Sneak preview
Exclusive interviews with Billy Wilder, Tony Curtis, Jack Lemmon and others
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Pre-Production
Jack Lemmon: I had done a little picture called Operation Madball, me and Ernie Kovacs, Mickey Rooney and a whole bunch of nuts at Columbia that Dick Klein, who was a dear friend of mine, had directed and Billy liked it, he'd seen it. Now when this project came along the Mirisches all wanted a star and they were talking about Danny Kaye and Frank Sinatra and a few others. I know Danny did want to do it, he told me that later, and Billy kept saying no, and then finally when they got both Marilyn and Tony set, then they agreed that they had enough firepower. So Billy said, 'I want this kid Lemmon from Columbia here' and they said okay. And that's how I got the part.
I of course had no idea of all the machinations that were going on, I had no idea, I just got a call from Billy-not a call actually, I bumped into him. Billy and Audrey were having dinner one night when I walked in and Billy said, 'Do me a favor,' he said, 'We'll wait because we've already ordered. On our way out we'll just stop by the table. I want to speak to you for just a minute,' and I said, 'Of course.' I had met Billy, but only 'Hi how are you?' and a few minutes of talking a couple of times before that. So he stopped by and said, 'I got this story here about two musicians that witnessed the St. Valentine's Day Massacre and the guys that are doing the massacring see them, so their lives are in jeopardy and the only way out is for them to join an all girl orchestra which means that you'll play for three-quarters of the film in drag at least, do you want to do it?' And I immediately said yes, I don't know why but the good Lord was shining, I said yes, no script, no nothing. And I did it because my first thought was, oh Jesus Christ, we're in drag and everything, but wait a minute, Billy Wilder is doing it, it's not going to be in bad taste and the man is a bloody genius and so forth. I admired what he had done of course, immensely, in the past. He said, 'Terrific, I'll send you some pages when we get them.'
I didn't hear anything for at least two or three months and suddenly sixty pages came to the front door and that was it-sixty pages. I laid down on the couch in my little house up in the top of Bel Air. I fell off the goddamn couch, literally, fell off the couch. They were the greatest sixty pages I ever read. I went into his office and I told him so, I said, 'Where's the rest of these?' He says, 'You won't get it until we're already shooting' and then I found out that he and Iz never finished the script before they started shooting.
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Page [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9]
Pre-Production
Jack Lemmon: I had done a little picture called Operation Madball, me and Ernie Kovacs, Mickey Rooney and a whole bunch of nuts at Columbia that Dick Klein, who was a dear friend of mine, had directed and Billy liked it, he'd seen it. Now when this project came along the Mirisches all wanted a star and they were talking about Danny Kaye and Frank Sinatra and a few others. I know Danny did want to do it, he told me that later, and Billy kept saying no, and then finally when they got both Marilyn and Tony set, then they agreed that they had enough firepower. So Billy said, 'I want this kid Lemmon from Columbia here' and they said okay. And that's how I got the part.
I of course had no idea of all the machinations that were going on, I had no idea, I just got a call from Billy-not a call actually, I bumped into him. Billy and Audrey were having dinner one night when I walked in and Billy said, 'Do me a favor,' he said, 'We'll wait because we've already ordered. On our way out we'll just stop by the table. I want to speak to you for just a minute,' and I said, 'Of course.' I had met Billy, but only 'Hi how are you?' and a few minutes of talking a couple of times before that. So he stopped by and said, 'I got this story here about two musicians that witnessed the St. Valentine's Day Massacre and the guys that are doing the massacring see them, so their lives are in jeopardy and the only way out is for them to join an all girl orchestra which means that you'll play for three-quarters of the film in drag at least, do you want to do it?' And I immediately said yes, I don't know why but the good Lord was shining, I said yes, no script, no nothing. And I did it because my first thought was, oh Jesus Christ, we're in drag and everything, but wait a minute, Billy Wilder is doing it, it's not going to be in bad taste and the man is a bloody genius and so forth. I admired what he had done of course, immensely, in the past. He said, 'Terrific, I'll send you some pages when we get them.'
I didn't hear anything for at least two or three months and suddenly sixty pages came to the front door and that was it-sixty pages. I laid down on the couch in my little house up in the top of Bel Air. I fell off the goddamn couch, literally, fell off the couch. They were the greatest sixty pages I ever read. I went into his office and I told him so, I said, 'Where's the rest of these?' He says, 'You won't get it until we're already shooting' and then I found out that he and Iz never finished the script before they started shooting.
***
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Billy Wilder's Some Like It Hot
Padded cover, 39.8 x 24.9 cm (15.7 x 9.8 in.), 384 pages
$ 200.00
$ 200.00
The complete guide to Billy Wilder's masterpiece
Paramount Studios portrait of Billy Wilder, 1946 (United Artists - Courtesy of MoMa)