Billy Wilder (22 June 1906 – 27 March 2002) was an Austro-Hungarian born American filmmaker, screenwriter, producer, artist, and journalist, whose career spanned more than 50 years and 60 films. He is regarded as one of the most brilliant and versatile filmmakers of Hollywood's golden age. Wilder is one of only five people to have won Academy Awards as producer, director, and writer for the same film (The Apartment).

Wilder became a screenwriter in the late 1920s while living in Berlin. After the rise of Nazi Party, Wilder, who was Jewish, left for Paris, where he made his directorial debut. He relocated to Hollywood in 1933, and in 1939 he had a hit when he co-wrote the screenplay to the screwball comedy Ninotchka. Wilder established his directorial reputation after helming Double Indemnity (1944), a film noir he co-wrote with mystery novelist Raymond Chandler. Wilder earned the Best Director and Best Screenplay Academy Awards for the adaptation of a Charles R. Jackson story The Lost Weekend, about alcoholism. In 1950, Wilder co-wrote and directed the critically acclaimed Sunset Boulevard.

From the mid-1950s on, Wilder made mostly comedies.^[1] Among the classics Wilder created in this period are the farces The Seven Year Itch (1955) and Some Like It Hot (1959), satires such as The Apartment (1960), and the drama comedy Sabrina (1954). He directed fourteen different actors in Oscar-nominated performances. Wilder was recognized with the American Film Institute (AFI) Life Achievement Award in 1986. In 1988, Wilder was awarded the Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award. In 1993, he was awarded the National Medal of Arts. Wilder has attained a significant place in the history of Hollywood censorship for his role in expanding the range of acceptable subject matter.

Life and career[link]

Austria and Germany[link]

Born Samuel Wilder to a Jewish family in Sucha Beskidzka, Austria-Hungary (now Poland) to Max Wilder and Eugenia Dittler, Wilder was nicknamed Billie by his mother (he changed that to "Billy" after arriving in America). His parents had a successful and well-known cake shop in Sucha Beskidzka's train station and unsuccessfully tried to persuade their son to join the family business. Soon the family moved to Vienna, where Wilder attended school. Instead of attending the University of Vienna Wilder became a journalist. To advance his career Wilder decided to move to Berlin, Germany. While in Berlin, before achieving success as a writer, Wilder allegedly worked as a taxi dancer.^[2][3]

After writing crime and sports stories as a stringer for local newspapers, he was eventually offered a regular job at a Berlin tabloid. Developing an interest in film, he began working as a screenwriter. He collaborated with several other tyros (with Fred Zinnemann and Robert Siodmak on the 1929 feature People on Sunday). He wrote the screenplay for the 1931 film adaptation of a novel by Erich Kästner, Emil and the Detectives. After the rise of Adolf Hitler, Wilder, a Jew, left for Paris, where he made his directorial debut with the 1934 film Mauvaise Graine. He relocated to Hollywood prior to its release. As Austrian Wilder-biographer Andreas Hutter found out in 2011 in Polish and Israeli archives, his mother, grandmother, and stepfather did not perish in the Auschwitz concentration camp as assumed and passed on for decades: Mother Gitla Siedlisker was murdered in 1943 in the Plaszow concentration camp (known from Schindler's List), stepfather Bernard (Berl) Siedlisker died in 1942 in the Belzec concentration camp, grandmother Balbina Baldinger in 1943 in the ghetto of Nowy Targ.^[4]

Hollywood career[link]

After arriving in Hollywood in 1933, Wilder continued his career as a screenwriter. He became a naturalized citizen of the United States in 1934. Wilder's first significant success was Ninotchka in 1939, a collaboration with fellow German immigrant Ernst Lubitsch. This screwball comedy starred Greta Garbo (generally known as a tragic heroine in film melodramas), and was popularly and critically acclaimed. With the byline, "Garbo Laughs!", it also took Garbo's career in a new direction. The film also marked Wilder's first Academy Award nomination, which he shared with co-writer Charles Brackett (although their collaboration on Bluebeard's Eighth Wife and Midnight had been well received). For twelve years Wilder co-wrote many of his films with Brackett, from 1938 through 1950. He followed Ninotchka with a series of box office hits in 1942, including his Hold Back the Dawn and Ball of Fire, as well as his directorial feature debut, The Major and the Minor.

With Gloria Swanson during filming of Sunset Boulevard

He had a major impact his third film as director with Double Indemnity (1944), a film noir, nominated for Best Director and Screenplay, which was co-written with mystery novelist Raymond Chandler; the two men though did not get along. Double Indemnity not only set conventions for the noir genre (such as "venetian blind" lighting and voice-over narration), but was also a landmark in the battle against Hollywood censorship. The original James M. Cain novel Double Indemnity featured two love triangles and a murder plotted for insurance money. While the book was highly popular with the reading public, it had been considered unfilmable under the Hays Code, because adultery was central to its plot. Double Indemnity is credited by some as the first true film noir, combining the stylistic elements of Citizen Kane with the narrative elements of The Maltese Falcon (1941). Wilder was the Editors Supervisor in the 1945 US Army Signal Corps documentary/propaganda film Death Mills.

Two years later, Wilder earned the Best Director and Best Screenplay Academy Awards for the adaptation of a Charles R. Jackson story The Lost Weekend (1945), the first major American film to make a serious examination of alcoholism, another difficult theme under the Production Code. In 1950, Wilder co-wrote and directed the dark and cynical and critically acclaimed Sunset Boulevard, which paired rising star William Holden with Gloria Swanson. Swanson played Norma Desmond, a reclusive silent film star who dreams of a comeback; Holden is an aspiring screenwriter who becomes a kept man.

In 1951, Wilder followed Sunset Boulevard with Ace in the Hole (aka The Big Carnival), a tale of media exploitation of a caving accident. It was a critical and commercial failure at the time, but its reputation has grown over the years. In the fifties, Wilder also directed two adaptations of Broadway plays, the prisoner of war drama Stalag 17 (1953), which resulted in a Best Actor Oscar for William Holden, and the Agatha Christie mystery Witness for the Prosecution (1957). In the mid 1950s, Wilder became interested in doing a film with one of the classic slapstick comedy acts of the Hollywood Golden Age. He first considered, and rejected, a project to star Laurel and Hardy. He then held discussions with Groucho Marx concerning a new Marx Brothers comedy, tentatively titled "A Day at the U.N." This project was abandoned when Chico Marx died in 1961.^[5]

From the mid-1950s onwards, Wilder made mostly comedies.^[1] Among the classics Wilder created in this period are the farces The Seven Year Itch (1955) and Some Like It Hot (1959), satires such as The Apartment (1960), and the romantic comedy Sabrina (1954). Wilder's humor is sometimes sardonic. In Love in the Afternoon (1957), a young and innocent Audrey Hepburn does not wish to be young or innocent with playboy Gary Cooper, and pretends to be a married woman in search of extramarital amusement. The film was Wilder's first collaboration with writer-producer I. A. L. Diamond, an association that continued until the end of both men's careers.

In 1959, United Artists released Wilder's Prohibition-era farce Some Like It Hot without a Production Code seal of approval, withheld due to the film's unabashed sexual comedy, including a central cross-dressing theme. Jack Lemmon and Tony Curtis play musicians who disguise themselves as women to escape pursuit by a Chicago gang. Curtis's character courts a singer played by Marilyn Monroe, while Lemmon is wooed by Joe E. Brown—setting up the film's final joke in which Lemmon reveals that his character is a man and Brown blandly replies "Well, nobody's perfect". The film's box-office success, record-breaking for a comedy, is widely considered to be one of the final nails in the coffin of the Hays code. After winning three Academy Awards for 1960's The Apartment (for Best Picture, Director, and Screenplay), Wilder's career slowed. His Cold War farce One, Two, Three (1961) featured a rousing comic performance by James Cagney, but was followed by apparently lesser films but now of cult status such as Irma la Douce and Kiss Me, Stupid. Wilder gained his last Oscar nomination for his screenplay The Fortune Cookie (UK: Meet Whiplash Willie) (1966). His 1970 film The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes was intended as a major roadshow release, but was heavily cut by the studio and has never been fully restored. Later films such as Fedora (1978) and Buddy Buddy (1981) failed to impress critics or the public.

After that Wilder never ceased to complain that Hollywood was making a big mistake by not giving him any films to direct. He did so at film festivals, in interviews, on television, and whenever he had the opportunity. He often hinted that he was being discriminated against, due to his age. His complaining did not help: for whatever reason, the studios were unwilling to hire him. One "consolation" which Wilder had in his later years, besides his art collection (see "Later Life," below), was the Andrew Lloyd Webber stage musical version of Sunset Boulevard. The musical itself had an uneven success and is generally considered to be one of the least of Webber's musicals.

Directorial style[link]

Wilder's directorial choices reflected his belief in the primacy of writing. He avoided the exuberant cinematography of Alfred Hitchcock and Orson Welles because, in Wilder's opinion, shots that called attention to themselves would distract the audience from the story. Wilder's pictures have tight plotting and memorable dialogue. Despite his conservative directorial style, his subject matter often pushed the boundaries of mainstream entertainment. Once a subject was chosen, he would begin to visualize in terms of specific artists. His belief was that no matter how talented the actor, none was without limitations and the end result would be better if you bent the script to their personality rather than force a performance beyond their limitations.^[6] Wilder was skilled at working with actors, coaxing silent era legends Gloria Swanson and Erich von Stroheim out of retirement for roles in Sunset Boulevard. For Stalag 17, Wilder squeezed an Oscar-winning performance out of a reluctant William Holden (Holden wanted to make his character more likeable; Wilder refused). Wilder sometimes cast against type for major parts such as Fred MacMurray in Double Indemnity and The Apartment. MacMurray had become Hollywood's highest-paid actor portraying a decent, thoughtful character in light comedies, melodramas, and musicals; Wilder cast him as a womanizing schemer. Humphrey Bogart shed his tough guy image to give one of his warmest performances in Sabrina. James Cagney, not usually known for comedy, was memorable in a high-octane comic role for Wilder's One, Two, Three. Wilder coaxed a very effective, and in some ways memorable performance out of Marilyn Monroe in Some Like It Hot.

In total, he directed fourteen different actors in Oscar-nominated performances: Barbara Stanwyck in Double Indemnity, Ray Milland in The Lost Weekend, William Holden in Sunset Boulevard and Stalag 17, Gloria Swanson in Sunset Boulevard, Erich von Stroheim in Sunset Boulevard, Nancy Olson in Sunset Boulevard, Robert Strauss in Stalag 17, Audrey Hepburn in Sabrina, Charles Laughton in Witness for the Prosecution, Elsa Lanchester in Witness for the Prosecution, Jack Lemmon in Some Like It Hot and The Apartment, Jack Kruschen in The Apartment, Shirley MacLaine in The Apartment and Irma la Douce and Walter Matthau in The Fortune Cookie. Milland, Holden and Matthau won Oscars for their performances in Wilder films. Wilder mentored Jack Lemmon and was the first director to pair him with Walter Matthau, in The Fortune Cookie (1966). Wilder had great respect for Lemmon, calling him the hardest working actor he had ever met. Lemmon starred in seven of Wilder's films.

Wilder's work has had to meet some critical challenges. Although he is admired by many critics and filmgoers, he has not won approval from noted critic David Thomson, author of A Biographical Dictionary of Film, and other works. Thomson summarizes his attitude toward Wilder by saying, "I remain skeptical."^[7] Thomson emphasizes that, although Wilder created some brilliant films, he also directed some poor ones, especially at the end of his career. Thomson notes that critic Andrew Sarris did not approve of Wilder for a long time but then changed his attitude much later.^[8]

Wilder's films often lacked any discernible political tone or sympathies, which was not unintentional. He was less interested in current political fashions than in human nature and the issues that confronted ordinary people. He was not affected by the Hollywood blacklist, and had little sympathy for those who were. Of the blacklisted 'Hollywood Ten' Wilder famously quipped, "Of the ten, two had talent, and the rest were just unfriendly". Wilder reveled in poking fun at those who took politics too seriously. In Ball of Fire, his burlesque queen 'Sugarpuss' points at her sore throat and complains "Pink? It's as red as the Daily Worker and twice as sore." Later, she gives the overbearing and unsmiling housemaid the name "Franco". Wilder is sometimes confused with director William Wyler; the confusion is understandable, as both were German-speaking Jews with similar backgrounds and names. However, their output as directors was quite different, with Wyler preferring to direct epics and heavy dramas and Wilder noted for his comedies and film noir type dramas.

Later life[link]

Wilder was recognized with the AFI Life Achievement Award in 1986. In 1988, Wilder was awarded the Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award. In 1993, he was awarded the National Medal of Arts. He has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Wilder became well known for owning one of the finest and most extensive art collections in Hollywood, mainly collecting modern art. As he described it in the mid 80’s, “It’s a sickness. I don’t know how to stop myself. Call it bulimia if you want – or curiosity or passion. I have some Impressionists, some Picassos from every period, some mobiles by Calder. I also collect tiny Japanese trees, glass paperweights and Chinese vases. Name an object and I collect it.” ^[9] A few years before he died, Wilder agreed to a sale of most of the collection at an auction, netting a very large sum of money. He said that he was not selling the art to make money, but that he had enjoyed it as much as he could; he wanted others to have a chance to own it.

Wilder’s artistic ambitions led him to create a series of works all his own. By the early 90’s, Wilder had amassed a beguiling assortment of plastic-artistic constructions, many of which were made in collaboration with artist Bruce Houston. In 1993, art dealer Louis Stern, a long time friend, helped organize an exhibition of Wilder’s work at his Beverly Hills gallery. The exhibition was entitled Billy Wilder’s Marché aux Puces and the Variations on the Theme of Queen Nefertete segment was an unqualified crowd pleaser. This series featured busts of the ravishing Egyptian queen wrapped a la Christo or splattered a la Jackson Pollock or sporting a Campbell’s soup can in homage to Warhol.^[10]

Wilder died in 2002 of pneumonia at the age of 95 after battling health problems, including cancer, in Los Angeles, California and was interred in the Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery in Westwood, Los Angeles, California near Jack Lemmon. Marilyn Monroe's crypt is located in the same cemetery. Wilder died the same day as two other comedy legends: Milton Berle and Dudley Moore. The next day, French newspaper Le Monde titled its first-page obituary, "Billy Wilder dies. Nobody's perfect", quoting the final gag line in Some Like It Hot.

Legacy[link]

Wilder's gravestone

Wilder holds a significant place in the history of Hollywood censorship for expanding the range of acceptable subject matter. He is responsible for two of the film noir era's most definitive films in Double Indemnity and Sunset Boulevard. Along with Woody Allen and the Marx Brothers, he leads the list of films on the American Film Institute's list of 100 funniest American films with 5 films written and holds the honor of holding the top spot with Some Like it Hot. Also on the list are The Apartment and The Seven Year Itch which he directed, and Ball of Fire and Ninotchka which he co-wrote. The American Film Institute has ranked four of Wilder's films among their top 100 American films of the 20th century: Sunset Boulevard (no. 12), Some Like It Hot (no. 14), Double Indemnity (no. 38) and The Apartment (no. 93). For the tenth anniversary edition of their list, the AFI moved Sunset Blvd. to #16, Some Like it Hot to #22, Double Indemnity to #29 and The Apartment to #80.

Spanish filmmaker Fernando Trueba said in his acceptance speech for the 1993 Best Non-English Speaking Film Oscar: "I would like to believe in God in order to thank him. But I just believe in Billy Wilder... so, thank you Mr. Wilder." According to Trueba, Wilder called him the day after and told him: "Fernando, it's God." French filmmaker Michel Hazanavicius also thanked Billy Wilder in the 2012 Best Picture Oscar acceptance speech for The Artist by saying "I would like to thank the following three people, I would like to thank Billy Wilder, I would like to thank Billy Wilder, and I would like to thank Billy Wilder." Wilder's 12 Academy Award nominations for screenwriting were a record until 1997 when Woody Allen received a 13th nomination for Deconstructing Harry.

Filmography[link]

Awards[link]

With eight nominations for Academy Award for Best Director, Wilder is the second most nominated director in the history of the Academy Awards, behind William Wyler. Out of these nominations, Wilder won two Oscars.

Writers Guild of America west (WGAw) - Laurel Award, 1957 (with Charles Brackett) and 1980 (with I.A.L. Diamond). In addition to the career awards, Wilder was nominated 15 times for WGA Screenplay awards, winning five times, despite the fact that the award was not offered until 1948.

Directors Guild of America (DGA) - D.W. Griffith Award, 1985 (renamed the DGA Lifetime Achievement Award in 1999). In addition to the career award, Wilder was nominated eight times for the DGA Screen Director award, winning for 1960's The Apartment.

WGAw/DGA - Preston Sturges Award, 1991

Golden Globes: Wilder won five Golden Globes after the awards started in 1944: twice as the producer of Best Picture winners (Some Like It Hot and The Apartment); twice as a director (The Lost Weekend and Sunset Boulevard), and once as a screenwriter (Sabrina, but this award wasn't presented from 1955 to 1965, during Wilder's most successful years).

In 1993, Wilder was awarded with an Honorary Golden Bear at the 43rd Berlin International Film Festival.^[11]

Academy Award Nominations[link]

Directed Academy Award performances[link]

Major Awards for Directed Films[link]

• -- Only Golden Globe winners reported in these years

Trivia[link]

• Wilder's assistant was producer Thomas L. Miller, who is known for his work on such shows as Happy Days.

• Wilder used the song "Isn't It Romantic" in many of his films.

Notes[link]

See also[link]

• Ruth Chatterton
• Billy Wilder filmography
• List of film collaborations
• David Niven
• Laurence Olivier

References[link]

• Clinton, Paul (2002-03-29). "Legendary director Billy Wilder dead at 95". CNN. http://archives.cnn.com/2002/SHOWBIZ/Movies/03/28/billy.wilder.obit/. Retrieved January 20, 2006. 

Literature[link]

• Phillips, Gene D., "Some Like it Wilder" (The University Press of Kentucky: 2010)
• Armstrong, Richard, Billy Wilder, American Film Realist (McFarland & Company, Inc.: 2000)
• Dan Auiler, "Some Like it Hot" (Taschen, 2001)
• Chandler, Charlotte, Nobody's Perfect. Billy Wilder. A Personal Biography (New York: Schuster & Schuster, 2002)
• Crowe, Cameron, Conversations with Wilder (New York: Knopf, 2001)
• Guilbert, Georges-Claude, Literary Readings of Billy Wilder (Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2007)
• Hermsdorf, Daniel, Billy Wilder. Filme - Motive - Kontroverses (Bochum: Paragon-Verlag, 2006)
• Hopp, Glenn, Billy Wilder (Pocket Essentials: 2001)
• Hopp, Glenn / Duncan, Paul, Billy Wilder (Köln / New York: Taschen, 2003)
• Horton, Robert, Billy Wilder Interviews (University Press of Mississippi, 2001)
• Hutter, Andreas / Kamolz, Klaus, Billie Wilder. Eine europäische Karriere (Vienna, Cologne, Weimar: Boehlau, 1998)
• Gyurko, Lanin A., The Shattered Screen. Myth and Demythification in the Art of Carlos Fuentes and Billy Wilder (New Orleans: University Press of the South, 2009)
• Jacobs, Jérôme, Billy Wilder (Paris: Rivages Cinéma, 2006)
• Lally, Kevin, Wilder Times: The Life of Billy Wilder (Henry Holt & Co: 1st ed edition, May 1996)
• Sikov, Ed, On Sunset Boulevard. The Life and Times of Billy Wilder (New York: Hyperion, 1999)
• Neil Sinyard & Adrian Turner, "Journey Down Sunset Boulevard" (BCW, Isle of Wight, UK, 1979)
• Tom Wood, The Bright Side of Billy Wilder, Primarily (New York: Doubleday & Company, Inc, 1969)
• Zolotow, Maurice, Billy Wilder in Hollywood (Pompton Plains: Limelight Editions, 2004)
• Hellmuth Karasek, Billy Wilder, eine Nahaufnahme (Heyne, 2002)

External links[link]

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Billy Wilder

• Billy Wilder at the Internet Movie Database
• Billy Wilder at the Internet Broadway Database
• Billy Wilder at the TCM Movie Database
• American Master - Billy Wilder
• Wilder Bibliography (via UC Berkeley)
• Billy Wilder Tribute at NPR
• Lifetime Honors - National Medal of Arts.
• Writers Guild of America, west - Laurel Award Recipients
• Directors Guild of America

Jack Lemmon
Lemmon at the 40th Emmy Awards, August 1988
Born	John Uhler Lemmon III (1925-02-08)February 8, 1925 Newton, Massachusetts, U.S.
Died	June 27, 2001(2001-06-27) (aged 76) Los Angeles, California, U.S.
Cause of death	Colon cancer Bladder cancer
Resting place	Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery
Education	Phillips Academy
Alma mater	Harvard University
Occupation	Actor
Years active	1949–2000
Notable work(s)	Some Like It Hot, The Apartment, Mister Roberts, Days of Wine and Roses, The Great Race, Irma la Douce, The Odd Couple, Save the Tiger, The Out-of-Towners, The China Syndrome, Missing, Glengarry Glen Ross, Grumpy Old Men, Grumpier Old Men, The Odd Couple II
Spouse	Cynthia Stone (m.1950-1956; divorced) Felicia Farr (m.1962-2001; his death)
Children	Chris Lemmon Courtney Lemmon Denise Lemmon (stepdaughter)
Awards	Academy Awards, AFI Life Achievement Award, Golden Globe Award, Volpi Cup, National Board of Review Award, American Comedy Award, Silver Bear Award

John Uhler "Jack" Lemmon III (February 8, 1925 – June 27, 2001) was an American actor and musician. He starred in more than 60 films including Some Like It Hot, The Apartment, Mister Roberts (for which he won the 1955 Best Supporting Actor Academy Award), Days of Wine and Roses, The Great Race, Irma la Douce, The Odd Couple, Save the Tiger (for which he won the 1973 Best Actor Academy Award), The Out-of-Towners, The China Syndrome, Missing (for which he won 'Best Actor' at the 1982 Cannes Film Festival), Glengarry Glen Ross, Grumpy Old Men and Grumpier Old Men.

Early life[link]

Lemmon was born in an elevator^{[citation needed]} at Newton-Wellesley Hospital in Newton, Massachusetts, a suburb of Boston. He was the only child of Mildred Burgess LaRue (née Noel) and John Uhler Lemmon, Jr., who was the president of a doughnut company.^[1][2] Lemmon attended John Ward Elementary School in Newton and The Rivers School in Weston, Massachusetts. He had stated that he knew he wanted to be an actor from the age of eight.^[3] Lemmon attended Phillips Academy (Class of 1943) and Harvard University (Class of 1947), where he lived in Adams House and was an active member of several Drama Clubs - becoming president of the Hasty Pudding Club^[4] - as well as a member of the Delphic Club for Gentleman, a final club at Harvard. After Harvard, Lemmon joined the Navy,^[4] receiving V-12 training and serving as an ensign. On being discharged, he took up acting professionally, working on radio, television and Broadway.^[4] He studied acting under coach Uta Hagen.^[4] He also became enamored of the piano and learned to play it on his own. He could also play the harmonica, organ, and the double bass.

Career[link]

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.^[4] 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.^{[citation needed]}

Early in Lemmon's career, Lemmon met comedian Ernie Kovacs, during the filming of Operation Mad Ball^[5] 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.^[6] and It Happened to Jane^[7] 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.^[8]

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.^[4] 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.^[4]

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.^[9]

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.^[10]

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.).^{[citation needed]}

He received the AFI Life Achievement Award in 1988.

Personal life[link]

Actor Kevin Spacey recalled that Lemmon is remembered as always making time for other people. 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.^[11] Spacey would later work with Lemmon in Dad (1989), the critically acclaimed film Glengarry Glen Ross (1992) and on stage in a revival of Long Day's Journey Into Night. Lemmon's performance also inspired Gil Gunderson, a character on The Simpsons that is modeled on Lemmon's.

Lemmon was married twice. His son Chris Lemmon (b. 1954), was his first child by his first wife, actress Cynthia Stone (b. February 26, 1926, Peoria, Illinois, d. December 26, 1988). His second wife was the actress Felicia Farr, with whom he had a daughter, Courtney (b.1966).

Lemmon admitted that he was an alcoholic in the late 1960s. (Source: Los Angeles Tomes Obituary.)

Felicia Farr had another daughter from a previous relationship (her marriage to Lee Farr) called Denise, who would become Lemmon's stepdaughter.

Lemmon was Roman Catholic^[12].

Death[link]

Jack Lemmon's grave

Lemmon died of colon cancer and metastatic cancer of the bladder on June 27, 2001.^[13] He had been fighting the disease, very privately, for two years before his death. He was interred at Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery in Westwood, California where he is buried near his friend and co-star, Walter Matthau, who died almost exactly one year before Lemmon. In typical Jack Lemmon wit, his gravestone simply reads "JACK LEMMON in".^[14] 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.

Filmography[link]

Film[link]

Television[link]

Discography[link]

• A Twist of Lemmon/Some Like It Hot (1959)
• Piano Selections from Irma La Douce (1963)
• Piano and Vocals (1990)
• Peter and the Wolf (1991)
• Songs and music from Some Like It Hot (2001)

Bibliography[link]

• Lemmon, Chris (2006). A Twist of Lemmon: A Tribute to My Father. Chapel Hill, N.C.: Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill. ISBN 978-1-56512-480-6. 
• Freedland, Michael (2003). Some Like It Cool: The Charmed Life of Jack Lemmon. Robson Books. ISBN 978-1-86105-510-1. 
• Widener, Don (1975). Lemmon. Macmillan Books. 

References[link]

External links[link]

• Jack Lemmon at the Internet Broadway Database
• Jack Lemmon at the Internet Movie Database
• Jack Lemmon at the TCM Movie Database
• "The Films of Jack Lemmon", compilation of movie clips, 4 minutes
• Actor Jack Lemmon dead at 76
• Jack Lemmon at the Archive of American Television
• Obituary in the Los Angeles Times