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Biography
Life and career
He was born in an elevator in Newton, Massachusetts, a suburb of Boston, where his father was a successful businessman. After attending Phillips Academy and Harvard University (becoming whilst there president of the Hasty Pudding Club) 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.
Lemmon was the first actor to have won a Best Actor award and a Best Supporting Actor award. He was awarded Best Supporting Actor for Mister Roberts (1955), and Best Actor for Save the Tiger (1973). In 1988 the American Film Institute gave him its Lifetime Achievement Award.
Days of Wine and Roses (1962) was one of his finest and most 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 and director Kevin Spacey recalled in a tribute. When already regarded as a legend, he met the then teenager Spacey backstage at a theater after a 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 twice married. His second wife was the actress Felicia Farr.
Jack Lemmon died of 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. 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.
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)
See also
Chris Lemmon (son)
List of film collaborations
