One of the most consistently acclaimed actors in motion pictures, Jack Lemmon was the first man to win Academy Awards as both Best Supporting Actor ("Mister Roberts" 1955) and Best Actor ("Save the Tiger" 1973). After graduating from Harvard where he served as president of the prestigious Hasty Pudding Club, he moved to NYC and broke into show business in the late 1940s with running parts in several radio soap operas and some 500 performances in the great live television dramas of the medium's Golden Age. His Broadway debut in "Room Service" (1953) led to a contract with Columbia, and he launched his film career in a pair of Judy Holliday pictures, George Cukor's "It Should Happen to You" and Mark Robson's "Phfft!" (both 1954). Lemmon's fourth picture, "Mister Roberts" (1955), cast him as the opportunistic Ensign Pulver and brought him prominence and the first of his two Oscars.
A comic hit from the beginning when he showed he could more than hold his own with the flawless Holliday, Lemmon enhanced his reputation in three films with director Richard Quinine ("My Sister Eileen" 1955, "Operation Mad Ball" 1957 and "Bell, Book and Candle" 1958) before hooking up with the man who would have arguably the greatest influence on his career, director Billy Wilder. Wilder employed to perfection Lemmon's high level of nervous, indeed sometimes jittery, energy, in the part of a nightclub musician who, together with Tony Curtis, dresses in drag in order to escape the clutches of a Chicago mob in the delirious comic masterpiece "Some Like It Hot" (1959). His portrayal the following year in Wilder's "The Apartment" of a hapless insurance clerk who, in a bid for promotion, allows his superiors to conduct their extramarital affairs in his city flat was the prototype of the put-upon figure fighting a continual losing battle with life's daily frustrations and humiliations that became his trademark.
Although he became established in comedy, Lemmon has shown an equal facility at tackling serious roles. His first major dramatic part came in Blake Edwards' study of an alcoholic marriage, "Days of Wine and Roses" (1963), his dynamic and chilling performance representing some of his finest work. He earned a second Oscar for his pitiable businessman trapped in his own lifestyle and collapsing mentally in John Avildsen's "Save the Tiger". Two political thrillers--"The China Syndrome" (1979) and Costa-Gavras' "Missing" (1982)--each earned him the Best Actor award at the Cannes Film Festival. The former placed his anxious mannerisms in the novel setting of a compromised nuclear plant, which he takes over at gunpoint in an altruistic (and ultimately fatal) attempt to expose the cover-up of an accident. In the latter, Lemmon portrayed Ed Horman, a Christian Scientist father and staunch supporter of the American Way searching for his son during the first days of Pinochet's Chile, who finally cracks and takes his anger out on the emasculated American officials when he finds out they are conspiring with the crooked government.
Not only would Wilder reunite him with "Apartment" co-star Shirley MacLaine in "Irma la Douce" (1963), but he would also pair Lemmon for the first time with his good friend and frequent comedy mate Walter Matthau in "The Fortune Cookie" (1966) and subsequently in "The Front Page" (1974) and "Buddy Buddy" (1981). Their screen chemistry was immediately obvious, and they soon teamed for perhaps their definitive vehicle, Gene Saks' screen adaptation of Neil Simon's "The Odd Couple" (1968). In spite of Matthau originally coveting Lemmon's part as the finicky Felix, his Oscar Madison became somewhat of a signature role, and fans have came to expect a similar juxtaposition of opposites and resultant repartee from a Lemmon-Matthau picture. Although both actors worked singly with Simon afterwards (Lemmon in "The Out of Towners" 1969 and "Prisoner of Second Avenue" 1974; Matthau in "Plaza Suite" 1971, "The Sunshine Boys" 1975 and "California Suite" 1978), it would be nearly three decades before the trio would reunite for the unfortunately inferior "The Odd Couple II" (1998). The one feature Lemmon directed, "Kotch" (1971), however, managed to snare Matthau a Best Actor Oscar nomination.
Lemmon periodically returned to Broadway in "Face of a Hero!" (1960), "Tribute" (1978) and "Long Day's Journey Into Night" (1986), reprising his "Tribute" role in a 1980 film and the James Tyrone part from the O'Neill play for a 1987 Showtime TV production. He won an Emmy as the star of "Jack Lemmon in 'S Wonderful, 'S Marvelous 'S Gershwin" (NBC, 1972) and received nominations for his work in "The Entertainer" (NBC, 1975) and "The Murder of Mary Phagan" (NBC, 1988). Recently, his most acclaimed dramatic work has come for the small screen. He delivered a powerhouse turn as the dedicated, appraising Juror 8 in the Showtime remake of "12 Angry Men" (1997), directed by William Friedkin, and his squaring off against George C Scott's bitter, prejudiced Juror 3 was so electric that the cable channel, hoping to catch lightning in a bottle, paired the two to lesser effect in its 1999 remake of "Inherit the Wind". Lemmon was better in his other TV-movie role that year, inspiring both empathy and awe as the irrepressible Morrie Schwartz, stricken with Lou Gehrig's disease and confined to a wheelchair, in "Tuesdays with Morrie" (ABC), executive produced by Oprah Winfrey.
As for features, Lemmon continued to display his versatility and capabilities throughout the 90s, beginning with his excellent turn as private investigator Jack Martin in Oliver Stone's "JFK" (1991). "Glengarry Glen Ross" (1992), a fine adaptation of David Mamet's blistering play, proved he could still carry his dramatic weight as the loser in an office full of desperate real estate men. Then of course there was the highly commercial Lemmon-Matthau comedy "Grumpy Old Men" (1993) and its even more popular sequel "Grumpier Old Men" (1995), though the relative failure of their "Out to Sea" (1997) scuttled a proposed "Grumpiest Old Men". He also acted with Matthau in Matthau's son Charles' "The Grass Harp" (1996), adapted from the Truman Capote novel. Retirement is out of the question for Lemmon, who christened the new millennium with a cameo in Robert Redford's "The Legend of Bagger Vance" (2000). The public and critics alike continue to respond to his screen persona as his two 1999 Golden Globe nominations attest, and there will surely be an audience to see him opposite Matthau sometime in the near future.