Lemmon

Book excerpt: Lemmon’s scenes are alternately funny, sad, wild, tender, adding up to the rollicking story of the boy with the face that any mother could love who became the man who had the “grace to make a fool of himself” and the talent to pull it off. Packed with outrageous tales that never made the pages of Variety or the Hollywood gossip columns, Lemmon sparkles with the verve and humor characteristic of his most memorable stage and screen performances. Lemmon is far more than a biography of the lovable, bumbling “loser” who “falls on a fumble into the end zone and wins the game.” It is a front-row view of the long pull towards stardom that an outstanding actor, equally skilled at comedy and serious drama, richly deserved. And maintains.