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jimmy Verb, e.g., Rex Harrison jimmies Audrey Hepburn in “My Fair Lady” (1964). Adjective, e.g. “My Fair Lady” is a jimmy movie. Definition: Verb: To transform another character from a low-life into a high-life, or to be transformed as a character from a low-life into a high-life. Noun: A movie that involves jimmying. History: Slang’s salute to Jimmy Stewart forcing Kim Novak to lose her grease pencil eyebrows in “Vertigo” (1958). However, most jimmied characters don’t, as Kim, end up with a cracked skull. Movies with happy endings include “Trading Places,” (1983) in which Don Ameche and Ralph Bellamy jimmy Eddie Murphy from a street hustler into a respected Commodities Exchange hustler; “Pretty Woman” (1990), in which Richard Gere jimmies Julia Roberts from a hooker into a platinum-card shopper; and “Princess Diaries” (2001), in which Julie Andrews jimmies Anne Hathaway from an ungainly teenager into what Julie herself should have been 17 years earlier—my fair lady.
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