Jonathan Lewis

Biography:

Jonathan Lewis came into the world during Chapter 37 of War and Peace, which his mother had been reading at the time she went into labor. (She never did finish the book). A highly allergic kid, he claimed asthmatic distress and successfully managed to miss an entire year of school, staying at home to watch musicals on television instead. Doris Day proved such an inspiration that Jonathan became an actor, first appearing as a milk bottle in a second grade stage play entitled “Healthy Foods.” His dubious 25-year acting career included such ignominious highlights as surviving a 400-lb. steel bar falling on his head during a production of "The Music Man" and playing Barney the Beaver in a chain saw commercial. A character actor cursed with the body, face and voice of a song-and-dance man, he finally gave up “acting at all costs” for the rewarding pursuits of an impoverished writer. A member of the Chicago Film Critics Association since 1997, he now walks in the shadow of Roger Ebert, hoping that some of the man’s fame and fortune will rub off on him.

Favorites:

Cabaret Double Indemnity Singing in the Rain Woman of the Dunes Citizen Kane The Four Feathers Raging Bull The Miracle of Morgan Creek The Fallen Idol Alexander Nevsky

Publications:

Gay Chicago Magazine

Critics' Group:

Chicago Film Critics Association