Jack Lemmon

Jack Lemmon at Expo 1967.

John Uhler Lemmon III (February 8, 1925 – June 27, 2001), better known as Jack Lemmon, was a Hollywood movie star and one of the most award-winning American actors of his generation.

Life and career

He was born in an elevator in Newton, Massachusetts, a suburb of Boston, where his father was the president of a donut company. After attending Phillips Academy and Harvard University (becoming president of the Hasty Pudding Club while there), Lemmon joined the Navy, received V-12 training and served as an ensign. On being discharged he took up acting professionally, working on radio, television and Broadway.

Lemmon's film debut was a bit part in the 1949 film The Lady Takes a Sailor but he was not noticed until his official debut opposite Judy Holliday in It Should Happen to You (1954).

He became a favorite actor of director Billy Wilder, starring in his films Some Like It Hot, The Apartment, Irma La Douce and Avanti. Wilder felt Lemmon tended to slightly overact; 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 same Billy Wilder biography quotes Jack 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."

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Lemmon was the first actor to have won Academy Awards for Best Actor and Best Supporting Actor. He was awarded Best Supporting Actor for Mister Roberts (1955), and Best Actor for Save the Tiger (1973). He was also nominated for Best Actor award for his role in the controversial film Missing in 1982. In 1988 the American Film Institute gave him its Lifetime Achievement Award.

Days of Wine and Roses (1962) was one of his finest and favorite roles. He portrayed Joe Clay, a young fun loving alcoholic businessman. In that film Lemmon delivered the memorable line: "My name is Joe C and I am an alcoholic." Three and a half decades later he admitted on the television program, Inside the Actors Studio, that he was not acting when he delivered that line.

At the 1998 Golden Globe Awards, he lost "Best Actor in a Made for TV Movie" to Ving Rhames, who promptly gave the award to Jack Lemmon.

Lemmon was one of the best-liked actors in Hollywood. He is remembered as taking time for people, as the actor Kevin Spacey recalled in a tribute. 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. Spacey would later work with Lemmon in the critically acclaimed film Glengarry Glen Ross (1992), where one of its most powerful scenes involves Lemmon's character begging Spacey's character for another shot at making a sale.

Lemmon was married twice. His son Chris Lemmon (born in 1954 by first wife Cynthia Stone), was an actor and frequent guest on To Tell The Truth and Match Game. His second wife was the actress Felicia Farr (one daughter, Courtney, born 1966).

Jack Lemmon died of colorectal cancer on June 27, 2001. He was 76. He is interred at the Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery, Westwood, Los Angeles, California, where Walter Matthau, who had co-starred with him in several films, was also buried. In typical Jack Lemmon wit, his gravestone simply reads 'Jack Lemmon - in'. After Matthau's death in 2000, Lemmon had joined other friends and relatives on a Larry King Live show in tribute to Matthau; a year later, many of the same people appeared on the show again, this time in tribute to Lemmon.

Unlike, for example, Gary Cooper who played baseball star Lou Gehrig on film -- or Henry Fonda, who played Abraham Lincoln, Jack Lemmon never played heroes from American history. But in a career spanning five decades, Lemmon was known for his intense portrayals of a wide variety of non-heroic characters.

Lemmon gravitated toward humor in his personal relationships, and was quite skillful at screen comedy. But he also had a deep respect for theatrical drama, and played serious roles with dignity and commitment.

Filmography

The Lady Takes a Sailor (1949)
It Should Happen to You (1954)
Phffft! (1954)
Three for the Show (1955)
Mister Roberts (1955)
My Sister Eileen (1955)
Hollywood Bronc Busters (1955) (short subject)
You Can't Run Away from It (1956)
Fire Down Below (1957)
Operation Mad Ball (1957)
Cowboy (1958)
Bell Book and Candle (1958)
Some Like It Hot (1959)
It Happened to Jane (1959)
The Apartment (1960)
Stowaway in the Sky (1960) (narrator)
Pepe (1960) (Cameo)
The Wackiest Ship in the Army (1960)
The Notorious Landlady (1962)
Days of Wine and Roses (1962)
Irma la Douce (1963)
Under the Yum Yum Tree (1963)
Good Neighbor Sam (1964)
How to Murder Your Wife (1965)
The Great Race (1965)
The Fortune Cookie (1966)
Luv (1967)
There Comes a Day (1968) (short subject)
The Odd Couple (1968)
The April Fools (1969)
The Out-of-Towners (1970)
Kotch (1971) (cameo appearance; director)
The War Between Men and Women (1972)
Avanti! (1972)
Save the Tiger (1973)
The Police Can't Move (1974) (narrator)
The Front Page (1974)
Wednesday (1975) (short subject)
The Gentleman Tramp (1975) (documentary) (narrator)
The Prisoner of Second Avenue (1975)
Alex & the Gypsy (1976)
Airport '77 (1977)
The China Syndrome (1979)
Portrait of a 60% Perfect Man (1980) (documentary)
Tribute (1980)
Buddy Buddy (1981)
Missing (1982)
Mass Appeal (1984)
Macaroni (1985)
That's Life! (1986)
Dad (1989)
JFK (1991)
Beyond 'JFK': The Question of Conspiracy (1992) (documentary)
The Player (1992) (cameo appearance)
Glengarry Glen Ross (1992)
Luck, Trust & Ketchup: Robert Altman In Carver County (1993) (documentary)
Short Cuts (1993)
Grumpy Old Men (1993)
The Grass Harp (1995)
Grumpier Old Men (1995)
Getting Away with Murder (1996)
My Fellow Americans (1996)
Hamlet (1996)
Out to Sea (1997)
Off the Menu: The Last Days of Chasen's (1997) (documentary)
Puppies for Sale (1998) (short subject)
The Odd Couple II (1998)
The Legend of Bagger Vance (2000) (Uncredited)

TV work

That Wonderful Guy (1949-1950)
Toni Twin Time (1950) (canceled after 6 months)
The Ad-Libbers (1951) (canceled after 5 episodes)
The Frances Langford-Don Ameche Show (1951-1952)
Heaven for Betsy (1952) (canceled after a few weeks)
The Road of Life (1954) (canceled after a few weeks)
The Entertainer (1976)
Long Day's Journey Into Night (1987)
The Murder of Mary Phagan (1988)
For Richer, for Poorer (1992)
A Life in the Theater (1993)
12 Angry Men (1997)
The Long Way Home (1998)
Inherit the Wind (1999)
Tuesdays with Morrie (1999)

Awards and nominations

Academy Awards

* 1955 - Won - Best Actor in a Supporting Role - Mister Roberts
* 1959 - Nominated - Best Actor in a Leading Role - Some Like It Hot
* 1960 - Nominated - Best Actor in a Leading Role - The Apartment
* 1962 - Nominated - Best Actor in a Leading Role - Days of Wine and Roses
* 1973 - Won - Best Actor in a Leading Role - Save the Tiger
* 1979 - Nominated - Best Actor in a Leading Role - The China Syndrome
* 1980 - Nominated - Best Actor in a Leading Role - Tribute
* 1982 - Nominated - Best Actor in a Leading Role - Missing

Golden Globe Awards

Currently, Jack Lemmon holds the record for most Golden Globe nominations with twenty-two.
* 1959 - Won - Best Actor, Musical/Comedy - Some Like It Hot
* 1960 - Won - Best Actor, Musical/Comedy - The Apartment
* 1962 - Nominated - Best Actor, Drama - Days of Wine and Roses
* 1963 - Nominated - Best Actor, Musical/Comedy - Irma la Douce
* 1963 - Nominated - Best Actor, Musical/Comedy - Under the Yum Yum Tree
* 1965 - Nominated - Best Actor, Musical/Comedy - The Great Race
* 1968 - Nominated - Best Actor, Musical/Comedy - The Odd Couple
* 1970 - Nominated - Best Actor, Musical/Comedy - The Out-of-Towners
* 1972 - Won - Best Actor, Musical/Comedy - Avanti!
* 1973 - Nominated - Best Actor, Drama - Save the Tiger
* 1974 - Nominated - Best Actor, Musical/Comedy - The Front Page
* 1979 - Nominated - Best Actor, Drama - The China Syndrome
* 1980 - Nominated - Best Actor, Drama - Tribute
* 1982 - Nominated - Best Actor, Drama - Missing
* 1986 - Nominated - Best Actor, Comedy/Musical - That's Life!
* 1987 - Nominated - Actor in a Motion Picture Made for TV - Long Day's Journey Into Night
* 1988 - Nominated - Actor in a Motion Picture Made for TV - The Murder of Mary Phagan
* 1989 - Nominated Best Actor, Drama - Dad
* 1991 - Won - Cecil B. DeMille Award
* 1993 - Won - Best Ensemble Cast - Short Cuts
* 1993 - Nominated - Actor in a Motion Picture Made for TV - A Life in the Theater
* 1997 - Nominated - Actor in a Motion Picture Made for TV - 12 Angry Men
* 1999 - Nominated - Actor in a Motion Picture Made for TV - Tuesdays with Morrie
* 1999 - Won - Actor in a Motion Picture Made for TV - Inherit the Wind

External links

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* [1] Jack Lemmon Yahoo Group
* [2] Classic Movies (1939 - 1969): Jack Lemmon
* [3] Jack Lemmon's Gravesite