Jack Lemmon - Rotten Tomatoes Celebrity Profile

Biography

This page uses content from the Jack Lemmon biography page on the English version of Wikipedia and is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. This list of authors can be seen in the page history. Rotten Tomatoes disclaims any and all warranties as to the accuracy or reliability of the content.

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), 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."

Lemmon was the first actor to win 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 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.

Throughout his career, Lemmon often appeared in films alongside actor Walter Matthau. They would go on to be one of the most beloved duos in cinema history. Their best-known pairing is undoubtedly as Felix Unger (Lemmon) and Oscar Madison (Matthau) in the 1968 film The Odd Couple, though they have starred together in other films including The Fortune Cookie, The Front Page, and Buddy Buddy; and both had small parts in Oliver Stone's 1991 film JFK. 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.

At the 1998 Golden Globe Awards, he was nominated for "Best Actor in a Made for TV Movie" for his role in 12 Angry Men. He lost the award to actor Ving Rhames. Upon accepting the award, Rhames then asked Lemmon to come onstage and in a moved that stunned the audience, gave his award to Jack Lemmon. (The Hollywood Foreign Press Association, who present the Golden Globes, decided to have a second award made and sent to Rhames).

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.

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 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). He had a son named Chris Lemmon, who married Gina Raymond, a supermodel,. They later had 3 kids, Sydney, Jonathan, and Chris Jr. Sydney, wanting to persue the Career of acting, was born in the year 1990. Chris Jr. was born in the year 1994 and wants to be a Production Designer. Jonathan, born in the year 1992 wants to be a writer.

Jack Lemmon died of "carcinomatosis and metastatic cancer of bladder to colon" (according to his death certificate at [1]) on June 27, 2001, aged 76. He had been fighting the disease, very privately, for about two years before losing the battle.

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.

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)
Alcoa theatre (1959), one of five rotating stars for a full season
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)
The Simpsons (1997) (voice)
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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