Jack Lemmon
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Jack Lemmon | |
![]() Lemmon with his frequent film co-star and friend, Walter Matthau |
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Birth name | John Uhler Lemmon III |
Born | February 8, 1925![]() |
Died | June 27, 2001 Los Angeles, California, United States |
Spouse(s) | Cynthia Stone (May 7, 1950 - 1956) 1 child Felicia Farr (August 17, 1962 - June 27, 2001) (until his death) 1 child |
Academy Awards | |
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Best Actor 1973 Save the Tiger Best Supporting Actor 1957 Mister Roberts |
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Emmy Awards | |
Outstanding Lead Actor - Miniseries or a Movie 1999 Tuesdays with Morrie |
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Golden Globe Awards | |
Best Actor - Motion Picture Musical or Comedy 1960 Some Like It Hot 1961 The Apartment 1973 Avanti! Cecil B. DeMille Award (1991) Best Actor - Mini-series 2000 Inherit the Wind |
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BAFTA Awards | |
Best Foreign Actor 1959 Some Like It Hot 1960 The Apartment Best Actor 1979 The China Syndrome |
John Uhler Lemmon III (February 8, 1925 – June 27, 2001), better known as Jack Lemmon, was one of the most award-winning American actors of his generation.
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[edit] Life and career
Lemmon was born in an elevator in Newton, Massachusetts, a suburb of Boston, where his father, John Uhler Lemmon, Jr., was the president of a doughnut company. His mother was Mildred Burgess Noel.[1] 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 the 1954 It Should Happen to You.
He became a favorite actor of director Billy Wilder, starring in his films Some Like It Hot, The Apartment, Irma La Douce, Avanti, and The Front Page. 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 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 awarded Best Supporting Actor for Mister Roberts (1955), and Best Actor for Save the Tiger (1973), being the first actor to achieve this double. 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 line, "My name is Joe Clay ... I'm 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, that he really was an alcoholic in real life.
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. Among their pairings was as Felix Unger (Lemmon) and Oscar Madison (Matthau) in the 1968 film, The Odd Couple. They also starred together in The Fortune Cookie, The Front Page, and Buddy Buddy. Additionally, both had small parts in Oliver Stone's 1991 film, JFK (the only film in which they both appear, but share no screentime). 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 Twelve Angry Men. He lost the award to Ving Rhames. After accepting the award, Rhames asked Lemmon to come onstage 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.)
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), is an actor. His second wife was the actress Felicia Farr, with whom he had a daughter, Courtney, born in 1966.
Jack Lemmon died of "carcinomatosis and metastatic cancer of bladder to colon" (according to his death certificate at [1]) on June 27, 2001, at the age of 76. He had been fighting the disease, very privately, for two years before losing the battle.
He is interred at the Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery, Westwood, Los Angeles, California, where Walter Matthau is also buried. In typical Jack Lemmon wit, his gravestone simply reads 'Jack Lemmon - in'. After Matthau's death in 2000, Lemmon appeared with friends and relatives of the actor on a "Larry King Live" show in tribute. A year later, many of the same people appeared on the show again to pay tribute to Lemmon.
[edit] Filmography
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[edit] 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)
[edit] Awards and nominations
[edit] 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
Preceded by Jerry Lewis 29th Academy Awards |
Oscars host 30th Academy Awards (with Bob Hope, David Niven, Rosalind Russell, and James Stewart) |
Succeeded by Bob Hope, Jerry Lewis, David Niven, Laurence Olivier, Tony Randall, and Mort Sahl 31st Academy Awards |
Preceded by Frank Sinatra 35th Academy Awards |
Oscars host 36th Academy Awards |
Succeeded by Bob Hope 37th Academy Awards |
Preceded by Bob Hope 40th Academy Awards |
Oscars host 44th Academy Awards (with Sammy Davis, Jr., Helen Hayes, and Alan King) |
Succeeded by Carol Burnett, Michael Caine, Charlton Heston, and Rock Hudson 45th Academy Awards |
Preceded by Johnny Carson 56th Academy Awards |
Oscars host 57th Academy Awards |
Succeeded by Alan Alda, Jane Fonda, and Robin Williams 58th Academy Awards |
[edit] 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
[edit] Bibliography
[edit] Footnotes
[edit] External links
- Jack Lemmon at the Internet Movie Database
- Jack Lemmon at the TCM Movie Database
- Jack Lemmon at the Internet Broadway Database
- Jack Lemmon's Gravesite
Persondata | |
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NAME | Lemmon, Jack |
ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Lemmon, John Uhler III |
SHORT DESCRIPTION | actor |
DATE OF BIRTH | February 8, 1925 |
PLACE OF BIRTH | Newton, Massachusetts, United States |
DATE OF DEATH | June 27, 2001 |
PLACE OF DEATH | Los Angeles, California, United States |
Categories: American film actors | American film directors | English-language film directors | Best Actor Academy Award winners | Best Supporting Actor Academy Award winners | BAFTA winners (people) | Emmy Award winners | Genie Award winners for Best Actor | Hollywood Walk of Fame | Harvard University alumni | Phillips Academy alumni | United States Navy officers | American military personnel of World War II | People from Middlesex County, Massachusetts | Colorectal cancer deaths | 1925 births | 2001 deaths