Honor Roll

John Uhler “Jack” Lemmon III (born in Newton, MA, on February 8, 1925, died in Los Angeles on June 27, 2001) is an unusual movie star, because he did not play typical masculine heroes, but a great variety of everyman characters. He worked in the theatre and on television, before signing a 7-year contract with Columbia Pictures and being cast in his first film, It Should Happen to You (1954) by George Cukor, as a shy documentary filmmaker who falls in love with a girl (Judy Holliday) obsessed with seeing her name on billboards.

Olivia de Havilland was born in Tokyo on July 1, 1916, of British parents. Her father Walter was an attorney; her mother Lilian, an actress before her marriage, left her cheating husband and moved to California in 1919, with daughters Olivia and her younger sister Joan.

Having started acting in the theater, which remained a lifelong passion, Henry Fonda (born May 16, 1905, died August 12, 1982), nicknamed Hank, had a long and varied Hollywood career, spanning historical dramas like Young Mr. Lincoln (1939) by John Ford, comedies like The Lady Eve (1941) by Preston Sturges, westerns like My Darling Clementine (1946) by John Ford AND political thrillers like Fail Safe (1964) by Sidney Lumet.

A legendary icon of classic Hollywood cinema, Ruth Elizabeth Davis changed the spelling of her nickname, Betty, to Bette after Honoré de Balzac's La Cousine Bette. Born on April 5, 1908 in Lowell, Massachusetts, she had acted in Broadway plays before signing a contract with Warner Bros in 1932.