Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Email
Answers.com

Jack Lemmon

 

Jack Lemmon
View Poster
(born Feb. 8, 1925, Boston, Mass., U.S.died June 27, 2001, Los Angeles, Calif.) U.S. actor. He attended Harvard University and acted in radio and television dramas before making his Broadway debut in 1953. He established his movie career in Mister Roberts (1955, Academy Award) and became noted for his character portrayals, often playing excitable, baffled individuals in movies such as Some Like It Hot (1959), The Apartment (1960), The Odd Couple (1968), and The Out-of-Towners (1970). His many other films include Save the Tiger (1973, Academy Award), The China Syndrome (1979), Missing (1982), and Glengarry Glen Ross (1992). He received an Emmy Award for his portrayal of a dying college professor in the television film Tuesdays with Morrie (1999).

For more information on Jack Lemmon, visit Britannica.com.

Lemmon, Jack (1925–2001), actor. The much‐lauded film star, equally adept in both comedies and dramas, worked in the New York theatre as a struggling actor then returned years later as a star. He was born in Boston and educated at prep school and at Harvard before joining the Navy, making his Manhattan stage bow in 1953 and his film debut the next year. Lemmon gave superb stage performances as the charming PR man Scotty Templeton in Tribute (1978) and the family patriarch James Tyrone in A Long Day's Journey Into Night (1986).

For more than four decades, whether working in comedy or tragedy, actor Jack Lemmon (1925-2001) epitomized the joys and travails of Americans in the latter half of the 20th century. Noted as one of the most versatile U.S. film actors of his generation, Lemmon gave numerous memorable performances in theater, film, and television, greatly influencing a later generation of actors.

Actor Jack Lemmon was born in the Boston suburb of Newton, Massachusetts, on February 8, 1925 - legend has it that he was actually born in the hospital elevator. The son of a successful businessman, Lemmon grew up under the expectation that he would follow his father into the bakery business. He was educated at Andover Academy and by the time he graduated from Harvard University he was thoroughly bitten by the acting bug, having acted in summer stock and in some of Harvard's Hasty Pudding productions. In a 1990 interview in the Independent Mark Steyn quoted Lemmon's account of how he broke the news of his aspiration to be an actor to his father after graduating from Harvard University in 1947: "'Pop, can you lend me 300 bucks so I can go to New York and see if I can get in the theatre?' He said, 'Eugh - acting. Do you really love it?' I said I did, and he said, 'Okay, good. Because when the day comes that I don't find romance in a loaf of bread, I'll quit.' Boy, that came in handy during the terrible dry periods. Then I remembered, well, I do love it, like he loved what he did." Lemmon's initial show business job in New York involved playing piano in the Old Knickerbocker Music Hall on Second Avenue as an accompanist to the silent films of Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton. He also performed in skits there and tended bar, among other tasks. During his early years in the business he continued doing summer stock.

Made Break into New Medium of Television

In late 1949 Lemmon appeared in a television series, That Wonderful Guy, along with Cynthia Stone, whom he later married. The series was canceled after 17 weeks, but Lemmon soon landed a job as master of ceremonies on a talent show named Toni Twin Time, where he received mixed reviews as an MC. When the show was canceled he and Stone found work on an improvisation show called TheAd Libbers. After that show was canceled Lemmon and Stone were paired once again, this time in a continuing 15-minute segment in which they played a young married couple. For the two, art mirrored life, as they had married on May 7, 1952. In 1952 Lemmon and Stone were cast in yet another situation comedy, Heaven for Betsy, which was panned by the critics.

By the early 1950s Lemmon, who now worked regularly in television, landed a part in the Broadway revival of Room Service, a hit play from the 1930s. Lemmon's Broadway debut was not so fortunate; this time around. Room Service closed after 18 performances, leaving Lemmon undaunted by the show's generally poor reviews. For one thing, he received valuable experience and exposure; for another, Hollywood literally beckoned him. He signed a seven-year nonexclusive contract with Columbia Pictures that required him to do two films a year, with a studio option for a third. Unfortunately, as his career moved forward his marriage with Stone steadily declined.

Lemmon's first film for Columbia was It Should Happen to You, which starred Academy Award-winner Judy Holliday and was directed by George Cukor. In it Lemmon plays a struggling documentary filmmaker. The film was successful and Lemmon caught the attention of the critics. In his second film, Phfft, he was again paired with Holliday. By this time he had reconciled with Stone, and the couple now relocated to California. In 1954 their son Christopher was born. Lemmon next had a small role in My Sister Eileen, but it was his fourth film that marked his entrance into the Hollywood pantheon.

First Academy Award

Lemmon's real breakthrough in movies came when legendary director John Ford literally handed him the role of Ensign Pulver in the film Mister Roberts. Based on the successful play, the film starred veteran actors Henry Fonda, James Cagney, William Powell, and Ward Bond, but it was Lemmon's performance as the laundry and morale officer Pulver that truly shone. This performance earned Lemmon an Academy Award for best supporting actor in 1955 and proved to the film world that he was a talent to be reckoned with. Unfortunately his increasing work schedule and his growing fame as a result of Mister Roberts took their toll on Lemmon's marriage. Soon after receiving the best supporting actor award, he received a divorce summons from his wife.

During the late 1950s Lemmon continued working in television as well as film and became friends with comedian Ernie Kovacs, a comic genius until his 1962 death in an automobile accident. The two worked together on two films, Operation Mad Ball and It Happened to Jane, the latter co-starring Doris Day. Lemmon's friendship with Kovacs was so close that in his Lemmon, biographer Don Widener quoted director Richard Quine as noting: "If Ernie had lived, the Lemmon-Matthau team might well have been Lemmon-Kovacs. They reminded me of a sophisticated Laurel and Hardy."

In 1959 Lemmon was paired with Tony Curtis in Some Like It Hot. Under the brilliant direction of Billy Wilder Lemmon gave one of the greatest performances of his career opposite Marilyn Monroe by playing Jerry/Daphne, a Depression-era musician on the run from Chicago gangsters who hides out in an all-female band touring Florida. The next year Lemmon starred in The Apartment, also directed by Wilder. Lemmon's performance as C. C. Baxter, an up-and-coming corporate man who allows his superiors to use his apartment for liaisons, is perhaps his truest personification of the "everyman" for which he was best known.

Three things happened in 1962 that altered Lemmon's life and career. Kovacs died in an automobile accident, thus ending a flourishing professional partnership and close friendship; in August Lemmon married actress Felicia Farr, with whom he would have a daughter, Courtney, in 1966; and he starred with Lee Remick in the independent film, Days of Wine and Roses. As good as Lemmon's film work had been up to that time - he had won an additional two Academy Award nominations for his performances in Some Like It Hot and The Apartment - Lemmon stunned critics and audiences alike with his performance as the alcoholic Joe Clay in Days of Wine and Roses. The breakout performance earned him his fourth Academy Award nomination.

Over the next few years Lemmon returned to light comedy, with many of the roles shoring up his Everyman persona. He also acted in such high-farce films as The Great Race, until the mid-1960s when his career took another fateful turn. In 1966 he was teamed up for the first time with Walter Matthau in The Fortune Cookie, a Wilder-directed comedy about a photographer who, at the instigation of an unscrupulous lawyer, fakes the seriousness of an injury in order to defraud an insurance company. Two years later Lemmon and Matthau were cast as Felix and Oscar in The Odd Couple, their best-known film together. The two enjoyed a 34-year friendship until Matthau's death in 2000, working together on 11 films, most of which were produced in the 1990s.

Earned Second Academy Award

In the 1970s the middle-aged Lemmon took on greater challenges, promoting his recognizable Everyman persona even as he discarded the youthful innocence that he had up to then played as counterpoint. In 1971 he tried his hand at directing and the result was Kotch, starring Matthau and with a cameo appearance by Lemmon. In 1973 came the role that brought Lemmon his second Academy Award, this time for best actor. As Harry Stoner in Save the Tiger, he played a businessman suffering through a mid-life crisis who must now weigh his ethics against his struggling business. Lemmon returned to television work in 1976, in a remake of The Entertainer reprising the role of second-rate entertainer Archie Rice formerly performed by Sir Laurence Olivier. While some criticized Lemmon for remaking the film, it was Olivier himself who had suggested he take on the part. Lemmon also starred in one of the decade's better disaster movies, Airport '77. He closed out the decade with another stunning performance, as the tormented but scrupulous Jack Godell in the controversial film The China Syndrome. The performance earned Lemmon his sixth Academy Award nomination, a Golden Globe nomination, a BAFTA (the British film award), the best actor award at the Cannes Film Festival, and a David (Italian film award) for best foreign actor, the last which he shared with fellow actor Dustin Hoffman.

The 1980s saw no letdown in the quality of Lemmon's work. He followed his turn in The China Syndrome with Tribute, in which he played the shallow agent Scotty Templeton, who discovers he is dying. The performance earned him another Academy Award nomination. as well as consideration for a Golden Globe Award. In 1982 Lemmon turned in yet another stunning performance in Missing, directed by controversial filmaker Costa-Gavras. In the film Lemmon plays a father whose son has gone missing as a result of the CIA-sponsored 1973 coup that overthrew Chilean President Salvador Allende. The film sparked lawsuits and official rebuttals but nevertheless became a turning point in the American public's perception of the coup. For his performance Lemmon received his eighth and final Academy Award nomination. He was also nominated for a BAFTA Award and a Golden Globe Award and received the award for best actor at the Cannes Film Festival.

During the 1980s Lemmon became increasingly involved in television work. He appeared in tributes to Frank Capra, Billy Wilder, Harold Lloyd, and even himself, but more important were the dramatic roles he took on. During the decade he appeared in the television films Long Day's Journey into Night (1987) and The Murder of Mary Phagan (1988). Yet Lemmon's film career was far from over. During the 1990s he appeared in Robert Altman's The Player (1992) and Short Cuts (1993) and also did a noteworthy job in David Mamet's Glengarry Glen Ross, (1992) which Roger Ebert, writing in the Chicago Sun-Times, described as Lemmon's "version of Death of a Salesman."

Lemmon was remarkably busy during the 1990s. At the beginning of the decade he appeared in yet another political drama, JFK, and also starred in a number of comedies, particularly reviving his partnership with Matthau. The pair made five movies together during the decade, including Grumpy Old Men, Grumpier Old Men, and The Odd Couple II, all of which enjoyed fair commercial success but mixed critical reviews. Lemmon's television work included remakes of 12 Angry Men and Inherit the Wind, both of which earned him Emmy and Golden Globe nominations. He won the Golden Globe for his performance as Henry Drummond, the Clarence Darrow-like defense attorney in the latter. Lemmon's last important role came in the 1999 television film Tuesdays with Morrie, for which he won an Emmy award. He died from cancer on June 27, 2001.

Books

Widener, Don, Lemmon, Macmillan, 1975.

Periodicals

Boston Globe, April 23, 1995.

Chicago Sun-Times, June 29, 2001.

Independent (London, England), February 21, 1990.

Los Angeles Times, December 9, 1996; January 24, 2000; June 30, 2001; September 11, 2001.

San Francisco Chronicle, November 30, 2000.

Columbia Encyclopedia:

Jack Lemmon

Top
Lemmon, Jack (John Uhler Lemmon 3d), 1925-2001, American actor, b. Newton, Mass., grad. Harvard (1947). He became famous in roles ranging from sardonic comedy to compelling drama, ultimately achieving the status of a kind of modern American Everyman, often hapless yet persevering. A talented piano player, he worked as a musician and acted in late 1940s and early 50s radio, television, and stage productions. He soon moved on to Hollywood, making his first film in 1954 and attracting wide attention as the likably brash Ensign Pulver in Mister Roberts (1955; Academy Award). His other early comedies include Billy Wilder's Some Like It Hot (1950) and The Apartment (1960). In 1962, Lemmon starred as an anguished alcoholic in his first movie drama, the harrowing Days of Wine and Roses. During his career, Lemmon appeared in more than 60 movies, among them The Odd Couple (1968) and its sequel (1998), Save the Tiger (1973; Academy Award), The China Syndrome (1979), Tribute (1980), Missing (1982), JFK (1991), Glengarry Glen Ross (1992), and Grumpy Old Men (1993) and its sequel (1995). He also continued to act on stage and television, e.g., in Long Day's Journey into Night (1986-87) and the Emmy-winning Tuesdays with Morrie (1999).

Bibliography

See biographies by M. Freedland (1985) and D. Widener (rev. ed. 2000); J. Baltake, Jack Lemmon: His Films and Career (rev. ed. 1986).

Quotes By:

Jack Lemmon

Top

Quotes:

"If you think it's hard to meet new people, try picking up the wrong golf ball."

"Nobody deserves this much money -- certainly not an actor."

"It's hard enough to write a good drama, it's much harder to write a good comedy, and it's hardest of all to write a drama with comedy. Which is what life is."

AMG AllMovie Guide:

Jack Lemmon

Top

Biography

A private school-educated everyman who could play outrageous comedy and wrenching tragedy, Jack Lemmon burst onto the movie scene as a 1950s Columbia contract player and remained a beloved star until his death in 2001. Whether through humor or pathos, he excelled at illuminating the struggles of average men against a callous world; as director Billy Wilder once noted, "There was a little bit of genius in everything he did." Born in 1925, the son of a Boston doughnut company executive, Lemmon was educated at Phillips Andover Academy and taught himself to play piano as a teen. A budding thespian by the time he entered Harvard, he was elected president of the famed Hasty Pudding Club. After his college career was briefly interrupted by a stint in the Navy at the end of World War II, Lemmon graduated from Harvard and headed to New York to pursue acting. By the early '50s, Lemmon had appeared in hundreds of live TV roles, including in the dramatic series Kraft Television Theater and Robert Montgomery Presents, as well as co-starring with first wife, Cynthia Stone, in two short-lived sitcoms. After Lemmon landed a major role in the 1953 Broadway revival of Room Service, a talent scout for Columbia Pictures convinced the actor to try Hollywood instead.

Defying Columbia chief Harry Cohn's demand that he change his last name lest the critics take advantage of it in negative reviews, Lemmon quickly made a positive impression in his first film, the Judy Holliday comic hit It Should Happen to You (1954) and quickly became a reliably nimble comic presence at Columbia. A loan out to Warner Bros. for the smash Mister Roberts (1955), however, truly began to reveal his ability. Drawing on his Navy memories to play the wily Ensign Pulver, Lemmon held his own opposite heavyweights Henry Fonda and James Cagney and won a Best Supporting Actor Oscar for his fourth film. A free-agent star by the end of the 1950s, he began one of his two most auspicious creative collaborations when writer/director Billy Wilder tapped him to play one of the cross-dressing musicians in the gender-tweaking comic classic Some Like It Hot (1959). As enthusiastically female bull fiddler Daphne to Tony Curtis' preening Lothario sax player Josephine, Lemmon danced a sidesplitting tango with millionaire suitor Joe E. Brown and delivered a sublime speechless reaction to Brown's nonchalant acceptance of his manhood. Fresh off a Best Actor nomination for Hot, he then gave an image-defining performance in Wilder's multiple-Oscar winner The Apartment (1960). As ambitious New York office drone C.C. Baxter, who climbs the corporate ladder by loaning his small one-bedroom to his philandering bosses, Lemmon was both the likeable cynic and beleaguered romantic, perfectly embodying Wilder's sardonic view of a venal world. Lemmon's turn as the put-upon quotidian schnook pervaded the rest of his career.



Determined to prove that he could play serious roles as well as comic, Lemmon campaigned to play Lee Remick's alcoholic husband in Blake Edwards' film adaptation of the teleplay Days of Wine and Roses (1962). Revealing the darker side of middle-class desperation, Lemmon earned still more critical kudos and another Oscar nomination. Despite this triumph, he returned to comedy, re-teaming with Wilder and The Apartment co-star Shirley MacLaine in Irma la Douce (1963). Though the love story between a Parisian prostitute and a cop-turned-lover in disguise was a lesser effort, Irma la Douce became a major hit for the trio. Continuing to display his skill at offsetting his characters' unseemly behavior with his innate, ordinary-guy affability, Lemmon's mid-'60s comic roles included a lascivious landlord in Under the Yum Yum Tree (1963) and a homicidal husband in How to Murder Your Wife (1965). Lemmon began his second legendary creative partnership when Wilder cast Walter Matthau opposite him in The Fortune Cookie (1966). The duo's popularity was cemented when they re-teamed for the hit film version of Neil Simon's The Odd Couple (1968). Despite his genuine pathos as suicidal, anal-retentive divorcé Felix Unger, Lemmon still managed to evoke great hilarity with Felix's technique for clearing his sinuses, becoming a superbly neurotic foil to Matthau's very casual Oscar Madison. Matthau subsequently starred in Kotch (1971), Lemmon's sole directorial effort, and Lemmon appeared in scion Charles Matthau's The Grass Harp (1995). Lemmon and Matthau also fittingly co-starred in Wilder's final film, Buddy Buddy (1981). After starring in The Out-of-Towners (1970) and Avanti! (1972), Lemmon took minimal salary in order to play a disillusioned middle-aged businessman in the drama Save the Tiger (1973). Though the film did little business, Lemmon finally won the Best Actor Oscar that had eluded him for over a decade and moved easily between comedy and drama from then on. As in The Odd Couple, he marshaled both humor and gloom for his portrayal of an unemployed, despondent gray flannel suit executive in Neil Simon's The Prisoner of Second Avenue (1972). His reunion with Wilder and Matthau for another screen version of the fast-talking newspaperman comedy The Front Page (1974), however, was strictly for laughs.

Working less frequently in films in the mid-'70s, Lemmon managed to retain his status as one of the best actors in the business with his passionate turn as a conscience-stricken nuclear power plant executive in the prescient drama The China Syndrome (1979). Along with the Best Actor prize at the Cannes Film Festival, Lemmon also earned an Oscar nomination for Syndrome. He received another Oscar nod when he reprised his 1978 Tony-nominated performance as a dying press agent in the film version of Tribute (1980). Lemmon continued to push himself as an actor throughout the 1980s and 1990s. As an anguished father who seeks the truth about his son's disappearance in Constantin Costa-Gavras' politically charged Missing (1982), he repeated his Cannes win and Oscar nomination diptych. In 1986, Lemmon returned to Broadway in the challenging role of wretched patriarch James Tyrone in Eugene O'Neill's Long Day's Journey Into Night. Though critics began voicing their doubts after such films as Dad (1989), Lemmon offset his affection for sentiment in the early '90s with vivid performances as a slightly seedy character in JFK (1991), a fading, high-strung real estate agent in David Mamet's harsh Glengarry Glen Ross (1992), and a truant father in Robert Altman's Short Cuts (1993). Lemmon proved that older actors could still draw crowds when he co-starred with Matthau as warring neighbors in the hit comedy Grumpy Old Men (1993) and the imaginatively titled sequel Grumpier Old Men (1995). The two concluded their decades-long, perennially appealing odd couple act with Out to Sea (1997) and The Odd Couple II (1998).

Along with gathering such lifetime laurels as the Kennedy Center Honors and the Screen Actors' Guild trophy, Lemmon also continued to win nominations and awards for his work in such TV dramas as the 1997 version of 12 Angry Men (inspiring Golden Globe rival Ving Rhames to famously surrender his prize to Lemmon) and Inherit the Wind (1999). Lemmon's Emmy-worthy turn as a serenely wise dying professor in Tuesdays With Morrie proved to be his final major role and an appropriate end to his stellar career. One year after longtime friend Matthau passed away in July 2000, Lemmon succumbed to cancer on June 27, 2001. He was survived by his second wife, Felicia Farr (whom he married in 1962), and his two children. ~ Lucia Bozzola, Rovi
Filmography:

Jack Lemmon

Top

The Legend of Bagger Vance

Buy this Movie

The Hollywood Collection: Walter Matthau - Diamond in the Rough

Buy this Movie

The Directors: Robert Altman

Buy this Movie

On Cukor

Buy this Movie

Inherit the Wind

Buy this Movie

Tuesdays With Morrie

Buy this Movie

Frank Sinatra Memorial

Buy this Movie

The Odd Couple II

Buy this Movie
Show More Movies

Out To Sea

Buy this Movie

12 Angry Men

Buy this Movie

Hamlet

Buy this Movie

My Fellow Americans

Buy this Movie

The Hollywood Collection: Jack Lemmon - America's Everyman

Buy this Movie

A Weekend in the Country

Buy this Movie

The Grass Harp

Buy this Movie

Getting Away with Murder

Buy this Movie

Grumpier Old Men

Buy this Movie

National Geographic: Jane Goodall - My Life with the Chimpanzees

Buy this Movie

Grumpy Old Men

Buy this Movie

Short Cuts

Buy this Movie

A Life in the Theater

Buy this Movie

Poetry Hall of Fame, Vol. Two

Buy this Movie

Poetry Hall of Fame, Vol. Three

Buy this Movie

For Richer, for Poorer

Buy this Movie

Glengarry Glen Ross

Buy this Movie

The Player

Buy this Movie

JFK

Buy this Movie

Remember Pearl Harbor

Buy this Movie

The Earth Day Special

Buy this Movie

The Heritage Collection: A Quip with Yip and Friends

Buy this Movie

Dad

Buy this Movie

Long Day's Journey into Night

Buy this Movie

The Murder of Mary Phagan

Buy this Movie

The AFI Lifetime Achievement Awards: Billy Wilder

Buy this Movie

That's Life!

Buy this Movie

Ken Murray's Shooting Stars

Buy this Movie

Maccheroni

Buy this Movie

Mass Appeal

Buy this Movie

Ernie Kovacs: Television's Original Genius

Buy this Movie

Missing

Buy this Movie

Buddy Buddy

Buy this Movie

The AFI Lifetime Achievement Awards: Jimmy Stewart

Buy this Movie

Tribute

Buy this Movie

The China Syndrome

Buy this Movie

The AFI Lifetime Achievement Awards: Henry Fonda

Buy this Movie

Airport '77

Buy this Movie

The Front Page

Buy this Movie

The Prisoner of Second Avenue

Buy this Movie

The AFI Lifetime Achievement Awards: John Ford

Buy this Movie

Save the Tiger

Buy this Movie

Avanti!

Buy this Movie

The War Between Men and Women

Buy this Movie

Kotch

Buy this Movie

The April Fools

Buy this Movie

The Out-of-Towners

Buy this Movie

The Odd Couple

Buy this Movie

Luv

Buy this Movie

The Fortune Cookie

Buy this Movie

The Great Race

Buy this Movie

How to Murder Your Wife

Buy this Movie

Good Neighbor Sam

Buy this Movie

Irma La Douce

Buy this Movie

Under the Yum Yum Tree

Buy this Movie

Days of Wine and Roses

Buy this Movie

The Wackiest Ship in the Army

Buy this Movie

The Apartment

Buy this Movie

Some Like It Hot

Buy this Movie

Voyage En Ballon

Buy this Movie

Bell, Book and Candle

Buy this Movie

Cowboy

Buy this Movie

Fire Down Below

Buy this Movie

My Sister Eileen

Buy this Movie

Mister Roberts

Buy this Movie

Three for the Show

Buy this Movie

It Should Happen to You

Buy this Movie

Phffft!

Buy this Movie
Show Fewer Movies
  • Genres: Vocal Music

Biography

Best-known as an Academy Award-winning actor, Jack Lemmon also issued several recordings over the years. Born John Uhler Lemmon III on February 8, 1925, in Newton, MA, it wasn't until he attended Harvard University that Lemmon began taking acting seriously and joined the school's drama club. After serving in the Navy, Lemmon worked in a beer hall playing piano before eventually landing spots on Broadway, radio, TV, and by the mid-'50s, movies (alternating between comedies and dramas). It didn't take long for the public to recognize Lemmon's acting talents; he won an Academy Award in 1955 for Best Supporting Actor for his work in the movie Mister Roberts and earned further nominations as Best Leading Actor in the late '50s/early '60s (1959's Some Like It Hot, 1960's The Apartment, 1962's Days of Wine and Roses). It was also around this time that Lemmon began issuing albums, including such titles as Twist of Lemmon and Sings and Plays Music From Some Like It Hot in the late '50s, as well as Piano Selections From Irma La Douce and E.B. White's Here Is New York in the early '60s.

In 1968, Lemmon gave perhaps his best-known performance in a movie as the neurotic neatnic Felix Unger in The Odd Couple, while further Academy Award nominations came in (1979's The China Syndrome, 1980's Tribute, and 1982's Missing), in addition to winning a Best Leading Actor Academy Award for 1972's Save the Tiger and a pair of Best Leading Actor Cannes Film Festival Awards for The China Syndrome and Missing. The early '90s saw Lemmon issue his first musical albums in nearly two decades, with 1990's Piano & Vocals and 1991's Peter and the Wolf (the latter of which had Lemmon team up with the Prague Festival Orchestra). Lemmon continued to act regularly until the late '90s when he was diagnosed with cancer; he eventually succumbed to the illness on June 27, 2001, in Los Angeles, CA, at the age of 76. A 2-in-1 CD that included both Twist of Lemmon and Sings and Plays Music From Some Like It Hot was issued a week after his passing. ~ Greg Prato, Rovi
Wikipedia on Answers.com:

Jack Lemmon

Top
Jack Lemmon

Lemmon at the 40th Emmy Awards, August 1988
Born John Uhler Lemmon III
(1925-02-08)February 8, 1925
Newton, Massachusetts, U.S.
Died June 27, 2001(2001-06-27) (aged 76)
Los Angeles, California, U.S.
Cause of death Colon cancer
Bladder cancer
Resting place Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery
Education Phillips Academy
Alma mater Harvard University
Occupation Actor
Years active 1949–2000
Notable work(s) Some Like It Hot, The Apartment, Mister Roberts, Days of Wine and Roses, The Great Race, Irma la Douce, The Odd Couple, Save the Tiger, The Out-of-Towners, The China Syndrome, Missing, Glengarry Glen Ross, Grumpy Old Men, Grumpier Old Men, The Odd Couple II
Spouse Cynthia Stone
(m.1950-1956; divorced)
Felicia Farr
(m.1962-2001; his death)
Children Chris Lemmon
Courtney Lemmon
Denise Lemmon (stepdaughter)
Awards Academy Awards, AFI Life Achievement Award, Golden Globe Award, Volpi Cup, National Board of Review Award, American Comedy Award, Silver Bear Award

John Uhler "Jack" Lemmon III (February 8, 1925 – June 27, 2001) was an American actor and musician. He starred in more than 60 films including Some Like It Hot, The Apartment, Mister Roberts (for which he won the 1955 Best Supporting Actor Academy Award), Days of Wine and Roses, The Great Race, Irma la Douce, The Odd Couple, Save the Tiger (for which he won the 1973 Best Actor Academy Award), The Out-of-Towners, The China Syndrome, Missing (for which he won 'Best Actor' at the 1982 Cannes Film Festival), Glengarry Glen Ross, Grumpy Old Men and Grumpier Old Men.

Contents

Early life

Lemmon was born in an elevator[citation needed] at Newton-Wellesley Hospital in Newton, Massachusetts, a suburb of Boston. He was the only child of Mildred Burgess LaRue (née Noel) and John Uhler Lemmon, Jr., who was the president of a doughnut company.[1][2] Lemmon attended John Ward Elementary School in Newton and The Rivers School in Weston, Massachusetts. He had stated that he knew he wanted to be an actor from the age of eight.[3] Lemmon attended Phillips Academy (Class of 1943) and Harvard University (Class of 1947), where he lived in Adams House and was an active member of several Drama Clubs - becoming president of the Hasty Pudding Club[4] - as well as a member of the Delphic Club for Gentleman, a final club at Harvard. After Harvard, Lemmon joined the Navy,[4] receiving V-12 training and serving as an ensign. On being discharged, he took up acting professionally, working on radio, television and Broadway.[4] He studied acting under coach Uta Hagen.[4] He also became enamored of the piano and learned to play it on his own. He could also play the harmonica, organ, and the double bass.

Career

Lemmon's film debut was a bit part as a plasterer/painter in the 1949 film The Lady Takes a Sailor, but he was not noticed until his official debut, opposite Judy Holliday, in the 1954 comedy It Should Happen to You.[4] Lemmon worked with many legendary leading ladies, among them Marilyn Monroe, Natalie Wood, Betty Grable, Janet Leigh, Shirley MacLaine, Romy Schneider, Doris Day, Kim Novak, Judy Holliday, Rita Hayworth, June Allyson, Virna Lisi, Ann-Margret, Sophia Loren, and many more. He was also close friends with actors Tony Curtis, Ernie Kovacs, Walter Matthau, and Kevin Spacey. He made two films with Curtis, three films with Kovacs (Operation Mad Ball, Bell, Book and Candle, and It Happened to Jane), and eleven with Matthau.[citation needed]

Early in Lemmon's career, Lemmon met comedian Ernie Kovacs, during the filming of Operation Mad Ball[5] and co-starred with the comedian in this film. Lemmon and Kovacs became close friends and appeared together in two subsequent films - Bell, Book and Candle.[6] and It Happened to Jane[7] In 1977 PBS broadcast a compilation series of Kovacs' television work, and Lemmon served as the narrator of the series. Lemmon discussed his friendship with Kovacs in the documentary, Ernie Kovacs: Television's Original Genius.[8]

He became a favorite actor of director Billy Wilder, starring in his films Some Like It Hot (for which he was awarded Best Actor at the Cannes Film Festival), The Apartment, Irma la Douce, The Fortune Cookie, Avanti!, The Front Page, and Buddy Buddy. Wilder felt Lemmon had a natural tendency toward overacting that had to be tempered; the Wilder biography Nobody's Perfect quotes the director as saying, "Lemmon, I would describe him as a ham, a fine ham, and with ham you have to trim a little fat". The biography also quotes Lemmon as saying, "I am particularly susceptible to the parts I play... If my character was having a nervous breakdown, I started to have one".

He also had a longtime working relationship with director Blake Edwards, starring in My Sister Eileen (1955), Days of Wine and Roses (1962), The Great Race (1965) and That's Life! (1986).

Lemmon recorded an album in 1958 while filming Some Like It Hot with Marilyn Monroe. Twelve jazz tracks were created for Lemmon and another twelve were added. Lemmon played the piano and recorded his own versions of Monroe's trademark songs, I Wanna Be Loved By You and I'm Through With Love, for the album which was released in 1959 as A Twist of Lemmon/Some Like It Hot.

Lemmon was awarded the Best Supporting Actor Oscar in 1956 for Mister Roberts (1955) and the Best Actor Oscar for Save the Tiger (1973), becoming the first actor to achieve this double.[4] He was also nominated for a Best Actor Oscar for his role in the controversial film Missing in 1982, and for his roles in Some Like It Hot (1959), The Apartment (1960), Days of Wine and Roses (1962), The China Syndrome (1979), and Tribute (1980). He won another Cannes award for his performance in Missing (which received the Palme d'Or). In 1988, the American Film Institute gave him its Lifetime Achievement Award.

Days of Wine and Roses (1962) was one of his favorite roles. He portrayed Joe Clay, a young, fun-loving alcoholic businessman. In that film, Lemmon delivered the line, "My name is Joe Clay ... I'm an alcoholic." Three and a half decades later, he stated on the television program Inside the Actors Studio that he really was a recovering alcoholic.[4]

Lemmon's production company JML produced Cool Hand Luke in 1967. Paul Newman was grateful to Lemmon for his support and offered him the role of the Sundance Kid, later played by Robert Redford in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, but Lemmon turned it down. He did not like riding horses and he also felt he'd already played too many aspects of the Sundance Kid's character before.[9]

Lemmon often appeared in films partnered with actor Walter Matthau. Among their pairings was 1968's The Odd Couple, as Felix Ungar (Lemmon) and Oscar Madison (Matthau). They also starred together in The Fortune Cookie (for which Matthau won an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor), The Front Page and Buddy Buddy. In 1971, Lemmon directed Matthau in the comedy Kotch. It was the only movie that Lemmon ever directed and Matthau was nominated for the Best Actor Oscar for his performance.

Additionally, Lemmon and Matthau had small parts in Oliver Stone's 1991 film, JFK (the only film in which both appeared without sharing screen time). In 1993, the duo teamed up again to star in Grumpy Old Men. The film was a surprise hit, earning the two actors a new generation of young fans. During the rest of the decade, they would go on to star together in Out to Sea, Grumpier Old Men and the widely panned The Odd Couple II.

In 1996, Lemmon was awarded with the Honorary Golden Bear award at the 46th Berlin International Film Festival.[10]

At the 1998 Golden Globe Awards, he was nominated for "Best Actor in a Made for TV Movie" for his role in Twelve Angry Men losing to Ving Rhames. After accepting the award, Rhames asked Lemmon to come on stage and, in a move that stunned the audience, gave his award to him. (The Hollywood Foreign Press Association, which presents the Golden Globes, decided to have a second award made and sent to Rhames.).[citation needed]

He received the AFI Life Achievement Award in 1988.

Personal life

Actor Kevin Spacey recalled that Lemmon is remembered as always making time for other people. When already regarded as a legend, he met the teenage Spacey backstage after a theater performance and spoke to him about pursuing an acting career.[11] Spacey would later work with Lemmon in Dad (1989), the critically acclaimed film Glengarry Glen Ross (1992) and on stage in a revival of Long Day's Journey Into Night. Lemmon's performance also inspired Gil Gunderson, a character on The Simpsons that is modeled on Lemmon's.

Lemmon was married twice. His son Chris Lemmon (b. 1954), was his first child by his first wife, actress Cynthia Stone (b. February 26, 1926, Peoria, Illinois, d. December 26, 1988). His second wife was the actress Felicia Farr, with whom he had a daughter, Courtney (b.1966).

Lemmon admitted that he was an alcoholic in the late 1960s. (Source: Los Angeles Tomes Obituary.)

Felicia Farr had another daughter from a previous relationship (her marriage to Lee Farr) called Denise, who would become Lemmon's stepdaughter.

Lemmon was Roman Catholic[12].

Death

Jack Lemmon's grave

Lemmon died of colon cancer and metastatic cancer of the bladder on June 27, 2001.[13] He had been fighting the disease, very privately, for two years before his death. He was interred at Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery in Westwood, California where he is buried near his friend and co-star, Walter Matthau, who died almost exactly one year before Lemmon. In typical Jack Lemmon wit, his gravestone simply reads "JACK LEMMON in".[14] After Matthau's death in 2000, Lemmon appeared with friends and relatives of the actor on a Larry King Live show in tribute. A year later, many of the same people appeared on the show again to pay tribute to Lemmon.

Filmography

Film

Year Title Role Notes
1949 Lady Takes a Sailor, TheThe Lady Takes a Sailor Plasterer Uncredited
1954 It Should Happen to You Pete Sheppard
1954 Phffft! Robert Tracey
1955 Three for the Show Martin 'Marty' Stewart
1955 Mister Roberts Ens. Frank Thurlowe Pulver Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor
Nominated — BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role
1955 My Sister Eileen Robert 'Bob' Baker
1955 Hollywood Bronc Busters Himself
1956 You Can't Run Away from It Peter Warne
1957 Fire Down Below Tony
1957 Operation Mad Ball Pvt. Hogan
1958 Cowboy Frank Harris
1958 Bell, Book and Candle Nicky Holroyd
1959 Some Like It Hot Jerry - 'Daphne' BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role
Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy
Nominated — Academy Award for Best Actor
1959 It Happened to Jane George Denham
1960 Apartment, TheThe Apartment C.C. Baxter BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role
Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy
Nominated — Academy Award for Best Actor
1960 Stowaway in the Sky Narrator voice
1960 Pepe Himself Cameo appearance as Daphne
1960 Wackiest Ship in the Army, TheThe Wackiest Ship in the Army Lt. Rip Crandall
1962 Notorious Landlady, TheThe Notorious Landlady William 'Bill' Gridley
1962 Days of Wine and Roses Joe Clay San Sebastián International Film Festival Award for Best Actor
Nominated — Academy Award for Best Actor
Nominated — BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role
Nominated — Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Drama
1963 Irma la Douce Nestor Patou / Lord X Nominated — Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy
1963 Under the Yum Yum Tree Hogan Nominated — Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy
1964 Good Neighbor Sam Sam Bissel Nominated — BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role
1965 How to Murder Your Wife Stanley Ford Nominated — BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role
1965 Great Race, TheThe Great Race Professor Fate / Prince Hapnick Nominated — Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy
1966 Fortune Cookie, TheThe Fortune Cookie Harry Hinkle First collaboration with Walter Matthau.
1967 Luv Harry Berlin
1968 There Comes a Day
1968 Odd Couple, TheThe Odd Couple Felix Ungar Nominated — Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy
1969 April Fools, TheThe April Fools Howard Brubaker
1970 Out-of-Towners, TheThe Out-of-Towners George Kellerman Nominated — Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy
1971 Kotch Sleeping bus passenger uncredited, also director
1972 War Between Men and Women, TheThe War Between Men and Women Peter Edward Wilson
1972 Avanti! Wendell Armbruster, Jr. Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy
1973 Save the Tiger Harry Stoner Academy Award for Best Actor
Nominated — Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Drama
1974 The Police Can't Move Narrator voice
1974 Front Page, TheThe Front Page Hildy Johnson David di Donatello for Best Actor (shared with Walter Matthau)
Nominated — Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy
1975 Wednesday Jerry Murphy
1975 Gentleman Tramp, TheThe Gentleman Tramp Narrator
1975 Prisoner of Second Avenue, TheThe Prisoner of Second Avenue Mel Edison
1976 Alex & the Gypsy Alexander Main
1977 Airport '77 Capt. Don Gallagher
1979 China Syndrome, TheThe China Syndrome Jack Godell Best Actor Award (Cannes Film Festival)
David di Donatello for Best Actor (tied with Dustin Hoffman)
BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role
Nominated — Academy Award for Best Actor
Nominated — Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Drama
1980 Tribute Scottie Templeton Silver Bear for Best Actor (Berlin)[15]
Genie Award for Best Performance by a Foreign Actor
Nominated — Academy Award for Best Actor
Nominated — American Movie Award for Best Actor
Nominated — Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Drama
1981 Buddy Buddy Victor Clooney
1982 Missing Ed Horman Best Actor Award (Cannes Film Festival)
Nominated — Academy Award for Best Actor
Nominated — BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role
Nominated — Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Drama
1984 Mass Appeal Father Tim Farley
1985 Macaroni Robert Traven
1986 That's Life! Harvey Fairchild Nominated — Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy
1989 Dad Jake Tremont Nominated — Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Drama
1991 JFK Jack Martin
1992 Beyond 'JFK': The Question of Conspiracy Himself also archive footage
1992 Player, TheThe Player Himself
1992 Glengarry Glen Ross Shelley Levene National Board of Review Award for Best Actor
Valladolid International Film Festival Award for Best Actor
Volpi Cup
1993 Luck, Trust & Ketchup: Robert Altman In Carver County Himself
1993 Short Cuts Paul Finnigan Golden Globe Award for Best Ensemble Cast
Volpi Cup
1993 Grumpy Old Men John Gustafson Nominated — American Comedy Award for Funniest Actor in a Motion Picture
1995 Grass Harp, TheThe Grass Harp Dr. Morris Ritz
1995 Grumpier Old Men John Gustafson
1996 Getting Away with Murder Max Mueller / Karl Luger
1996 My Fellow Americans President Russell P. Kramer
1996 Hamlet Marcellus
1997 Out to Sea Herb Sullivan
1997 Off the Menu: The Last Days of Chasen's Himself
1998 Puppies for Sale Pet Shop Owner
1998 Odd Couple II, TheThe Odd Couple II Felix Ungar
2000 Legend of Bagger Vance, TheThe Legend of Bagger Vance Narrator / Old Hardy Greaves uncredited

Television

Year Title Role Notes
1949–50 That Wonderful Guy Harold
1950 Toni Twin Time Host Episode dated May 31, 1950
1951 Ad-Libbers, TheThe Ad-Libbers Celebrity Panelist Ended after 5 episodes
1951–52 Frances Langford-Don Ameche Show, TheThe Frances Langford-Don Ameche Show Newlywed in 'The Couple Next Door' sketches
1952 Heaven for Betsy Pete Bell September 30, 1952 to December 23, 1952
1954 Road of Life, TheThe Road of Life Surgeon cancelled after a few weeks
1956 Day Lincoln Was Shot, TheThe Day Lincoln Was Shot John Wilkes Booth February 11, 1956
1957 What's My Line? Mystery Guest November 3, 1957 Episode # 388, Season 9, Ep 10
1957–58 Alcoa Theatre Henry Coyle
Steve Tyler
Wally Mall
Lieutenant Tony Crawford
Edward King
Episode: "Disappearance"
Episode: "Most Likely to Succeed"
Episode: "Loudmouth"
Episode: "The Days of November"
Episode: "Souvenir"
1976 Entertainer, TheThe Entertainer Archie Rice
1987 Long Day's Journey Into Night James Tyrone Sr. Nominated — Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Miniseries or Television Film
1988 Murder of Mary Phagan, TheThe Murder of Mary Phagan Gov. John Slaton Nominated — Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor – Miniseries or a Movie
Nominated — Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Miniseries or Television Film
1992 For Richer, for Poorer Aram Katourian
1993 Life in the Theater, AA Life in the Theater Robert Nominated — Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Miniseries or Television Film
1994 Wild West host
1996 Weekend in the Country, AA Weekend in the Country Bud Bailey
1997 Simpsons, TheThe Simpsons Frank Ormand Voice role; Episode: "The Twisted World of Marge Simpson"
1997 12 Angry Men Juror #8 Nominated — Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor – Miniseries or a Movie
Nominated — Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Miniseries or Television Film
Nominated — Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Miniseries or Television Movie
1998 Long Way Home, TheThe Long Way Home Thomas Gerrin
1999 Inherit the Wind Henry Drummond Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Miniseries or Television Film
Nominated — Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor – Miniseries or a Movie
1999 Tuesdays with Morrie Morrie Schwartz Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor – Miniseries or a Movie
Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Miniseries or Television Movie
Nominated — Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Miniseries or Television Film

Discography

  • A Twist of Lemmon/Some Like It Hot (1959)
  • Piano Selections from Irma La Douce (1963)
  • Piano and Vocals (1990)
  • Peter and the Wolf (1991)
  • Songs and music from Some Like It Hot (2001)

Bibliography

  • Lemmon, Chris (2006). A Twist of Lemmon: A Tribute to My Father. Chapel Hill, N.C.: Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill. ISBN 978-1-56512-480-6. 
  • Freedland, Michael (2003). Some Like It Cool: The Charmed Life of Jack Lemmon. Robson Books. ISBN 978-1-86105-510-1. 
  • Widener, Don (1975). Lemmon. Macmillan Books. 

References

  1. ^ Lemmon stated (on Inside the Actors Studio) that he had an Ulster-Scots heritage.Family tree
  2. ^ "Jack Lemmon Biography (1925-2001)". Filmreference.com. http://www.filmreference.com/film/18/Jack-Lemmon.html. Retrieved 2010-12-12. 
  3. ^ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6UMOX7YYdJM&NR=1&feature=fvwp
  4. ^ a b c d e f g Stated on Inside the Actors Studio, 1998
  5. ^ IMDB entry for Operation Mad Ball
  6. ^ IMDB entry Bell, Book, and Candle
  7. ^ IMDB entry for It Happened to Jane
  8. ^ IMDB entry for Ernie Kovacs: Television's Original Genius
  9. ^ A slice of Lemmon for extra character, Bob Flynn, Panorama, p. 7, Canberra Times, August 15, 1998
  10. ^ "Berlinale: 1996 Prize Winners". berlinale.de. http://www.berlinale.de/en/archiv/jahresarchive/1996/03_preistr_ger_1996/03_Preistraeger_1996.html. Retrieved 2012-01-01. 
  11. ^ "Charlie Rose - Kevin Spacey / Jamaica Kincaid". YouTube. http://youtube.com/watch?v=Drnz1mbpui4. Retrieved 2010-12-12. 
  12. ^ Don Widener Lemmon: A Biography (1975), page 7
  13. ^ Aljean Harmetz (June 29, 2001). "Jack Lemmon, Dark and Comic Actor, Dies at 76". New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2001/06/29/movies/jack-lemmon-dark-and-comic-actor-dies-at-76.html. Retrieved 2010-08-22. "Jack Lemmon, the brash young American Everyman who evolved into the screen's grumpiest old Everyman during a movie career that lasted a half century, died on Wednesday at a hospital in Los Angeles. He was 76 and lived in Beverly Hills. The cause was complications from cancer, said a spokesman, Warren Cowan." 
  14. ^ http://www.seeing-stars.com/imagepages/jacklemmongravephoto.shtml
  15. ^ "Berlinale 1981: Prize Winners". berlinale.de. http://www.berlinale.de/en/archiv/jahresarchive/1981/03_preistr_ger_1981/03_Preistraeger_1981.html. Retrieved 2010-08-31. 

External links


 
 
Related topics:
Ken Murray's Shooting Stars (1985 Comedy Film)
The Heritage Collection: A Quip with Yip and Friends (1990 Language & Literature Film)
AFI Lifetime Achievement Awards: Jack Lemmon (1988 History Film)

Related answers:
Where did jack Lemmon live? Read answer...
What is Jack Lemmon\'s birthday? Read answer...
How old is Jack Lemmon? Read answer...

Help us answer these:
Is Peter kin to Jack Lemmon?
What was Jack Lemmon religon?
What was Jack Lemmon\'s religion?

Post a question - any question - to the WikiAnswers community:

 

Copyrights:

AllPosters.com  Posters. Copyright © 1998-2012 AllPosters.com, Inc. All rights reserved. 
Britannica Concise Encyclopedia. Britannica Concise Encyclopedia. © 1994-2012 Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. All rights reserved.  Read more
Oxford Companion to American Theatre. The Oxford Companion to American Theatre. Copyright © 2004 by Oxford University Press, Inc. All rights reserved.  Read more
$copyright.smallImage.alttext Gale Encyclopedia of Biography. Gale Encyclopedia of Biography. © 2006 by The Gale Group, Inc. All rights reserved.  Read more
Columbia Encyclopedia. The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition Copyright © 2012, Columbia University Press. Licensed from Columbia University Press. All rights reserved. www.cc.columbia.edu/cu/cup/ Read more
Quotes By. Copyright © 2008 QuotationsBook.com. All rights reserved.  Read more
AMG AllMovie Guide. Copyright © 2012 All Media Guide, LLC. All rights reserved.  Read more
AMG AllMusic Guide: Pop Artists. Copyright © 2012 All Media Guide, LLC. Content provided by All Music Guide ®, a trademark of All Media Guide, LLC. All rights reserved.  Read more
Wikipedia on Answers.com. This article is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article Jack Lemmon Read more

Follow us
Facebook Twitter
YouTube

Mentioned in

» More» More