IT SHOULD HAPPEN TO YOU

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STUDIO: Columbia Pictures

RELEASED: 1954

STARS: Judy Holliday, Peter Lawford, Jack Lemmon

PRODUCER: Fred Kohlmar

DIRECTOR: George Cukor

WRITER: Garson Kanin

LENGTH: 1 Hour and 27 Minutes

PLOT: Hungry for some recognition, Gladys Glover
(Holliday) schemes a way to make a name for herself.
Overnight, she becomes the toast of the town after putting
her name on a New York billboard. Gladys eventually
must make a very tough choice between her new-found
fame, a slick corporate playboy (Lawford) and her
good-natured next door neighbor (Lemmon).

NOTABLE: Jack Lemmon's film debut

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About the film...

       The idea for It Should Happen To You came to writer Garson Kanin in a most unusual way. In 1952, Kanin's wife, actress and writer Ruth Gordon, was feeling very depressed. While out driving around New York City one day, Kanin entertained the notion of putting her name on an empty billboard as a way to cheer her up. Not knowing if such a thing was possible or what it might cost, he looked into it the following day. Although he opted not to go through with it, he thought the idea could make for a good story. As he elaborated on it, he determined that the main character should be someone who was unknown, but desperately seeking to become famous. The character would then put their own name on a billboard, thereby generating lots of publicity and instant fame. When he was writing the script, he told his wife that he thought it would make a wonderful Danny Kaye movie. She liked the premise, but disagreed with his choice for the lead character. She said, "It sounds more like Judy Holliday to me." He knew Judy quite well, having written her three previous films and having directed her in the stage version of Born Yesterday. The more he thought about it, the more he realized that his wife was right. Kanin went back to work, tailoring the script to make it a showcase vehicle for Judy. Unfortunately for him, she was under exclusive contract to Columbia Pictures, which meant he had to endure another round of negotiating with one of his least favorite people, studio president, Harry Cohn.

       Harry Cohn's hard-line negotiating tactics only served to inflame their intrinsic personality conflicts. Their previous battles had nearly ruined the film classics A Double Life and Born Yesterday. The two men rarely emerged from a business meeting feeling good about each other...and this project would be no exception. Kanin pitched Cohn the idea and showed him the script for the film which he was calling A Name for Herself. Cohn loved the script and agreed that it should be Judy Holliday's next film. Fireworks erupted, however, when Kanin mentioned that he wanted to direct the film himself and have control of the final cut. Cohn flat out refused his requests and bitter words were exchanged. Frustrated and disappointed, Kanin opted to just sell Cohn the script outright. As part of the deal, he did agree to make some changes to the script. Seeking to put as much physical distance between himself and Cohn as possible, Kanin and his wife quickly departed for Europe. Instead of having Kanin direct the film, Cohn chose to go with George Cukor. The signing kept in tact the already proven formula of Kanin-Cukor-Holliday, which had powered the films Adam's Rib, Born Yesterday and The Marrying Kind to box-office and critical success.

       In late February of 1953, Cukor traveled to Paris, France to meet with Garson Kanin and Ruth Gordon. He informed the couple of several changes that he, Harry Cohn and Jerry Wald, the vice-president in charge of production, wanted to see implemented. In a telegram sent to Cohn the following week, Cukor noted "Gar and Ruth were in complete agreement with our ideas - at least ninety nine percent of them. We paid special attention to the Gladys-Pete relationship. I think it will now have guts, situations and real feeling. Instead of being a shadowy argumentative character, I hope Pete will emerge as a human being with his feet on the ground. We tried to do as much with the Gladys-Evan relationship and the Gladys-Brod story." Hinting that he was thinking of doing the film as a musical, Cukor goes on to say, "We have been cudgeling our brains about trying to use musical numbers, but so far we are stumped. Everything we tried, seemed effortful and forced. The story is now so much stronger and deeper, and the part is so good - with the sort of thing that Judy does so superbly - that I don't think the need for music is nearly as great as I once did."

       While these events were unfolding, Judy Holliday was back in New York, waging a war on both professional and personal fronts. Since winning the Academy Award in 1951 for her work in Born Yesterday, allegations that she was Communist had greatly intensified. She was blacklisted in both the radio and television industries and was called to testify before the Senate Internal Security Subcommittee. Though it was determined that she was not a Communist and she was cleared of any wrong-doing, her reputation had been seriously tarnished. When the testimony was released to the public in late 1952, she was ridiculed in the press and even received death threats. At home, her mother had suffered a nervous breakdown, her six-year marriage was beginning to unravel, and she endured a difficult pregnancy that culminated in the C-section delivery of her son. It was against this backdrop of chaos that she prepared to leave New York for California. But before she could pack her bags, she had one big obstacle to overcome...her weight.

       During her pregnancy, Judy's weight had escalated to almost 200 pounds. By February of 1953, she had reduced back down to 160 pounds, but that was still far from her goal weight of 130. When she learned that Columbia had a film lined up for her, she began an immediate crash diet. For several weeks she consumed little more than fruits, vegetables and tomato juice in hopes of shedding the excess weight. Production of the film was scheduled to start in just 3 months, but it would have to be delayed if she was still overweight. Harry Cohn was not about to let Judy's weight cost the studio money. To insure that everything proceeded as scheduled, he sent a doctor and a studio representative to Judy's home every day for a month and a half. Each morning at precisely 9:00 a.m., Judy would be weighed and the results were wired directly to Cohn back in Hollywood. Knowing that Cohn was tracking every pound that she gained or lost, helped to keep her on the straight-and-narrow. In the end, all of her sacrifices paid off handsomely. Not only did she reach her goal weight, she actually managed to drop below it. She was the trimmest she had ever been (or ever would be again) when she stepped before the cameras as Gladys Glover for the first time on May 1, 1953.

       One of Judy's co-stars would be an actor named Michael O'Shea. He was chosen to play the role of Brod Clinton, the opportunistic press agent who discovers Gladys and maps out her bumpy road to stardom. O'Shea had made a good living as a character actor for a number of years. He had appeared in several films including Something for the Boys back in 1944. That was the same film in which Judy had her first speaking part. Her only line of dialogue was "I knew a girl once who had Carborundum in her teeth, and she turned into a radio receiving set." Judy had come a long way in the decade since that film and was now at the peak of her career. O'Shea's career, on the other hand, was winding down rapidly. Following the completion of this film, he never worked in the movie industry again. After working in television for a couple of years, he retired from show business and became an operative for the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).

       When Garson Kanin was crafting the script, he knew that the basic premise about fame resulting from a billboard ad was not enough to carry the film. To add conflict, he contrived a love triangle that had Gladys torn between her easy-going next-door neighbor, Pete Sheppard, and a slick businessman named Evan Adams III. For the part of Pete, Columbia Pictures had their eye on a young actor named Jack Lemmon. Lemmon had done some stage work and scores of small parts on television shows, but had never appeared in films before. Though he was new to the medium, his talent was evident and he was quickly hired. He was welcomed to the business much the same way Judy Holliday was, with a contentious personal meeting with the boss, Harry Cohn. Cohn insisted that he could not release a film with the name "Lemmon" on it. He feared it would become a bad joke and that they would both be run out of the business. Envisioning the countless headlines that critics could use to pan the film, Cohn demanded he change it. He suggested that Lemmon should change his name to "Lennon," but Jack countered that people might think he was a Communist like the Russian leader Vladimir Lenin. With Senator Joseph McCarthy at the height of his power, that certainly wouldn't have been good for ticket sales. The name game would go back and forth for some time, but Lemmon eventually got to keep his surname and it served him well for the half century he spent in show business.

       During wardrobe tests for the film, the studio became concerned with Jack Lemmon's size...or lack thereof. The tall and naturally big-boned Judy seemed to physically dwarf her slight-statured leading man. In an effort to give him more of a on-screen presence, the wardrobe department was ordered to put lifts in his shoes and add heavy shoulder padding to the jackets that he wore. None of this manly makeover stuff sat very well with Lemmon, who felt that the additions were ridiculously unnatural. Sensing the newcomer's uneasiness, Judy offered her friendship and encouragement, which instantly made Jack feel more comfortable. It didn't take long for Judy and Jack to discover their mutual love of music. One day Judy found a piano on the set and they became an instant musical duo. Between scenes, Jack would play the piano and Judy would harmonize with him on a wide variety of tunes. Director George Cukor couldn't help but notice how well they sung together and the obvious ease of their rapport. Feeling that it could be utilized to help advance their on-screen relationship, he incorporated it into the film. Their duet of "Let's Fall in Love" comes across as very genuine and became one of the highlights of the film.

       The other leading male role went to the suave Englishman, Peter Lawford. Starting out as a child actor at the age of 7, most of Lawford's early work consisted of small, uncredited parts, but he had gradually built up his acting resumé to include films like The Picture of Dorian Gray, Easter Parade and Little Women. By 1953, he had amassed a prolific body of work, but his reputation as a womanizing playboy was fast eclipsing his acting accomplishments. Along with Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis Jr. and Joey Bishop, they comprised the group of entertainers known as "The Rat Pack." He was Judy Holliday's prototypical "bad boy," embodying all of the characteristics that both attracted and repelled her. While he was handsome, intelligent, sophisticated and charming, he was also a philandering alcoholic with a closetful of personal demons. Not long into the film's production, the two stars drifted into an affair. In the beginning, few people knew the true nature of what was going on. The couple's time away from the set was somewhat limited and they were very discreet about the relationship. Judy had brought along her mother and young son to live with her in California, but her husband needed to remain in New York for business purposes. The living arrangement helped fuel Lawford's false impression that Judy and her husband had separated. Judy's behavioral aberration was in direct contrast to the high moral code that she prided herself on. It seemed as if she was using the relationship as both an escape from the reality of her life back in New York and as a validation that she could still be attractive to men.

       After nearly two months of filming in California, the production shifted to New York City for 2 weeks of outdoor location shooting. The timing could not have been worse because New York was in the grip of a deadly summer heat wave. The mercury rarely dipped below 100 degrees and the scorching sun beat down upon the actors without mercy. No actor suffered more than Judy, as she was involved in virtually every scene that was scheduled to be shot. Day-long shoots like the film's opening sequence in Central Park were particularly grueling for her. While in New York a very significant event occurred. Both she and Peter Lawford appeared as mystery guests on the CBS television show What's My Line? They appeared separately on successive Sunday nights, first him then her. For Judy, who had been barred from appearing on the program for nearly 3 years, it was the first sign that the infamous blacklist was beginning to lift.

       When the location shooting ended, Judy's mother and son remained in New York while Judy returned to Hollywood to finish the picture. With her new-found freedom, the affair with Lawford intensified. They spent weekends together in Palm Springs and were often spotted keeping company at Ciro's restaurant. The film was completed in July, but Judy did not go home immediately. This aroused even more suspicion because it was well-known that Judy disliked California and was always eager to return to New York at the first available opportunity. Gossip columnist Louella Parsons decided to investigate the story. She called Judy and intimated the she knew what was going on. Judy did not deny that she was spending a good deal of time with Lawford, but claimed they were discussing the possibility of doing a Vegas nightclub act together. She added, "If you ever saw my husband, you would know how nice he is and that I am really in love with him." Parsons relayed the substance of the conversation in her newspaper column which also happened to be syndicated in New York. Publication of the story alerted Judy's husband, friends and family to the rumored relationship. After the film was completed, Lawford seemed to lose interest in Judy and the affair fizzled out. On August 12th, Judy returned home to New York. A few months later, she learned that Lawford was marrying into a political dynasty. It was announced that he planned to wed Patricia Kennedy, the teenage sister of Ted, Robert and the future President of the United States, John F. Kennedy. They were married in April of 1954.

       The film carried the title A Name for Herself throughout its production, but it was changed to It Should Happen To You shortly before the film premiered in New York City on January 15, 1954. It was praised by both critics and audiences alike, but it was largely ignored at Oscar time. The film received just one Academy Award nomination, and that coming in the Best Costume Design category.

       In a telegram sent to George Cukor on March 8, 1954, Garson Kanin summed up his impressions of the film after viewing it in London: "IT SHOULD HAPPEN TO YOU appears to be an enormous success here...From many points of view, I think this is our best. The picture is beautifully shot and brilliantly detailed. Jack Lemmon is all you said he would be, Peter Lawford extraordinary. The best performance in the picture however, to my mind, is the one given by Michael O'Shea. I say this despite the fact that you will remember my lack of enthusiasm for him in this particular part, but he is truly immense and I cannot conceive of the part being better played." Kanin was much less ebullient when it came to assessing Judy's performance: "Judy is, of course, Judy, which means that she is uneven in both looks and in playing. Her innate talent, fortunately, is so great that an easily sufficient performance is achieved. But my God, I cannot help thinking how much better she could be if she was better disciplined, less apathetic and could get her attention on the right things." He also took a few parting shots at Harry Cohn: "The opening is flat, due to Cohn's economy, the ending is, of course, a disaster, and maybe the single factor that keeps the picture from going right over the top. And then of course, there are a dozen incomprehensible cuts and trims which I know were instituted by the masterminds...I feel certain that a great part of my captiousness is to do with the fact that I am still bitter and sore over the way in which I was treated by Cohn, and Wald."

        It Should Happen To You would prove to be the final collaboration between Garson Kanin, George Cukor and Judy Holliday. Though all three remained friends for years to come, their career paths pulled them in opposite directions. For the actors, the film was an intersection of their milestones. Four actors whose careers crossed at vastly different points. It was Jack Lemmon's first film. It was Peter Lawford's fiftieth film. It was Michael O'Shea's last film. And although she didn't know it at the time, It was to be the mid-point of Judy Holliday's career in film.

----By Glenn McMahon

National Film Registry Nominations

Each year 25 films are added to the Library of Congress' National
Film Registry. All films that are selected are protected and
preserved for all-time under the National Film Preservation Act
of 1988. Currently "Adam's Rib" is the only Judy Holliday film
included in the registry. If you would like to nominate a Judy
Holliday film (and/or any of your favorite American movies) for
inclusion, send an e-mail to the Library of Congress. You can
read more about the National Film Registry and view a list of
the 375 films that have already been selected here.