John Uhler Lemmon III (February 8, 1925 – June 27, 2001) was an American actor. Considered proficient in both dramatic and comic roles, he was known for his anxious, middle-class everyman screen persona in comedy-drama films. He received numerous accolades including two Academy Awards, five Golden Globe Awards, three BAFTA Awards, two Primetime Emmy Awards and one Volpi Cup. He also received the AFI Life Achievement Award in 1988, the Cecil B. DeMille Award in 1991, and the Kennedy Center Honors in 1996. The Guardian labeled him as "the most successful tragi-comedian of his age".
Lemmon received two Academy Awards: for Best Supporting Actor for Mister Roberts (1955) and for Best Actor for Save the Tiger (1973). He was Oscar-nominated for Some Like It Hot (1959), The Apartment (1960), Days of Wine and Roses (1962), The China Syndrome (1979), Tribute (1980), and Missing (1982). He is also known for his roles in Irma la Douce (1963), The Great Race (1965), and Glengarry Glen Ross (1992). He produced two films in which he did not appear, Cool Hand Luke (1967) and Kotch (1971), the latter of which he also directed, both through his production company, Jalem Productions.
For his work on television, Lemmon received the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Miniseries or Movie for Tuesdays with Morrie (1999). He was Emmy-nominated for The Entertainer (1975), The Murder of Mary Phagan (1988), 12 Angry Men (1997), and Inherit the Wind (1999). On stage, Lemmon made his Broadway debut in the play Room Service (1953). He went on to receive two Tony Award for Best Actor in a Play nominations for his roles in the Bernard Slade play Tribute (1978) and in the Eugene O'Neill revival Long Day's Journey into Night (1986).
Lemmon had a long-running collaboration with actor and friend Walter Matthau, which The New York Times called "one of Hollywood's most successful pairings", that spanned ten films between 1966 and 1998 including The Fortune Cookie (1966), The Odd Couple (1968), The Front Page (1974) and Grumpy Old Men (1993).
Lemmon was born on February 8, 1925, in an elevator at Newton-Wellesley Hospital in Newton, Massachusetts. He was the only child of Mildred Burgess (née LaRue) and John Uhler Lemmon Jr., who rose to vice-president of sales of the Doughnut Corporation of America. John Uhler Lemmon Jr. was of Irish heritage, and Jack Lemmon was raised Catholic. His parents had a difficult marriage, and separated permanently when Lemmon was 18, but never divorced. Often unwell as a child, Lemmon had three significant operations on his ears before he turned 10. He had spent two years in hospital by the time he turned 12.
During his acceptance of his lifetime achievement award, he stated that he knew he wanted to be an actor from the age of eight. He began to act in school productions. Lemmon attended John Ward Elementary School, Rivers Country Day School (Class of 1939) and Phillips Andover Academy (Class of 1943), where he pursued track sports with success. He entered Harvard College (Class of 1947), where he lived in Eliot House. At Harvard, he was president of the Hasty Pudding Club and vice president of Dramatic and Delphic Clubs. Except for drama and music, however, he was an unexceptional student.
Forbidden to act onstage due to academic probation, Lemmon broke Harvard rules to appear in roles using pseudonyms such as Timothy Orange.
A member of the V-12 Navy College Training Program, Lemmon was commissioned by the United States Navy, serving briefly with the rank of ensign as a communications officer on the aircraft carrier USS Lake Champlain during World War II before returning to Harvard after completing his military service. After graduation with a bachelor's degree in war service sciences in 1947, he studied acting under coach Uta Hagen at HB Studio in New York City. He was also a pianist, who became devoted to the instrument at age 14 and learned to play by ear. For about a year in New York City, he worked unpaid as a waiter and master of ceremonies at the Old Knick bar on Second Avenue. He also played the piano at the venue.
1949–1958: Early roles and Broadway debut
Lemmon became a professional actor, working on radio and Broadway. His film debut was a bit part as a plasterer in the film The Lady Takes a Sailor (1949), but he had already appeared in television shows, which numbered about 400 from 1948 to 1953. Lemmon believed his stage career was about to take off when he was appearing on Broadway for the first time in a 1953 revival of the comedy Room Service, but the production closed after two weeks. Despite this setback, he was spotted by talent scout Max Arnow, who was then working for Columbia, and Lemmon's focus shifted to films and Hollywood. Columbia's head, Harry Cohn, wanted to change Lemmon's name, in case it was used to describe the quality of the actor's films, but he successfully resisted. His first role as a leading man was in the comedy It Should Happen to You (1954), which also featured the established Judy Holliday in the female lead. Bosley Crowther in his review for The New York Times described Lemmon as possessing "a warm and appealing personality. The screen should see more of him." The two leads soon reunited in Phffft (also 1954). Kim Novak had a secondary role as a brief love interest for Lemmon's character. "If it wasn't for Judy, I'm not sure I would have concentrated on films", he told The Washington Post in 1986 saying early in his career he had a snobbish attitude towards films over the stage.
He managed to negotiate a contract with Columbia allowing him leeway to pursue other projects, some of the terms of which he said "nobody had gotten before". He signed a seven-year contract, but ended up staying with Columbia for 10 years. Lemmon's appearance as Ensign Pulver in Mister Roberts (1955), with James Cagney, Henry Fonda, and William Powell for Warner Bros., gained Lemmon the Best Supporting Actor Oscar. Director John Ford decided to cast Lemmon after seeing his Columbia screen test, which had been directed by Richard Quine. At an impromptu meeting on the studio lot, Ford persuaded the actor to appear in the film, although Lemmon did not realize he was in conversation with Ford at the time. In the military farce Operation Mad Ball (1957) set in a U.S. Army base in France after World War II, Lemmon played a calculating private. He met comedian Ernie Kovacs, who co-starred, and they became close friends, appearing together in two subsequent films, as a warlock in Bell, Book and Candle (1958, a film he apparently disliked) and It Happened to Jane (1959), all three under the direction of Richard Quine. Lemmon starred in six films directed by Quine. The others were My Sister Eileen (1955), The Notorious Landlady (1962) and How to Murder Your Wife (1965).
1959–1969: Breakthrough and stardom
Lemmon worked with director Billy Wilder on seven films. Their association began with the gender-bending comedy Some Like It Hot (1959), with Tony Curtis and Marilyn Monroe. The role required him to perform 80% of it in drag. People who knew his mother, Millie Lemmon, said he had mimicked her personality and even her hairstyle. Critic Pauline Kael said he was "demonically funny" in the part.
After his success with Some Like It Hot, and with his exclusive contract to Columbia Pictures expiring, Lemmon was finally free to form his own independent film production company in early 1960, Jalem Productions. Lemmon later joked about the banality of the company's name being made up of the first letters of his names, admitting that he could not find another name that he both liked and was also available to use. Lemmon was president and director of the company, his father was vice-president and co-director, and William Freedman was secretary-treasurer. The first production through Jalem was the stage play Face of a Hero, starring Lemmon and directed by Alexander Mackendrick and was presented in October–November 1960. In August 1964, Lemmon appointed producer Gordon Carroll vice president of Jalem Productions.