Profile of Jack Lemmon on Famous Like Me

Jack Uhler Lemmon III (February 8, 1925 – June 27, 2001) was a consummate Hollywood actor.

Jack was born in Newton, Massachusetts, a suburb of Boston. His father was a successful businessman in the Boston area. Lemmon attended Harvard, where he served as president of the Hasty Pudding Club. He joined the Navy, serving as an ensign, after which took up acting professionally, working on radio and early television and on Broadway.

Lemmon's film debut was a bit part in the 1949 film The Lady Takes a Sailor, but got noticed in his official debut opposite Judy Holliday in It Should Happen to You (1954).

Lemmon was awarded two Academy Awards: Best Supporting Actor for Mister Roberts (1955), Best Actor for Save the Tiger (1973). He was also awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award by the American Film Institute in 1988.

Lemmon was a favourite of director Billy Wilder, and did a series of films with Wilder, including Some Like It Hot, The Apartment, and Irma La Douce.

Twice married, he was a devoted father, and one of the best-liked actors in Hollywood. Later in his career as an already legendary actor, he was performing onstage where one it's patrons was a teenaged Kevin Spacey, whom later met Lemmon backstage. In a tribute he wrote to Jack Lemmon, Spacey recalled that the actor personally took a few minutes of his time to speak to him about pursuing an acting career. Spacey later went onto work with Lemmon in Glengarry Glen Ross in one of the film's most electrifying scenes when Lemmon begs Spacey's character for another shot at making a sale.

In June 2001, he died from cancer at the age of 76, and was interred in the Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery in Westwood, Los Angeles, California. Walter Matthau - his costar from several films - is buried at the cemetery.

After Matthau's death, Lemmon as well as other other friends and relatives had appeared on Larry King Live in an hour of tribute and remembrance. Poignantly, many of those same people appeared on the show almost exactly one year later, this time reminiscing about Lemmon.

Trivia

Lemmon was born in an elevator

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) (also 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)
• 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)

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)

This content from Wikipedia is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article Jack Lemmon