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THE PIANO |
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PIANO PLAYING MOVIE STARS
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Did you know these stars were great piano players?
of TheColumnists.com
Among my most treasured memories from a career spent interviewing movie and TV stars is the time Jack Lemmon went over to the piano during a break in the filming of "The Entertainer" and regaled us all with an impromptu concert.
For that 1976 NBC-TV version of the John Osborne stage play and 1960 British film, director Donald Wrye had taken over a cliffside house overlooking the famed beach and boardwalk at Santa Cruz, Calif. There was a piano in the next room and Lemmon naturally gravitated toward it. I was there to appreciate the moment because I was doing a piece for TV Guide on the movie.
As the camera crew worked on the lighting setup for the next shot, Lemmon casually began to play. I was bowled over by how good he was. That day he was doing what I would call a really impressive lounge piano act, doing several standards in stylish fashion, all without any sheet music in front of him.
I had always thought Lemmon was a marvelous actor, doing drama as well as the comedy that had made him famous. But that day he vividly demonstrated he was also a fine musician. It was especially magical that day because in "The Entertainer" he was playing an old music-hall style performer. In the course of the film he also played and sang "The Only Way To Go," a new song composed for the film by its co-producer, Oscar-winning composer Marvin Hamlisch.
Years later I had the pleasure of seeing Hamlisch perform in concert and thoroughly enjoyed the way he breezed through all his great hits from his many film scores (i.e. "The Way We Were") with his own very inventive piano artistry. I thought back to the time I first met Hamlisch on that same movie location with Jack Lemmon. At the time, he told me I'd be impressed when I saw Lemmon playing a musical performer. As it turned out, I didn't have to wait to see the movie because Lemmon provided a grand in-person preview when he did that joyful little spontaneous concert for cast and crew.
As we celebrate the piano in this week's edition, I want to make sure everybody knows what a superb pianist Jack Lemmon was. Lemmon did make some recordings of his piano work that are still available to those interested in hearing for themselves. I would suggest visiting the Collector's Choice website (www.ccmusic.com) where you currently can purchase for $16.95 a CD that features two of Lemmon's albums: "Twist of Lemon," which includes four piano instrumental tracks and eight vocals, and his "Some Like It Hot" album featuring Lemmon performing songs from his hit movie of that name.
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record album made by Jack Lemmon to display his talents as a pianist and vocalist. |
Yet another movie star with dazzling credentials as a pianist was the late Diana Lynn, the ultra-cute leading lady who played "Jane," the roommate of Marie Wilson's radio character "Irma" in the two films based on that radio show--"My Friend Irma" and "My Friend Irma Goes West," which are now remembered mainly because they introduced the sensational comedy team of Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis. Lynn went on to star in many more films of the 1950s, including the immortal "Bedtime for Bonzo" opposite future U.S. Pres. Ronald Reagan.
Lynn, whose real name was Dolores Loehr, was a piano child prodigy and was performing with the Los Angeles Youth Symphony before she was even in her teens. She made her film debut playing the piano in Producer Samuel Goldwyn's 1939 musical "They Shall Have Music" and was the piano accompanist to singer Susannah Foster in the 1941 musical "There's Magic in Music." She was such a charmer that she soon was hired to act in movies without her piano, starting with juvenile roles in such comedy hits as "The Major and the Minor" (1942) and Preston Sturges' "The Miracle of Morgan's Creek" (1944), playing Betty Hutton's sister.
Lynn continued to play piano professionally all through her movie star days and her recordings reveal her to be a magnificent performer on classical compositions and serious popular works like Gershwin's "Rhapsody in Blue." Sadly, she died in her early 40s from a stroke.
Probably the most surprising piano man among the major movie stars of the past 30 years is Clint Eastwood, whose screen image is that of a hard-as-nails western hero or action star. In real life, Eastwood is a devoted fan of jazz piano and is such an accomplished musician that he has composed the music for several of his more recent films, including "Mystic River," "The Changeling" and the Oscar-winning "Million Dollar Baby." His music can be heard in the soundtrack albums for those films and others he has done. His son, Kyle, has followed in Clint's footsteps, composing music for some of his dad's films, too.
Among the other major stars who really know their way around the piano keyboard are Oscar winners Anthony Hopkins, Dustin Hoffman and Jamie Foxx, TV and film star Alyssa Milano, CBS News Anchor Katie Couric and TV's "Frasier" star Kelsey Grammer, who studied music at Julliard.
And how can we possibly forget that young man who made his screen debut in 1950 as a saloon piano player in "South Sea Sinner," then became a major star with his own TV series and returned to the movie screen in 1955 as the star of Warner Bros. "Sincerely Yours," written for the screen by novelist Irving Wallace. Yes, you guessed it, I'm talking about the one, the only LIBERACE!
What? You say you've read enough and don't want to go any further? Well, all right, if that's the way you feel.
©2010 by Ron Miller. This column first posted May 10, 2010.
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