Jack Lemmon

It's not yet 8 a.m. and Jack Lemmon is sitting in a trailer on the Paramount lot looking older by the minute. Each weekday morning he undergoes two hours of makeup to age two decades for his role of an elderly man in "Dad," the comedy-drama he calls "one of the best scripts I've read in 10 years." Armed with cosmetic brushes and a blow dryer, make up artists Ken Diaz and Greg Nelson carefully apply layers of a latex-gelatin mixture, then blow dry it to form wrinkles on Lemmon's face and neck.

Filmmakers are natural raconteurs — they have to be — at least when talking about their films. There are the money men who must be convinced to invest, the studios they need to sign on for distribution, the actors they want to hire and the press and public they hope will see the finished film and like it. The American Film Institute captures all that and more in "Conversations at the American Film Institute with the Great Moviemakers: The...

It has long been a critical commonplace to describe Jack Lemmon as the everyman of American film, the least glamorous of great movie stars. But it is misleading simply to think of him as an average Joe. In many ways Lemmon, who died at age 76 in 2001, was not ordinary but exemplary, something all too rare among screen icons: a paragon of both human fallibility and human decency.

Cliff Robertson , who starred as John F. Kennedy in a 1963 World War II drama and later won an Academy Award for his portrayal of a mentally disabled bakery janitor in the movie "Charly," died Saturday, one day after his 88th birthday. Robertson, who also played a real-life role as the whistle-blower in the check-forging scandal of then-Columbia Pictures President David Begelman that rocked Hollywood in the late 1970s, died at Stony Brook University Medical Center on New York's Long Island, according to Evelyn Christel, his longtime personal secretary.

Jack Lemmon, a two-time Oscar winner, will host the 57th annual Academy Awards. Lemmon, who won a best-supporting actor Oscar for his performance in 1955's "Mr. Roberts" and a best-actor Oscar for 1973's "Save the Tiger," was named Wednesday by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences producing team of Gregory Peck, Robert Wise, Larry Gelbart and Gene Allen. Ten co-hosts will join Lemmon for the March 25 ceremonies at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion.

Cliff Robertson , who starred as John F. Kennedy in a 1963 World War II drama and later won an Academy Award for his portrayal of a mentally disabled bakery janitor in the movie "Charly," died Saturday, one day after his 88th birthday. Robertson, who also played a real-life role as the whistle-blower in the check-forging scandal of then-Columbia Pictures President David Begelman that rocked Hollywood in the late 1970s, died at Stony Brook University Medical Center on New York's Long Island, according to Evelyn Christel, his longtime personal secretary.

Jack Lemmon appeared in scores of feature films and TV movies and specials. Here is a chronological look at a majority of his credits. Films: * "It Should Happen to You," 1954 * "Phffft!"

"Sounds like fun." That was Oscar-winning actor ("Save the Tiger," "Mister Roberts") Jack Lemmon's reaction when Grammy-winning producer Ralph Jungheim (Ruth Brown, Joe Williams) asked him if he would like to make an album playing piano and singing.

Jack Lemmon, whose gift for broad physical comedy and soul-searching drama made him one of Hollywood's most beloved and accomplished actors, has died. He was 76. Lemmon died about 9 p.m. Wednesday at USC/Norris Cancer Center with his wife, actress Felicia Farr, two children and a stepdaughter at his bedside. The cause of death was complications from cancer, his longtime publicist Warren Cowan announced.

Jack Lemmon, who died Wednesday at age 76 after a long, brave siege with cancer, remembered a few years ago that "I would wake up in the morning and say, 'Kiddo, today you're going to be working with Bill Powell, Hank Fonda, Jimmy Cagney and John Ford.' " That was from his days as Ensign Pulver in "Mister Roberts," a young actor's dream of a role in a dream company of Hollywood's starriest and even then legendary names.

Dorothy Provine, who played the singing, high-kicking flapper in the early-1960s TV series "The Roaring Twenties" and appeared in the all-star movie comedy "It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World," has died. She was 75. Provine, a longtime resident of Bainbridge Island, Wash., died of emphysema Sunday at Hospice of Kitsap County in Bremerton, said her husband, Robert Day. A former University of Washington drama major, Provine landed the title role in the low-budget 1958 gangster film "The Bonnie Parker Story" three days after arriving in Hollywood.

It has long been a critical commonplace to describe Jack Lemmon as the everyman of American film, the least glamorous of great movie stars. But it is misleading simply to think of him as an average Joe. In many ways Lemmon, who died at age 76 in 2001, was not ordinary but exemplary, something all too rare among screen icons: a paragon of both human fallibility and human decency.

They're heeeeere! That's the cry being raised in Westwood, where life threatens to imitate art in a "Poltergeist"-like dispute between homes and graves. This time it is a cemetery that is being criticized for wanting to put graves almost on top of nearby homes, however. Not the other way around, as in the Steven Spielberg-produced 1982 horror movie.

Everybody loved Jack Lemmon. On Tuesday, the late actor's friends and colleagues had another chance to gush at the Geffen Playhouse's gala performance of "Six Dance Lessons in Six Weeks." They also gushed about one another. Uta Hagen held court at a cocktail party after the play, in which she stars as a cantankerous widow, and David Hyde Pierce plays her equally cranky dance instructor.

Re "Jack Lemmon, Everyman Star, Dies," June 29: After I graduated from film school, I was lucky enough to get a job as a night watchman on the set of "The China Syndrome." I loved this job because it meant I could climb up into the rafters and watch Jack Lemmon perform his scenes. One night I watched him play the final scene, in which his character, dying on the control room floor of a nuclear reactor, feels a rumbling that means the reactor is about to go into a meltdown. I marveled at how Jack could ramp up to emotional speed for this delicate yet forceful scene time after time.

Turner Classic Movies salutes the late Jack Lemmon with a 24-hour film festival kicking off Sunday at 5 p.m. with "The Apartment," Billy Wilder's 1960 Oscar winner co-starring Shirley MacLaine and Fred MacMurray. "Days of Wine and Roses" and the 1959 classic "Some Like It Hot" follow at 7:15 p.m and 9:30 p.m., respectively. Also on Sunday, Jackie Chan and Chris Tucker team up for "Rush Hour" (7:10 p.m. TBS) as mismatched cops. SPECIALS KCET repeats "Jack Lemmon," a one-hour retrospective (9 p.m.

Neighborhood disputes hardly get any more basic than this: Rich guy buys a property and makes plans to build a house that would dwarf all the others on the block. The folks in the smaller houses raise a fuss and try to stop him. But the lush northwest corner of Beverly Hills is no ordinary neighborhood. The smaller houses are certainly not small, and by no stretch are the people who live there little folks.

Jack Lemmon was overjoyed about becoming old before his time for a role. With thinning, white hair, a shuffling walk, raspy voice and diminishing health, he faced illness and death. The 65-year-old veteran actor aged a couple of decades in a matter of hours for his role in the 1989 film "Dad," playing Jake Tremont, an old man dealing with the realities of the sometimes not-so-golden years.

Jack Lemmon, who died Wednesday at age 76 after a long, brave siege with cancer, remembered a few years ago that "I would wake up in the morning and say, 'Kiddo, today you're going to be working with Bill Powell, Hank Fonda, Jimmy Cagney and John Ford.' " That was from his days as Ensign Pulver in "Mister Roberts," a young actor's dream of a role in a dream company of Hollywood's starriest and even then legendary names.

Jack Lemmon appeared in scores of feature films and TV movies and specials. Here is a chronological look at a majority of his credits. Films: * "It Should Happen to You," 1954 * "Phffft!"