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Connections&
May 7, 2000
Third Sunday of Easter
+ Jesus stood in their midst and said to them, "Peace be you& Look at my hands and feet, that it is I myself. Touch me and see, because a ghost does not have flesh and bones as you can see I have. Have you anything here to eat?"
Luke 24: 35-48
Acting Lessons
When Kevin Spacey accepted the Academy Award a few weeks ago for his performance in the film American Beauty , he began by dedicating his award to Jack Lemmon, in gratitude for all he had learned from the veteran actor.
And what Kevin Spacey learned from Jack Lemmon was much, must more than acting.
In the early 1980s, Spacey had a
reputation as a competent young actor, but difficult to work
with, temperamental, with a huge ego and a propensity for
"messing around." In 1984, he learned that Eugene
O'Neill's Long Day's Journey into Night was coming to Broadway with a cast headed by Jack Lemmon. Spacey desperately wanted to play the role of Lemmon's son, but couldn't even get an audition. Finally, he stole an invitation to a party -- heisted it from a woman's purse -- to meet the play's director, Jonathan Miller. Miller relented and agreed to have him read for the part. Spacey did four scenes with Lemmon and at the end Lemmon walked up to Spacey, "You know what? I never thought I'd find [my son], but you're it."
Spacey says his year on stage with Jack Lemmon was a turning point in his career -- and his life.
"[Lemmon] was the most generous person that you could ever hope to meet and made you feel like you were welcome every day. And I just vowed to myself that that was the kind of person I wanted to be if I ever got fortunate enough to be in a position where leadership was required."
And now Kevin Spacey is in
that position. Last year he starred in an acclaimed
Broadway production of another Eugene O'Neill play,
The Iceman Cometh. Although he was clearly the star, Spacey insisted on being listed alphabetically in the program, and he worked for a low-scale union salary so that thousands of inexpensive seats could be set aside for students. Spacey won a Tony nomination and praise for the very qualities he so admired in Jack Lemmon.
[ 60 Minutes, CBS-TV, February 20, 2000]
CONNECTION: By his simple generosity and support, Jack Lemmon transformed the life of a young actor; Kevin Spacey was able to reach the epitome of his craft and know the fulfillment of selfless giving to others in the example of the veteran actor. In calling us to be "witnesses" of his resurrection, Jesus asks us to do the same thing: to live his Gospel of compassion, forgiveness and justice in the simplicity of our every day lives, in the complexities of our work places, in the struggle to realize our hopes and dreams for ourselves and our families.
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