It Should Happen to You (1954).

It Should Happen to You (1954) . Romantic/comedy. Cast: Judy Holliday, the first screen appearance of Jack Lemmon. Other cast members: Michael O'Shea, Vaughn Taylor, Connie Gilchrist, Walter Klavun, Whit Bissell, Constance Bennett, Ilka Chase, Wendy Barrie and Melville Cooper. The film was directed by George Cukor and filmed on location in New York City. Screenwriter Garson Kanin originally intended the script as a vehicle for Danny Kaye, but Kanin's wife, Ruth Gordon, suggested casting Judy Holliday instead. The title was initially, A Name for Herself.

Lemmon had a meeting with studio boss Harry Cohn, who feared that critics might use jokes about the name "Lemmon". He wanted Lemmon to change his name to "Lennon." Lemmon said that if he did that people might confuse his name with "Lenin" and associate his name with Communism, a very real concern in the 1950s. He decided to keep the name Lemmon and went on to become a Hollywood legend.

Small time filmmaker Pete Sheppard, meets Gladys Glover, in New York City's Central Park, while filming her feeding peanuts to the pigeons. Gladys shares with him that she has just been fired from her modeling job and now wonders how she can make a name for herself. Pete tells her that, " she is the only one who can make her dreams come true". Later, while walking barefoot in Columbus Circle, Gladys sees a huge billboard for rent, she envisions her name written there and decides to rent it for the three-months. Several days after Gladys has her name painted on the billboard, businessman Evan Adams III, tells his advertising firm, that his soap company usually rents the billboard for the spring season and wants Gladys to give it up. Gladys meets with Evan and the agency representatives, but refuses their money and an additional five hundred dollars. Back at her apartment, Gladys learns that Pete has just moved into her building. She asks him to visit Columbus Circle to see her bill board.

She eventually makes a deal with the advertising company to have her name posted on 10 billboards posted throughout city. Suddenly, all of New York is curious about who Gladys Glover is. Evan Adams III also has eyes for Gladys.



Fun Fact:
The background music playing during the scene when Peter Lawford is trying to romance Judy Holliday is also used during several scenes in the film, From Here to Eternity (1953) .

I loved the on screen chemistry between Judy Holliday and Jack Lemmon. This film maybe my favorite Judy Holliday performance. Is this the first time someone became famous for doing nothing??

Judy Holliday (June 21, 1921 – June 7, 1965). Kanin, together with George Cukor, Spencer Tracy, and Katharine Hepburn, wanted to promote Holliday by offering her a part in the film, Adam's Rib(1949). She got rave reviews and Cohn offered her the chance to repeat her role for the film version of Born Yesterday. She won the first Golden Globe Award for Best Actress - Motion Picture Musical or Comedy and at the 23rd Academy Awards, Holliday won the Academy Award for Best Actress, over Gloria Swanson, nominated for Sunset Boulevard, Eleanor Parker, for Caged, and Bette Davis and Anne Baxter, both for All About Eve.

In 1954, she starred with a new young star Jack Lemmon in the popular comedy It Should Happen to You, and again (in 1954), in Phffft!.

She was best known for her ability to shift her mood quickly from comic to serious is one. George Cukor said that she had "in common with the great comedians...that depth of emotion, that unexpectedly touching emotion, that thing which would unexpectedly touch your heart."
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List of Judy Holliday Films :

1944 Greenwich Village
1949 Adam's Rib
1950 Born Yesterday
1952 The Marrying Kind
1954 It Should Happen to You Gladys Glover
1954 Phffft!
1956 The Solid Gold Cadillac
1957 Full of Life
1960 Bells Are Ringing