John Lurie
Birthday: Born in 1952-12-14 in Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA
Deathday: Alive
John Lurie (born December 14, 1952) is an American musician, painter, actor, director, and producer. He co-founded The Lounge Lizards jazz ensemble, has acted in 19 films, including Stranger than Paradise and Down by Law, has composed and performed music for 20 television and film works, and produced, directed, and starred in the Fishing with John television series. In 1996 his soundtrack for Get Shorty was nominated for a Grammy Award, and his album The Legendary Marvin Pontiac: Greatest Hits has been praised by critics and musicians alike. Since 2000 Lurie has suffered from chronic Lyme disease and has focused his attention on painting.
TV Credits
Fishing with John
Character: Self
Musician John Lurie knows nothing about fishing, but that doesn't stop him from embarking on fishing in exotic locations with friends....
SpongeBob SquarePants
Character: Fisherman
Deep down in the Pacific Ocean in the subterranean city of Bikini Bottom lives a square yellow sponge named SpongeBob SquarePants. SpongeBob lives in a pineapple with his pet snail, Gary, loves his job as a fry cook at the Krusty Krab, and has a knack for getting into all kinds of trouble without really trying. When he's not getting on the nerves of his cranky next door neighbor Squidward, SpongeBob can usually be found smack in the middle of all sorts of strange situations with his best buddy, ...
Mobsters
Character: Narrator
Mobsters is an American documentary television series that profiles the lives of infamous individuals in history; the series puts the spotlight on some of history's most infamous gangsters and all that went on during their reigns. The series airs on The Biography Channel. Some episodes of Mobsters are rehashes of the similar TV Series American Justice as well as Notorious (TV series), both series that were originally broadcast on Biography Channel's sister channel, A&E Network; some episodes al...
Painting With John
Character: Self
Part meditative tutorial, part fireside chat, each episode finds artist John Lurie ensconced at his worktable, where he hones his intricate watercolor techniques and shares his reflections on what he’s learned about life....
Movie Credits
Stranger Than Paradise
Character: Willie
A Hungarian immigrant, his friend, and his cousin go on an unpredictable adventure across America....
Down by Law
Character: Jack
A disc jockey, a pimp and an Italian tourist escape from jail in New Orleans....
Paris, Texas
Character: 'Slater'
A man wanders out of the desert not knowing who he is. His brother finds him, and helps to pull his memory back of the life he led before he walked out on his family and disappeared four years earlier....
The Last Temptation of Christ
Character: James, Apostle
Jesus, a humble Judean carpenter beginning to see that he is the son of God, is drawn into revolutionary action against the Roman occupiers by Judas -- despite his protestations that love, not violence, is the path to salvation. The burden of being the savior of mankind torments Jesus throughout his life, leading him to doubt....
Blue in the Face
Character: Saxophone player
Auggie runs a small tobacco shop in Brooklyn, New York. The whole neighborhood comes to visit him to buy cigarettes and have some small talk. During the movie Lou Reed tries to explain why he has to have a cut on his health insurance bill if he keeps smoking and Madonna acts as a Singing Telegram....
New Rose Hotel
Character: Distinguished Man
A corporate raider and his henchman use a chanteuse to lure a scientific genius away from his employer and family....
Permanent Vacation
Character: Sax Player
In downtown Manhattan, a twenty-something boy whose Father is not around and whose Mother is institutionalized, is a big Charlie Parker fan. He almost subconsciously searches for more meaning in his life and meets a few characters along the way....
Face Addict
Character: Himself
Face Addict tells the story of a unique and unrepeatable experience, that of the artistic community in New York between the late '70s and early '80s, known as the downtown scene....
Subway Riders
Character: The Saxophonist
A psychotic saxophone player lures victims to deserted spots with his music and then guns them down....
John Lurie and the Lounge Lizards Live in Berlin 1991
Character: Alto & Soprano Saxophone
John Lurie and the Lounge Lizards performing live in Berlin....
Tortured by Joy
Character: Narrator
A short film narrated by John Lurie comprised of still images La Jetee-style about the middle-aged rediscovering punk rock....
The Little Devil
Character: Cusatelli
Father Maurice, a priest living in a residential college for priests in Rome, is called out one day to "exorcise" the devil from someone. The devil turns out to be in the form of a fun-loving man called Giuditta. What Father Maurice doesn't know is that this type of devil will turn his life around....
Downtown '81
Character: Self
The film is a day in the life of a young artist, Jean-Michel Basquiat, who needs to raise money to reclaim the apartment from which he has been evicted. He wanders the downtown streets carrying a painting he hopes to sell, encountering friends, whose lives (and performances) we peek into....
Wild at Heart
Character: Sparky
After serving prison time for a self-defense killing, Sailor Ripley reunites with girlfriend Lula Fortune. Lula's mother, Marietta, desperate to keep them apart, hires a hitman to kill Sailor. But he finds a whole new set of troubles when he and Bobby Peru, an old buddy who's also out to get Sailor, try to rob a store. When Sailor lands in jail yet again, the young lovers appear further than ever from the shared life they covet....
Rome '78
Character:
Nares mocks up Ancient Rome by shooting in faux-classical sites like Grant's Tomb and Tribeca's American Thread Building, where a decrepit penthouse loft with a peeling-paint dome serves as an echoey stand-in for the imperial palace. The latter location required ingenuity: Posing as potential renters, Nares and associates asked the manager to show them the apartment, then unlocked the windows on the way out; a few hours later, they broke back into the space, full cast and crew in tow, to shoot t...
Stranger Than Paradise
Character: Willie
30-minute short subject film that would become Stranger Than Paradise. This short was released as a standalone film in 1982, and shown as "Stranger Than Paradise" at the 1983 International Film Festival Rotterdam. When it was later expanded into a three-act feature, that name was appropriated for the feature itself, and the initial segment was renamed "The New World"....
Red Italy
Character:
Second feature film by the French-born director is a Bertolucci-style story of a bored, rich woman looking for romance and adventure. She meets an American G.I., dumps him, then falls for a Communist worker....
Sleepwalk
Character: Frank
At loose ends drifter stumbles upon a struggling painter as he searches for answers under the stars and rooftops of New York....
Underground U.S.A.
Character: Jack Smith
The Sunset Blvd. of underground cinema, and a suitably ambivalent retrospect on the star-game casualties of New York's upper depths, with Patti Astor statuesquely hysterical as a 20-year-old Norma Desmond, made up to recall Edie Sedgwick and surrounded by Warhol's lost children. We've been here before, but without the hindsight: a camera cruise along a hustler's meat-rack, kitchen-talk over cold canned spaghetti, Taylor Mead grimacing in a spastic dance, the silent stud a sullenly passive observ...
Blank City
Character: Self
In the years before Ronald Reagan took office, Manhattan was in ruins. But true art has never come from comfort, and it was precisely those dire circumstances that inspired artists like Jim Jarmusch, Lizzy Borden, and Amos Poe to produce some of their best works. Taking their cues from punk rock and new wave music, these young maverick filmmakers confronted viewers with a stark reality that stood in powerful contrast to the escapist product being churned out by Hollywood....
Desperately Seeking Susan
Character: Neighbor Saxophonist
A bored New Jersey suburban housewife's fascination with a free-spirited woman she has read about in the personal columns leads to her being mistaken for the woman herself and into a chaotic adventure of amnesia and self-discovery....
5 Sides of a Coin
Character:
"5 Sides of a Coin" is a comprehensive overview of the worldwide cultural movement of Hip-Hop....
Just Your Luck
Character: Coker
Six million dollars suddenly goes up for grabs when an aged diner's heart fails after he discovers that he has won the lottery. Which of the remaining late-night dining regulars will get the cash? How many will have to die to get the answer?...
John Lurie: A Lounge Lizard Alone
Character: Self
"Lounge Lizard" John Lurie — actor, performer, and musician — talks about love and life and gives a gentle insight into modern time's hipster attitudes....
The Ballad of Sexual Dependency
Character:
Nan Goldin's slide show “The Ballad of Sexual Dependency” converted, mixed and screened as a film by the artist, portraying the American underground culture, the no wave scene, post-Stonewall gay subculture, among others....
TV Party
Character: Self
From 1978 to 1982, Glenn O'Brien hosted a New York city public access cable TV show called TV Party. Co-hosted by Chris Stein, from Blondie, and directed by filmmaker Amos Poe, the hour long show took television where it had never gone before: to the edge of civility and "sub-realism" as Glenn would put it. Walter Steding and his TV Party "Orchestra" provided a musical accompaniment to the madness at hand, and many artists and musicians, from The Clash, Nile Rodgers, Jean-Michel Basquiat, David ...
Kino '84: The Making of Jim Jarmusch
Character: Interviewee
Documentary on American film director Jim Jarmusch made for German television. featuring interviews with cast and crew from 𝘚𝘵𝘳𝘢𝘯𝘨𝘦𝘳 𝘛𝘩𝘢𝘯 𝘗𝘢𝘳𝘢𝘥𝘪𝘴𝘦 and 𝘗𝘦𝘳𝘮𝘢𝘯𝘦𝘯𝘵 𝘝𝘢𝘤𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯....
Roadrunner: A Film About Anthony Bourdain
Character: Self - Artist / Friend
An intimate, behind-the-scenes look at how an anonymous chef became a world-renowned cultural icon. This unflinching look at Anthony Bourdain reverberates with his presence, in his own voice and in the way he indelibly impacted the world around him....
Some Days in January, 1984
Character:
A short behind-the-scenes documentary shot and edited on Super 8 by filmmaker Tom Jarmusch, director Jim Jarmusch’s brother, during the filming of STRANGER THAN PARADISE....