Jack Lemmon - Career

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. 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.

Early in Lemmon's career, Lemmon met comedian Ernie Kovacs, during the filming of Operation Mad Ball 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. and It Happened to Jane 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.

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. 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.

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.

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.

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.).

He received the AFI Life Achievement Award in 1988.