'Some Like It Hot': After Two Oscars. Lemmon Still Sizzles

After almost five decades as an entertainer, Jack Lemmon '47 can still captivate audiences of all generations.

In a Hollywood culture rampant with cutthroat competition, it is hard to find an actor who is as well liked, respected and lauded as Lemmaon.

Lemmon's fame had its humble roots in New York.

"I went to New York and started like everyone else, beating the pavement, trying to see agents and seeing if I could get an agent or get something," Lemmon told a crowded Eliot House library in April 1995.

After "beating the pavement" for many years in New York, Lemmon proceeded to flourish as an actor, his work prolifically spanning radio, stage, film, and television.

But his background and career path make Lemmon, 72, an anomaly among his Hollywood peers.

The son of a company president, Lemmon was educated at Phillips Academy in Andover, Mass., before entering Harvard in 1943.

At Phillips Academy, Lemmon's interest in acting was nearly overshadowed by his desire to learn to play the piano by ear. By senior year, however, his propensity toward the arts prevailed and he acted in, acted in, wrote and directed his senior-year musical.

Lemmon's dramatic career did not begin to flourish fully until his days at Harvard, when he became a member, and was eventually elected president, of the Hasty Pudding The-atricals.

During his time at Harvard, Lemmon's devotion to the arts was not affected by what Lemmon later described as the University's lack of focus on the performing arts.

"When I was here, there was nothing in the arts," Lemmon said at the Eliot event. "If you had told any of us that did care about acting, writing, directing, film, painting or whatever at that time [that the Loeb Drama Center was] going to be here one day, we would have said, 'You're crazy, not here, not at this place, because they don't care. They are not interested.

"It was totally different than it is today as far as attitude and any concentration in the arts--creative or interpretive."

Nevertheless, Lemmon pursued theater with a passion--acting, writing and composing for Pudding shows despite his inability to read music, a handicap which he admittedly possesses to this day.

Lemmon's devotion to the theater, however, may have had an impact on other aspects of his college education.

"The only reason I know French is because I flunked the course so many times that it sunk in by osmosis." Lemmon said at the Kennedy Center Honors award ceremony.

After serving for three months as an ensign in the Navy, Lemmon graduated from Harvard and decided to pursue acting full time.

"When I told my father I wanted to borrow $300 from him, go to New York and try crashing into show business, there was a long silence," says Lemmon, according to his press biography.

"Finally, he asked, 'I s that what you really want to be--an actor?' And I told him it was what I had to be. Dad smiled and nodded O.K."

But Lemmon's comfortable lifestyle was about to end.

In New York, Lemmon worked various odd jobs, including a food checker and an emcee in a music hall.

In looking back at his life in New York, Lemmon notes that the difficulty in getting a start is something inherent to the medium of acting.

"A writer can write, a painter can paint, but an actor cannot act unless there is an audience," Lemmon told the Eliot audience.

After making his radio debut in several soap operas, including "The Brighter Day" and "Road to Life," Lemmon began to work in America's newest medium--television.

Lemmon acted in over 500 episodes of television shows, including "Studio One" and "Suspense."

But the one performance that was critical to launching his success was not on radio or television, but rather in the theater. Lemmon made his Broadway debut in a revival production of "Room Service."

Although the show was a complete failure, it was there that Lemmon was first noticed by Hollywood scouts.

Harry Cohn, the czar of Columbia Pictures, asked Lemmon to come to California in 1953.

Lemmon's first film was It Should Happen to You, starring Judy Holliday.

After only five picture, Lemmon had already become an Academy Award winner, as best supporting actor, for his 1955 performance as Ensign Pulver in John Ford's Mr. Roberts.

Lemmon's career had taken a turn for the better. Within five years, Lemmon had already been nominated three times for the Oscar for best actor.

Lemmon's ability to play both comic and romantic leads allowed his career to prosper.

His Oscar nominations include nominations for his performances in the hit comedy Some Like it Hot, with Marilyn Monroe and Tony Curtis, and his dramatic portrayal of terminal alcoholic in Days of Wine and Roses.

He won the Academy Award for best actor for Save the Tiger in 1973.

Although Lemmon's big success seemed to come out of Hollywood, he never forgot his love for the theater.

He acted in the 1960 Broadway play "Face of a Hero" and followed it with "Idiot's Delight" and "Juno and the Paycock" in the '70s.

In the movies, Lemmon often worked with director Billy wilder and actor Walter Matthau, two Hollywood friends.

Wilder directed some of Lemmon's most famous movies, including Some Like it Hot, The Apartment and The Fortune Cookie. The actor-director relationship spanned almost 20 years.

The Lemmon-Matthau-Wilder trio are probably most famous for The Odd Couple.

"Happiness is working with Jack Lemmon," said Wilder at the Kennedy Center Honors award ceremony.

Lemmon and Matthau are still producing movies together--including the recent Grumpy Old Men and its sequel Grumpier Old Men.

Lemmon continued to prove his ability to elicit praise in all facets of entertainment, becoming the only best actor winner at the Cannes Film Festival to direct another performer to the same nomination, with his work with Matthau in Kotch.

Lemmon also was the first actor ever to win the Oscars for both best actor and best supporting actor.

In 1973, he won the Hasty Pudding Cup award.

More recently, Lemmon's portrayal of a New York City executive searching for his son in a chaotic Latin American country in Missing, earned him another best-actor award, at Cannes. Lemmon was the first man to win this award twice at the annual international festival.

Lemmon's successes since 1979 include British, German and Canadian Oscars, three more Academy Award nominations and the first-ever Harvard Arts Medal in 1995.

His passions outside of stardom include golf and music.

Lemmon typically spends at least one hour a day improvising on the keyboard. He regularly plays at the AT & T and Bob Hope gold tournaments. He is also frequently seen losing to friend Peter Falk ("Colombo") in pool.

Lemmon, who lives in the Los Angeles area, has a wife, Felicia Farr, and two children, Courtney and Christopher. Christopher also is an actor.