1949–1958: Early roles and Broadway debut Lemmon became a professional actor, working on radio and Broadway. but he had already appeared in television shows, which numbered about 400 from 1948 to 1953. 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. 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. The others were
My Sister Eileen (1955),
The Notorious Landlady (1962) and
How to Murder Your Wife (1965).
1959–1969: Breakthrough and stardom and Lemmon in
Some Like It Hot (1959) 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. 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. 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. The sequence of films with Wilder continued with
The Apartment (1960) alongside
Shirley MacLaine. The film received mixed reviews from critics at the time, although it has been re-evaluated as a classic today. It received 11
Academy Award nominations, winning five including
Best Picture and
Best Director. Lemmon received
Oscar nominations for his performances in
Some Like it Hot and
The Apartment. He reunited with MacLaine in
Irma la Douce (1963). MacLaine, observing the director's relationship with his male lead, believed it amounted to "professional infatuation". Lemmon's association with Edwards continued with
The Great Race (1965), which reunited him with Tony Curtis. His salary this time was $1 million, but the film did not return its large budget at the box office.
Variety, in its December 31, 1964, review, commented: "never has there been a villain so dastardly as Jack Lemmon". '' (1960) In 1966, Lemmon began the first of his many collaborations with actor
Walter Matthau in
The Fortune Cookie. The film has been described by the British film critic
Philip French as their "one truly great film". Matthau went on to win an Academy Award for his performance in the film. Another nine films with them co-starring eventually followed, including
The Odd Couple (1968),
The Front Page (1974), and
Buddy Buddy (1981). In 1967, Lemmon's production company Jalem produced the film
Cool Hand Luke, which starred
Paul Newman in the lead role. The best-known Lemmon-Matthau film is
The Odd Couple (1968), based on the
Neil Simon play, with the lead characters being the mismatched Felix Unger (Lemmon) and Oscar Madison (Matthau), respectively neurotical and cynical. Lemmon's company signed a deal with
Cinema Center Films, that included
The April Fools and
The War Between Men and Women.
1970–1989: Established actor (right) receiving an
Honorary Academy Award from Lemmon at the
44th Academy Awards in 1972 The much-admired comedy
Kotch (1971), the only film Lemmon directed, In
Tribute, a stage drama first performed in 1979, he played a press agent who has cancer while trying to mend his relationship with his son. The Broadway production ran for 212 performances, but it gained mixed reviews. Nevertheless, Lemmon was nominated for the
Tony Award for Best Actor in a Play. His final Oscar nomination was for
Missing (1982), as a conservative father whose son has vanished in Chile during the period the country was under the rule of
Augusto Pinochet; he won another Cannes award for his performance. Another flop at the box office was his final film with Blake Edwards, another of his friends; in ''
That's Life!'' (1986), he appeared in the director's self-autobiographical part with Edwards's wife,
Julie Andrews. A seductress role was played by Lemmon's wife,
Felicia Farr. Lemmon had taken the lead role of James Tyrone in a production directed by
Jonathan Miller. The duo reunited in
Grumpy Old Men (1993). The film was a surprise hit. Later in the decade, they starred together in
The Grass Harp (1995),
Grumpier Old Men (1995),
Out to Sea (1997), and
The Odd Couple II (1998). While
Grumpier Old Men grossed slightly more than its predecessor,
The Odd Couple II was a box-office disappointment. Around the same time, Lemmon starred along with
James Garner in the comedy
My Fellow Americans (1996) as two feuding ex-presidents. The supporting cast included
Dan Aykroyd and
Lauren Bacall. That same year, he played Marcellus in
Kenneth Branagh's 1996 film version of
Hamlet. For his role in the
William Friedkin-directed For his role as Morrie Schwartz in his final television role,
Tuesdays with Morrie (1999), Lemmon won the
Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Miniseries or a Movie. His final film role was uncredited: the narrator in
Robert Redford's 2000 film
The Legend of Bagger Vance. ==Personal life==