In 1925, a baby boy was born at Newton-Wellesley Hospital who would someday grace the world with countless performances, take over stage and screen and help reshape the film industry through much of the 20^th century.

But first, little Jack Lemmon would have to learn to read and write at Ward Elementary School.

Next weekend, West Newton Cinema will honor the late legendary actor with a centennial tribute, a three-day film festival showing several Jack Lemmon movies and a panel discussion featuring Lemmon’s kids.

• Friday, Oct. 24: a screening of “Days of Wine and Roses.”
• Saturday Oct. 25: a showing of “The Apartment” followed by a cocktail reception (with lemon cakes and lemon martinis). Then there will be a panel discussion with family members of Lemmon and the late actor Walter Matthau, moderated by Ty Burr, followed by a screening of “Some Like it Hot.”
• Sunday, Oct. 26: a showing of “The Odd Couple.”

Guests (in-person and via Zoom) for the film festival and panel discussion will include Lemmon’s daughter, Courtney Lemmon, and her husband, Peter McCrea, as well as Lemmon’s son, Chris Lemmon, and his wife, Gina Raymond, Lemmon’s granddaughter, Sydney Lemmon, and Walter Matthau’s son, Charlie Matthau.

Courtney Lemmon said she reached out to City Hall about perhaps doing something to celebrate her father’s centennial birthday, since he was born and raised in Newton. The mayor’s office connected her with the cinema, and the people at the cinema were more than happy to set something up.

“So, it just worked out so well to have the West Newton cinema immediately jump on and be excited about it,” Courtney said.

Ordinary dad in an extraordinary life

Courtney is Lemmon’s daughter with actress Felicia Farr. She has a sister, Denise, who is Farr’s daughter from a previous marriage. And her brother, Chris Lemmon, is Lemmon’s son from his marriage to actress Cynthia Stone.

Despite Hollywood stereotypes about actors being absent parents, Lemmon was very involved with his kids’ lives, Courtney said. He took her brother on fishing and golfing trips every year, and he brought her along to work with him when he could.

“I spent a lot of time with him. He took me with him to the theater,” she recalled. “When he was doing theater in New York, I went with him every night and was just hanging backstage, and went to the set with him every day, if I wasn’t in school whenever it was he was shooting. We were together all the time.”

Her mother had mostly retired from acting by the time she was born, which allowed for an even more stable home life for the kids while Jack and Felicia hung out with some of the most extraordinary people in show business.

“They were very special and unusual people, the circumstances were very normal, and they were very grounded,” Courtney said. “They were very fun and interesting and funny, and that was a unique thing—I mean, they were just exceptional—but they were, in many ways, extremely grounded and very unaffected, in a lot of ways.”

And if anyone is wondering, Courtney said her father did not have a Massachusetts accent.

He did, however, have a sweet tooth.

“He was a giant dessert lover!” Courtney laughed. “I can’t think of a favorite food of his other than he absolutely loved chocolate.”

He also loved golf, taught himself to play piano and was passionate about the environment.

“He worked very hard for environmental causes,” she continued. “He cared about the Earth, about climate change, about biodiversity. He spent a lot of time just trying to make the world a better place.”

Jack Lemmon was born and raised in Newton. Left photo: Jack enjoys a ride on a pony. Right photo: Jack plays football. Photos sent by Courtney Lemmon

From Ivanhoe to Oscar gold

Lemmon grew up on Ivanhoe Street in Newton Corner and attended Ward Elementary School and Rivers Country Day School before heading to Phillips Andover Academy for high school, graduating in 1943.

He then attended Harvard University, where he excelled at track and served as president of the Hasty Pudding Club.

“He absolutely loved his hometown,” Courtney said. “He was always, I think, in the back of his mind, thinking, ‘Should I move back to Boston?’”

Lemmon served in the Navy during World War II as a communications officer aboard the USS Lake Champlain before returning to Harvard and finishing his degree in war service sciences in 1947.

“And then when he got out, he went to New York and lived in a little cold-water flat, and he just tried to break into acting there,” Courtney said. “He played jazz piano in bars at night to make ends meet, and then started live TV.”

Lemmon studied acting at HB Studio in New York under renowned acting coach Uta Hagen, landed a minor part in the 1949 film “The Lady Takes a Sailor,” and was developing a solid reputation as a stage actor by the 1950s. One night’s performance changed the trajectory of his career.

“He was very lucky that, because he had gotten good notices, there was a scout from Columbia Studios there to watch him and then offered him a screen test for his first movie, ‘It Should Happen to You,’ with Judy Holliday,” Courtney said.

More roles followed—including a part in “Mister Roberts,” which landed him a Best Supporting Actor Academy Award—and soon, Jack Lemmon was becoming a major player in Hollywood.

After he scored major success starring in the comedy “Some Like it Hot” with Marilyn Monroe, Lemmon established his own production company—Jalem Productions, formed with the first letters of his first and last names. The production company made hit movies including “The Apartment” with Shirley MacLaine, which won five Academy Awards and was nominated for 11, including a Best Actor nomination for Lemmon.

Jack Lemmon, left, and Walter Matthau, right, in “The Odd Couple.” Public domain photo

Transitions and reinventions

In 1962, Lemmon’s career saw a transformation when he earned another Oscar nomination, this time for his performance as an alcoholic in “Days of Wine and Roses,” which helped him transition from a comedic to a dramatic actor.

“He was thought of as a comedic actor up until that point, and he was so blessed to get that part and have that opportunity,” Courtney said. “And that was in 1962. He’d already won an Oscar for ‘Mr. Roberts.’ He’d already done all those comedies, and that was what he was doing, and he was so fortunate to have done that. But then to get that break and be able to do something intensely dramatic and extraordinarily rough was fantastic. He was so blessed with that part, and it was just wonderful. I mean, it’s an intense movie.”

In the late-1960s and 1970s, he teamed up with actor Walter Matthau for a bunch of very successful films, including “The Fortune Cookie” and “The Odd Couple,” and his production company struck box office gold with “Cool Hand Luke” starring Paul Newman.

The 1980s brought more success and more Oscar nominations (for “The China Syndrome,”  “Tribute” and “Missing”), as well as a Tony Award nominations for “Long Day’s Journey Into Night.”

“He totally believed in the power of storytelling, and he really felt like it was his responsibility to tell stories and to get behind films that he believed in and stories that he thought should be told,” Courtney said.

The 1990s saw a bit of a change of pace for the actor, who appeared in Oliver Stone’s “JFK,” and “Grumpy Old Men” alongside Matthau. He and Matthau would also team up again for “The Grass Harp” and “Grumpier Old Men.”

“He kind of found a whole new audience and a whole new thing, making people laugh, and it was just a wonderful last decade for him,” Courtney said. “And I think he was just thrilled that it had resonated with people.”

His last movie performance was as narrator in “The Legend of Bagger Vance” in 2000. Lemmon died the following year at age 76.

A hundred years after his birth in Newton, Courtney Lemmon is delighted that West Newton Cinema—a small movie theater that stood many tests of time and escaped closure with a grassroots campaign last year—is hosting a celebration of his career.

The cinema’s foundation board is planning to raise more money to renovate the building into an arts center that incorporates film festivals, author events and other uses in addition to the mainstream movies the cinema shows.

“Can you imagine how thrilled he’d be to be able to help them in any way with what they’re doing?” Courtney said. “It’s just so fortunate that he could even be a part of that.”

The cinema was built in the 1930s, so there’s a good chance Lemmon spent time there as a kid. Now, his kids will be there bragging about their dad.

Jack Lemmon remains connected to his hometown in another way now. His grandson is a junior at Lasell University.