Definitive Biography of Jack Lemmon Released on DVD

February 8, 2008, Harrington Park, NJ... Janson Media today announced the worldwide release of the DVD, JACK LEMMON: AMERICA’S EVERYMAN. The title is the sixth to be released on DVD from the company’s Hollywood Collection, an award-winning archive of 34 movie star biographies and retrospectives produced by Wombat Productions between 1985 and 1999.

John Uhler “Jack” Lemmon III, was born on February 8, 1925 - 83 years ago, today. An only child, he was raised in Boston, Massachusetts, and was that rarity among Hollywood stars, a man with affectionate memories of his parents. One of the most consistently acclaimed actors in motion pictures, Jack Lemmon was the first man to win Academy Awards as both Best Supporting Actor (“Mister Roberts” 1955) and Best Actor (“Save the Tiger” 1973). After graduating from Harvard where he served as president of the prestigious Hasty Pudding Club, he moved to New York City and broke into show business in the late 1940s, with running parts in several radio soap operas and some 500 performances in the great live television dramas of the medium’s Golden Age.

His Broadway debut in “Room Service” (1953) led to a contract with Columbia, and he launched his film career in a pair of Judy Holliday pictures, George Cukor’s “It Should Happen to You” and Mark Robson’s “Phfft!” (both 1954). Lemmon’s fourth picture, “Mister Roberts” (1955), cast him as the opportunistic Ensign Pulver, bringing him prominence and the first of his two Oscars. Later in life, his achievement was enriched by new challenges in which he exposed the vulnerability and emotion of the later years as few had dared. He reveled in his ongoing screen partnerships with directors like Billy Wilder and stars like Walter Matthau. In 1988 he received the Life Achievement Award of the American Film Institute. Lemmon died of cancer at the age of 76.

Narrated on-camera by Jack Lemmon, this profile includes interviews with Lemmon’s son, the actor Chris Lemmon. Also appearing are such legends as Jack’s life-long friend, the writer and director Billy Wilder, writer-director Garson Kanin, drama teacher Uta Hagen, and actor Gregory Peck. Actors Charles Durning, Maureen Stapleton, Betty Garrett, and Kevin Spacey, writer Neil Simon, director Delbert Mann, and other Hollywood luminaries help complete the profile.

JACK LEMMON: AMERICA’S EVERYMAN is now available exclusively from Janson Media for all television, DVD, and new media markets worldwide. The DVD also includes clips from some of Lemmon’s major films, a Jack Lemmon Photo Gallery, and trailers of other Hollywood Collection DVDs.

JACK LEMMON: AMERICA’S EVERYMAN DVD
Total Content: 93 Minutes
MSRP: $24.95
CATALOG #: 20357
UPC #: 6-4603203579-7
ISBN #: 1-56839-245-1
Pre-book Date: February 15, 2008
Street Date: February 22, 2008

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