner Classic Movies cherishes the memory of this remarkable talent.
By Cino Niles & Jeff Stafford
ANTHONY QUINN, 1915-2001
Not many actors can boast that they've inspired a Bob Dylan song but Anthony Quinn - who passed away June 3rd at the age of 86 - was one of the select few. But that's just one of many incidents in a life that can only be described as colorful. If a novelist had invented a character like Quinn, she would be accused of unbelievable invention. But in Quinn's case, it's all true.
Quinn was born April 21, 1915 in Mexico. His parents were involved in Pancho Villa's revolutionary struggle and must have made a striking couple since the father was half Irish and mother Mexican Indian. The couple were married on a train of rebel soldiers. After Quinn's birth, the family soon moved to East Los Angeles (after a quick Texas detour) where Quinn grew up in the shadow of Hollywood. (A branch of the Los Angeles County Public Library now occupies the site of Quinn's childhood home; in 1981 it was renamed in his honor.) At the age of 11 he won a sculpture award and shortly after began studying architecture under Frank Lloyd Wright. It was Wright in fact who suggested the possibility of acting to Quinn and even paid for an operation to cure a speech impediment. Along the way, Quinn also dabbled in professional boxing (he quit after his 17th match, the first he lost) and street-corner preaching. He continued to sculpt and paint for the rest of his life while also becoming a noted art collector.
Quinn's acting debut was in 1936 initially in a handful of barely noticable spots as an extra until he landed a speaking role in Cecil B. DeMille's The Plainsman, supposedly on the recommendation of the film's star, Gary Cooper. One unanticipated result was that Quinn married DeMille's daughter the following year; they appeared together in Phil Karlson's Black Gold (1947) and had five children. Quinn also appeared on stage in 1936 playing opposite Mae West. Quinn continued in film parts that gathered acclaim: Crazy Horse in They Died With Their Boots On (1941), a gambler in The Ox-Bow Incident (1943), a soldier in Guadalcanal Diary (1943).
But it was the 1950s when Quinn broke out. Viva Zapata!(1952) provided him a wonderful role which he used to win a Best Supporting Actor Academy Award. Oddly enough, in Viva Zapata! Quinn worked with Marlon Brando who he had replaced in the original Broadway production of A Streetcar Named Desire. (Director Elia Kazan tried to start a rivalry between the two actors but they were great admirers of each other.) Quinn again won Best Supporting Actor playing painter Paul Gauguin Lust for Life (1956) which at the time was the shortest on-screen time to win an acting Oscar. The following year came was a Best Actor nomination for George Cukor's Wild Is the Wind (1957). As he did throughout his career, Quinn rarely hesitated to take work whereever he found it, which resulted in dozens of potboilers like Seven Cities of Gold (1955) but also a few cult favorites like Budd Boetticher's The Magnificent Matador (1955). It was a trip to Italy that brought Quinn one of his most acclaimed roles: a simple-minded circus strongman in Federico Fellini's La Strada (1954). Quinn directed his only film in 1958, The Buccaneer, a commercial failure he later attributed to producer Cecil DeMille's interference. Towards the end of that decade he appeared in Nicholas Ray's The Savage Innocents (1959) as an Eskimo, inspiring Bob Dylan to write "Quinn the Eskimo" (a Top Ten hit for Manfred Mann in 1968). In 1965, his relationship with an Italian costumer created a minor scandal when it was revealed that the couple had two children. Quinn divorced DeMille's daughter and married the costumer.
He continued the same mix of classics and best-forgotten quickies throughout the 1960s and '70s. A key role in Lawrence of Arabia (1962) only confirmed his talents while he again earned a Best Actor nomination for the unforgettable lead role in Zorba the Greek (1964). The gritty crime drama Across 110th Street (1972) is one of the best American movies of its decade, enhanced by Quinn's turn as an embattled police captain. Quinn was a pope in The Shoes of the Fisherman (1968), an Islamic leader in The Message (1976), a thinly disguised Aristotle Onassis in The Greek Tycoon (1978) and an assortment of gangsters, con men, military leaders and what have you. The rest of his career might be summed up by the year 1991 when he gathered critical acclaim for his appearance in Spike Lee's Jungle Fever, was nominated for a Razzie as Worst Actor in Mobsters, co-starred with Bo Derek in Ghosts Can't Do It, worked beside John Candy and Macaulay Culkin in Chris Columbus' Only the Lonely and made a film so obscure it appears to have never appeared on video. Quinn married his third wife in 1997; they had one son. He had just completed the title role in Avenging Angelo (with Sylvester Stallone) at the time of his death.
By Lang Thompson
Quotes
Trivia
Miscellaneous Notes
Released in United States Spring April 7, 2000
Wide Release in United States April 14, 2000
Released in United States on Video October 31, 2000
Feature film directorial debut for actress Bonnie Hunt.
Completed shooting July 21, 1999.
Began shooting May 5, 1999.
Released in United States Spring April 7, 2000
Wide Release in United States April 14, 2000
Released in United States on Video October 31, 2000
