Modern Screen (Dec 1954 - Dec 1955)

the jack lemmons (Continued from page 59) Jack is just another guy hefting lettuce instead of lotus blossoms, carrying a carton of Cokes instead of a case of champagne, patiently waiting his turn behind you at the checking counter. Even people who are impressed by stars find it difficult to think of Jack as one. As Cindy tells it: "This girl I went to school with came down from Santa Barbara with her husband — she's a close friend of mine — and we gave them the full treatment. Ciro's, the Mocambo, everything. She was terribly disappointed, though, because there didn't seem to be any movie stars out that night. After she remarked a few times that here she was in Hollywood and not a single star in sight, I leaned over and said, 'Dear, you're with one.' "She recovered fast enough afterward, but when she asked, 'I am?' she was only half-kidding." T~Jespite his everyday manner, Jack Lem-L' mon is a major talent. He can sing, dance, play a straight role, pie-in-the-face or hearts and flowers flawlessly. And has done so on stage, screen, television and radio. Negotiations are underway for him to direct a major tv presentation next season. In New York Jack produced three tv series co-starring with his bride-to-be. "Those were the days!" he says as if they were fifty years past instead of five. "We had one camera and, most of the time, two characters: Cindy and me. That was the show. If there was too much action, we'd lose the camera — and maybe you don't think it's hard to sustain pace with just a couple of people talking for ten or twelve minutes. But we did it and we must have been all right; we made a lot of money out of it." It's typical of Jack that though there were some times in New York he had to scratch for an existence, he couldn't see asking the family for help. "No, I did borrow five or ten dollars a couple of times," he admits, "but I paid it all backincluding the original investment." (Lemmon, Sr. staked his Harvard-bred, stagestruck son to $300.) While making the professional rounds in Manhattan, he met a fine young actress named Cynthia Stone. She is tall, too thin, a true blonde with clear blue eyes, clear tanned skin and impossibly perfect white teeth. When she first encountered Jack Lemmon, she was engaged to a Harvard law student. "I did not break up their romance," Jack insists blandly. "Maybe I had an advantage because Cindy was interested in the theatre and I was the only actor she knew." He grins. "I just gave it a little nudge." Cindy's version, related when Jack is elsewhere, does less fiddling with the facts. "Well, we were planning to be married, even though the engagement wasn't official yet. But, from the first time I met Jack, I knew it wouldn't be right for me to marry anyone else when he attracted me so much. Not that I let him know it at the start, since he didn't even give me a tumble — but I had to do some quick revising of my plans." Sporting fellow that he is, Jack has enormous admiration for his erstwhile rival, chiefly because the guy had imagination. The night that he and Cynthia opened in an off-Broadway but nonetheless legitimate production, Jack walked his leading lady home. And in front of her apartment building they found a titillated crowd gathered about a gentleman who wore a sandwich board proclaiming in large black print the beauty and superb talents of one Cynthia Stone. He had been hired by the law student. Cindy, who had hoped that her serious dramatic aspirations were impressing the handsome actor with the thick, dark eyelashes and the impudent grin, dissolved into tears of embarrassment. Jack howled. "Not only that," he'll tell you admiringly, "he was going to hire a sky writer, too, except that Cindy said she'd never speak to him again if he did." Chortly thereafter Jack gave Cynthia ^ that earth-moving tumble for which she yearned. They did exactly what you would expect of two well-brought-up youngsters; they bided their time until they could go back to her home in Peoria, Illinois, to be married on May 7, 1950. It was like them to have a proper wedding, chapter and verse, rather than a hasty civil ceremony performed by a justice of the peace. They still go back to Peoria to celebrate Christmas every year. Nice and normal. Besides they miss the snow. "I remember," Cynthia says nostalgically. "You're walking at night in New York either because you can't find a cab or can't afford one and it's winter, so cold that you almost can't stand it. There isn't' anything more wonderful than turning in at the old brownstone house where you live, running upstairs, and putting a match to the logs in the fireplace. Or driving to Long Island or Connecticut on a clear, nippy day when the colors of the leaves make your throat ache. Or, after a bad winter, waking up on one of those spring days that only happen to Manhattan — crisp, clean, brilliant and, well, just exciting. It can't be explained; it's something you have to feel." But the Lemmons aren't about to swap the warmth and friendliness of California for nostalgia. This is home now. "We love it and, besides, it's perfect for Chris. Where else could a baby be outside practically all day?" Master Christopher grows so rapidly that Jack cautions Cindy. "Don't antagonize him, honey. He might turn on us." He wouldn't, of course, being a nice little guy who retires at seven in the evening and doesn't assert himself again until seven the next morning. And has followed this highly desirable schedule since he was six months old. "We didn't do it," his parents concede. "When he came home from the hospital, he had a nurse who allowed no one in Christopher's room after he went to bed. It seemed severe at the time, but she was the best thing that ever happened to us. We, being new parents, would have heard him stir and leapt up saying, 'He's awake! Get him up, change him, feed him, do something!' Since he was trained from birth not to expect all that attention, he entertains himself. If he wakes up during the night, he sings, laughs, talks to himself, plays with his toes until he falls asleep again. It's as simple as that." The routine of the Lemmons' daily life revolves pretty much around Chris, as PHOTOGRAPHERS' CREDITS The photographs appearing in this issue are credited below, page by page: 9 — Beerman, Parry; 10 — The Stork Club, Scott, INP; 11 — Rogers' Enterprises, Globe, Beerman; 12 — Globe, Bennett Photos, Albin; 13 — Wide World, INP, Beerman, Globe, Bennett Photos; 14 — Albin, Globe; IS — 20th-Fox, Globe, Albin; 30, 31 — Topix; 44 — Engstead; 47 — Graphic House; 48, 49— Topix; 52, 53 — Beerman; 54, 55, 56, 57 — Parry; 58, 59 — Beerman; 60 — INP; 62 — Beerman. Earn BIG MONEY as a graduate PRACTICAL NURSE Train At Home in 12 Weeks! 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