Nobody's Perfect: The Making of Some Like It Hot
10:45 pm - 11:35 pm, Thursday, May 28 on BBC Four (9)
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About this Broadcast
Stars Jack Lemmon and Tony Curtis, together with other members of the cast and crew, recall the making of Some Like It Hot. Featuring rare colour footage from behind the scenes, providing an intimate portrait of Billy Wilder's classic Hollywood comedy
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subtitles
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Arts/Culture (without Music)
General
Cast & Crew
Neil Pearson
(Narrator)
Jack Lemmon
(Contributor)
Tony Curtis
(Contributor)
Walter Mirisch
(Contributor)
Sydney Pollack
(Contributor)
Paul Kerr
(Director)
Chris King
(Editor)
More Information
Did You Know..
Neil Pearson
(Narrator)
Born:
April 27, 1959
in
London
Best Known For:
Drop the Dead Donkey and Between the Lines.
Early-life:
Neil Joshua Pearson was born on April 27th, 1959, in London. He has a sister and a brother. His parents split when he was five, and he was raised by his mother. While attending Woolverstone Hall, an experimental boarding school, Neil was bitten by the acting bug, and he went on to study at the Central School of Speech and Drama. His first TV appearance came in 1982, and two years later he was sharing the stage with Leonard Rossiter in Joe Orton's drama Loot, where he struck up an acquaintance with the powers that be behind Hat Trick Productions.
Career:
Pearson worked with Hat Trick's Jimmy Mulville in comedy series Chelmsford 123 and That's Love, before landing the role of Dave Charnley in the hit comedy Drop the Dead Donkey. Pearson capitalised on his success with the 1992 crime drama Between the Lines. Since then, he has cemented his reputation as a respected actor, with roles in a variety of projects including 1998 drama Rhodes, 2003 sitcom Trevor's World of Sport and A Lump in My Throat, which aired the same year. More recently, Pearson has appeared in All the Small Things.
Quote:
'It's important that you get the little things right, otherwise no one will believe you on the big things.'
Trivia:
Away from TV, he wrote a book about Manchester-born publisher Jack Kahan, and is an avid poker player.
Jack Lemmon
(Contributor)
Tony Curtis
(Contributor)
Born:
June 03, 1925
in
New York
Best Known For:
His glittering Hollywood career.
Early-life:
Born Bernard Schwartz on June 3, 1925, in the Bronx, New York. His parents were Hungarian immigrants. His father was a tailor; his mother suffered from schizophrenia, which also affected his brother Robert, who was later institutionalised. His other brother, Julius, was killed in a road accident when Curtis was 12. He served in the US Navy during the Second World War and witnessed the Japanese surrender. On returning home, he studied acting in New York alongside the likes of Rod Steiger and Walter Matthau.
Career:
After being spotted by a talent scout, Curtis was signed by Universal Pictures in 1948. He admits he was interested only in earning money and wooing girls, but he quickly built a hugely successful career. He made his screen debut with walk-on parts in several movies in 1949. By the end of the 1950s, he'd become a major star thanks to films such as The Sweet Smell of Success, The Vikings, The Defiant Ones and Some Like It Hot. More major films followed in the next decade, but in the 1970s he won new fans with TV series The Persuaders! and McCoy. Away from acting, Curtis was an accomplished artist. He suffered from several illnesses in his later years, and underwent heart bypass surgery in 1994. He died from a cardiac arrest on September 29, 2010, at the age of 85.
Quote:
'I wouldn't be seen dead with a woman old enough to be my wife.'
Trivia:
He married six times, most famously to fellow thespian Janet Leigh, mother of his actress daughter Jamie Lee Curtis. He also claimed to have had a fling with Marilyn Monroe, and Christine Kaufman, his then teenage Taras Bulba co-star. He was married to Jill Vandenberg, 42 years his junior, from 1998 until his death. He had six children.
Walter Mirisch
(Contributor)
Sydney Pollack
(Contributor)
Born:
July 01, 1934
in
Lafayette, Indiana
Best Known For:
Being an acclaimed director, producer and actor.
Early-life:
Sydney Irwin Pollack was born in Lafayette, Indiana, on July 1, 1934 to David and Rebecca. Sydney moved to New York at the age of 17 and studied acting with Sanford Meisner at the Neighborhood Playhouse from 1952 to 1954. After two years away in the US Army, he returned to the Playhouse in 1958 to become Meisner's assistant. In 1960, Sydney moved to Los Angeles to work as a dialogue coach for the child actors on John Frankenheimer's film The Young Savages. It was during this time that Burt Lancaster encouraged him to take up directing.
Career:
Pollack found work in the 1960s directing episodes of TV series such as The Fugitive and Alfred Hitchcock Presents. His film-directing debut was The Slender Thread (1965), which starred Sidney Poitier and Anne Bancroft. Pollack went on to become a hugely successful director. He won two Academy Awards for Out of Africa (1986) for Best Picture and Best Director. His other directing credits include They Shoot Horses, Don't They (1969), Three Days of the Condor (1975), Tootsie (1982), The Firm (1993) and Sabrina (1995). Pollack also had a number of acting roles and appeared in such films as Tootsie (1982), The Player (1992), Eyes Wide Shut (1999) and Michael Clayton (2007). He also made guest appearances on the TV series The Sopranos and Entourage. He died of stomach cancer on May 26, 2008 at the age of 73.
Quote:
'Movies are like your kids or your fingers and toes or something, it's pretty hard to pick favourites.'
Trivia:
Pollack's films received 48 Academy Award nominations, winning 11.
Paul Kerr
(Director)
Chris King
(Editor)
