ARTS PANEL TAKES TIME TO LAUD JACK LEMMON

Taking time out from weightier concerns, House Speaker Thomas P. (Tip) O’Neill Jr. and the Congressional Arts Caucus paid tribute Wednesday to actor Jack Lemmon for a body of work that has “touched our hearts and lifted our spirits.”

“Jack, you’re wonderful, one of the greatest stars,” O’Neill (D-Mass.) said, noting the actor’s Oscar-winning performances in “Mr. Roberts” and “Save the Tiger”--as well as his golf game--and presenting a glass bowl to the actor “to think of Congress when you take a cigar.”

“I want you to know,” O’Neill proudly told a luncheon audience of several dozen members of the House in the Cannon Caucus Room on Capitol Hill, “he’s a Massachusetts boy. And he went down the street to Harvard.”

Accompanied by his actress-wife, Felicia Farr, the 61-year-old gray-haired actor, who is here playing James Tyrone in a pre-Broadway, pared-down production of Eugene O’Neill’s “Long Day’s Journey Into Night,” came with a message of his own for Congress.

“There’s no such thing as too much culture,” Lemmon said. “Except for you, we seem to just accept our culture, and think, ‘Oh well, it’s there.’ Museums are there, the opera is there, and it’s not. We think of it as entertainment . . . . “ he added on a note of disgust.

Noting that the United States spends less money on culture than any other civilized nation, Lemmon urged his audience not to forget about the tax incentives that arts organizations need to stay solvent. “OK, we do it through the (private) foundations and incentives.

“If we don’t give incentives,” Lemmon said, “then we are in deep . . . “

While Lemmon did not mention arts budgets now making their way through the subcommittee process in both houses of Congress, he said afterwards: “Naturally, I’d hope they do well.”

In his formal remarks on the need for the arts in our lives, Lemmon paraphrased philospher Albert Camus. “If men only understood the enigmas of life, then there’d be no need for the arts,” Lemmon said.

Rep. Tom Downey (D-N.Y.) chairman of the nearly 200-member bipartisan caucus, praised Lemmon for his portrayals of Everyman. The caucus membership includes about a dozen senators, among them Sen. Pete Wilson (R-Calif.), who is a member of the executive board.

“Jack Lemmon has held a mirror up in front of us and shown us what we look like with love and affection,” Downey said in his formal statement, “and it is only right that we take time from what may be more weighty or pressing to honor the man who has shown us America and Americans, with all their fears and foibles, and their prides and passions. He has shown us that nobody’s triumph is minor, and nobody’s defeat is insignificant.”

Rep. James Jeffords (R-Vt.), vice chairman of the four-year-old caucus that backs legislation and issues favorable to the arts, noted: “Over the past four years, we have honored individuals representing all areas of the arts--from jazz musician Billy Taylor and entertainer Pearl Bailey to actress Jessica Lange and Live Aid concert organizer Bob Geldof. It is truly an honor for us to present this award to an artist who represents the best in the American theater.”

After a chicken-salad and lemon-meringue-pie lunch, the members got some time alone with the actor, to ask him questions without media presence.

Speaking to reporters afterward, Lemmon confirmed that he had talked about the need for a national theater as a way of improving culture in America. He said he mentioned the National Theatre in Great Britain and the Comedie Francaise in France as sterling examples.

On a lighter note, when someone asked whether he intended to follow in the footsteps of Ronald Reagan and Clint Eastwood, the new mayor of Carmel, Calif., Lemmon said he wouldn’t last 24 hours because he’s too “dumb,” reported Rep. George (Buddy) Darden (D-Ga.). The actor said he’d be too frank and too candid, Darden added.

Later, Lemmon told reporters with a broad grin: “I’d be out. I’d offend too many people.”

On the arts budget front meanwhile, hearings before the Senate Appropriations interior subcommittee were canceled Tuesday afternoon because the chairman, Sen. James A. McClure (R-Ida.), was busy on the Senate floor steering an energy bill.

The subcommittee includes two of the three authors of the Gramm-Rudman-Hollings law requiring a balanced budget by Oct. 1, 1990--Sens. Warren Rudman (R-N.H.) and Ernest Hollings (D-S.C.).

Frank Hodsoll, chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts, and Lois Burke Shepard, the new director of the Institute for Museum Services, both submitted formal statements for the record. Both statements were virtually identical to the ones the agencies already submitted to the House Appropriations interior subcommittee chaired by Rep. Sidney R. Yates (D-Ill.).

Shepard, in particular, was disappointed. “It’s a little like being prepared for an exam and then having it canceled,” said the former chairman of Republicans Abroad International, who had been geared for her second day of testimony in a row.

But the exam process is not over. Once the statements are reviewed, subcommittee members can submit questions, which must be answered in writing.