CODGER COMIX

It did not occur to Lemmon that he would someday be playing Ann-Margret's husband when he met the ingenue in 1961. She was introduced to Lemmon at the home of his friend, director Robert Parrish (Fire Down Below). Lemmon listened to Ann-Margret sing. "I want to tell you, she blew that house apart," recalls Lemmon, still in awe. "Ann is a great gal, a terrific kid."

"Jack was probably the second person I met in Hollywood," says Ann-Margret, recalling the incident. "Have you seen a picture of the sculpture I do of him in the movie? He has a fig leaf!"

Was Lemmon nude during the sculpting scene?

Ann-Margret turns coy. "Im not going to tell you," she says, sitting down to eat at her trailer's dining table. Her devoted husband/manager, Roger Smith, sets a piece of chicken in front of her for lunch and carefully peels off the skin.

Grumpier Old Men dispels two myths. One, that the size of the entourage reflects the magnitude of a star. Not one of the Grumpier legends has a personal cook, publicist, bodyguard, weight trainer, or anything else that Bruce Willis might show up with. And two, that men age better than women. Looking at Ann-Margret, you get the feeling that if Elvis were alive today (and who knows?), he wouldn't be able to help himself even now. And talk of the on-screen relationship between Loren and Matthau invariably invites beauty-and-the-beast jokes.

"Why the beast?" says Loren, chatting in her trailer while her big pot of bolognese sauce simmers on the stove and samba music plays on the stereo. "He's a very attractive man. I like him very much. Walter is not an actor, not at all. He's a normal person."

Loren came close to starring in the first Grumpy. The role of Ann-Margret's Ariel was originally written with Audrey Hepburn in mind, but she died before production. Briefly, the filmmakers considered making Ariel Italian in order to accommodate Loren. "One of the first things we thought of when they decided to make a sequel was 'Great, now we can cast Sophia Loren,' "says Donald Petrie, who directed Grumpy but ultimately passed on the sequel to direct the forthcoming Whoopi Goldberg comedy The Associate. "I think if they wanted to do a sequel, they needed something that would come from outside, extra, extra," says Loren. "Maybe that's why they called me. And then I wanted to work with Jack and Walter because they were maybe the only two comedians I didn't work with [yet]." She may get the chance again, if there's a third Grumpy. "I'd be willing," says Lemmon, wearing a white Lands' End jacket that matches his hair and putting more drops into his eyes. "Hopefully, at the end of this Ann-Margret will get pregnant. Then we could do another sequel called Look Who's Grumpy Now."

-QUOT-

KISSING LOREN, SAYS MATTHAU, "FELT GROOVY!"

"WALTER'S NOT AN ACTOR--HE'S NORMAL!" says LOREN