Jack Lemmon Dead at 76

L O S   A N G E L E S, June 28, 2001 -- Jack Lemmon, the other half of The Odd Couple, a two-time Academy Award winner and one of America's best-loved actors, has died at the age of 76.

The star of Some Like It Hot , Irma La Douce and Days of Wine and Roses died on Wednesday at about 10 p.m. PT at a Los Angeles hospital from complications related to cancer, said spokesman Warren Cowan.

In the last 50 years, it would be hard to name many actors who had more impact on American cinema than Lemmon. He starred in a clutch of films and TV productions, earning him two Oscars, an Emmy, five Golden Globes and the American Film Institute Life Achievement Award. (Check out a slideshow of his career.)

It didn't matter if the role was a comedy or a high drama, Lemmon had a versatile style that enabled him to occupy the mind — and body — of the character he played. Among his most memorable roles were the well-meaning Felix Unger in The Odd Couple, a hopeless alcoholic in The Days of Wine and Roses, and his roles in China Syndrome and Some Like It Hot.

Summarizing his special place in the history of entertainment, Cowen, his longtime spokesman, had this to say: "He is one of the greatest actors in the history of the business. To say one word about him would be beautiful. It's an opinion that is shared by everybody who knew him."

His wife, Felicia, and two of his children were at his bedside at USC/Norris Cancer Clinic when he died, Cowan said.

A Partnership Made in Heaven and Hell

Of Lemmon's seven Oscar nominations for lead actor, two were for comedies and five for dramas. He won the Academy Award for lead actor for the first time in 1956 for Mister Roberts, and in 1973 for playing a once-idealistic man slipping into shady ethics to save his business in Save the Tiger.

But for future generations of movie-goers, it will no doubt be his tension-rife on-screen pairing with Walter Matthau in The Odd Couple that will live forever in the annals of cinematic history.

Although off-screen, the two thespians maintained they shared a much more peaceable relationship, it was never lacking in the chemistry they shared.

During a promotional interview he did for Grumpier Old Men, Lemmon talked about his years of concern for Matthau's health problems. "On the very first picture that we did, he had a major heart attack. Then on a couple of pictures later, he had quadruple bypass. Then, uh, double pneumonia on the first Grumpy. Then he just had stomach surgery. And when he came up from the operating room, I was there. And then he opened one eye and he saw me and he said, 'you've done it again!'"

Matthau died almost exactly a year ago of a major heart attack.

A Hapless Guy

Another great business associate was Billy Wilder, who directed him in some of his classics.

Wilder first directed him in Some Like It Hot and The Apartment, which resulted in back-to-back Oscar nominations for Lemmon. They joined in five more films: Irma La Douce, The Fortune Cookie, Avanti! The Front Page and Buddy Buddy.

While Lemmon was at his best as the hapless guy, an Everyman who couldn't quite get control of his own life, his real life was anything but hapless.

The Boston-born, Harvard-educated actor had a carefully planned career that seemed to have been ordained for fame.

He began his acting career with two stylish comedies and a musical with Betty Grable. But audiences first got a glimpse of his unique well-meaning, trifle square comedy style when he played the hapless Ensign Pulver in Mister Roberts, for which he won an Oscar as supporting actor.

But there were memorable moments when Lemmon did indeed seem a little hapless, such as the first time he won an Oscar for Mister Roberts, when he leaned on wet paint doing an interview and actually went up onstage to receive the Academy with a white stripe across his tuxedo.

A Well-Rounded Career

The son of a bakery business owner, Lemmon was born Feb. 8, 1925; legend has it the birth was in an elevator at a Newton, Mass., hospital.

Although he was brought up in comfortable circumstances, he was always a sickly boy who nevertheless excelled in drama at school and at Harvard. But it was only after he returned from Navy service as an ensign in World War II that Lemmon decided to become an actor.

The rest, as they say, is cinematic history.

He tried his hand at directing (Kotch in 1971) as well as television productions, which provided him some of his best roles in his mature years.

Summing up his career in a 1989 interview, Lemmon had to admit that life had, for the most, dealt him a good hand. "We all make bad films. [The producers] misjudge, and you misjudge. That happens more often than the hits," he said. "But I have been able to get films that have worked, not only at the box office, but critically and with the public, often enough so that I'm still around. I can still get wonderful parts, thank God."

Lemmon was married from 1950 to 1956 to actress Cynthia Stone; their son, Chris, was born in 1954. In 1962, he married actress Felicia Farr; their daughter, Courtney, was born in 1966.

ABCNEWS' Steve Futterman and Brian Rooney in Los Angeles contributed to this report.