Jack Lemmon’s Comedy Masked His Darkest Secret

Throughout his life, Jack Lemon tried to hide his personal demons. Then, during a 1974 awards ceremony, his darkest secret slipped out in the most disturbing way. Jack Lemon’s birth in 1925 sounds like the inspiration for a comedy sketch. His pregnant mother, Millie, was playing bridge and began feeling some pain. She couldn’t tear herself away from the cards until eventually, she realized the pains were labor pains, even though she wasn’t due for two months. She rushed to the hospital, but didn’t quite make it to a bed, which is why Jack Lemon was born in an elevator. His parents had a difficult relationship, and as a child, Lemon got it into his head that his behavior might have an effect on his parents’ failing marriage.

He thought that if he always acted happy and didn’t create problems, his parents would stay together. Even though his logic was flawed, it kind of worked; his parents never divorced, only separating when he was 18 years old, despite their marriage being so fractured that they spent most of Jack’s childhood sleeping in separate rooms. Still, these trials turned Lemon into an almost pathologically happy kid, well, at least on the surface. By the time Lemon was 12 years old, he had spent an astonishing total of two years in the hospital, both for general ill health and problems with his hearing. Lemon attended Harvard College and did something that few successful people do, though not much to make up for his slacking in academics. Lemon focused on track, sports, and acting. At one point, however, his grades were so poor that the school put him on probation, meaning he could no longer participate in any theatrical productions.

He may have been unexceptional, but he came up with an ingenious way around this rule. Even though the school forbade Lemon from acting, he found a way to do it anyway. He came up with a pseudonym to get on the stage, and Lemon, always the comedian, called himself Timothy Orange. Eventually, Lemon transferred from Harvard College to the Navy College training program. Unfortunately for him, something unexpected happened: World War II broke out. Luckily, he didn’t encounter any actual battle, but the worldwide conflict did set his career back, so after he finally got his degree, he decided to make his way directly toward doing something that he really cared about: acting. But Lemon’s father had other plans for him. His father had always been in the baking business and thought his son would do well following in his footsteps. Lemon had to disappoint him, but get this: instead of Dad being furious, he handed his son $300 and wished him a happy future.

As he was getting his career started, Lemon ran into a complication. While doing a string of radio and television grunt work, he met the struggling actress Cynthia Stone and fell in love. They married in 1950, but from the very beginning, this was no fairytale. Jack’s mother was supposed to make her own way to the wedding, but she didn’t turn up to the ceremony, and the reason was worse than anyone thought. For some time now, Millie Lemon had been indulging too much in drinking at home alone. While inebriated, she tried to cook a meal on the gas stove and forgot about it. Luckily, neighbors smelled the gas and saved her life. After his disastrous wedding, Lemon’s career at least was continuing to soar. His big Broadway break as the lead in a production of Room Service closed after just two weeks, but something momentous came of it. A talent scout who happened to be in the audience one night thought Lemon had star power and brought him to Columbia executive Harry Cohn, the head of the studio. Cohn was interested in Lemon, but there was one thing he couldn’t stand: his name. Cohn demanded he change it to avoid giving critics obvious wordplay opportunities when giving bad reviews.

Instead, Cohn wanted it to be Lennin, like with two n’s. Harry Cohn was a scary man intended to get whatever he wanted, so he was shocked when Lemon said no. Eventually, Jack convinced him that if he changed his name to Lennin, people might confuse it with Vladimir Lenin, and that would be a whole different problem. With his name intact, Cohn soon put Lemon in his first film, 1954’s It Should Happen to You. There was only one problem: director George Cukor thought that Lemon’s acting was awful. It turned out that Jack was a bit of an overactor. Cukor took him aside and taught him a valuable lesson: less is more. Lemon later said that it was this advice that defined his career. The film turned out to be a hit, which brought Lemon to a scary place. Now that he was a star in the making, he had to negotiate a contract with the notoriously shrewd Harry Cohn. Somehow, though, Lemon came out on top again. He signed a seven-year contract, but got something most studio actors could only dream about: the freedom to work on other projects away from Columbia. This was almost unheard of in Hollywood at the time. One day, Lemon was hanging around the Columbia Studio lot when a stranger struck up a conversation. The man had a film project on the go and nonchalantly asked Lemon if he had any interest in a role.

Lemon didn’t realize it, but the man was legendary director John Ford, and the film he was talking about would put Jack on the map. The 1955 comedy-drama Mr. Roberts, starring big-time actors Henry Fonda, James Cagney, and William Powell, was a huge opportunity for Jack, but it wasn’t without its troubles. There were big egos around, and tensions began rising on set, with Lemon taking up the role of peacekeeper. In spite of this, Lemon made a good friend in James Cagney. Lemon and Cagney may have struck up a friendship, but the rest of filming turned nightmarish. Cagney didn’t get along with John Ford and later called him a truly nasty old man. Henry Fonda got in the mix, too, with the director once punching his leading man in the jaw. Eventually, these issues and an emergency gallbladder surgery ousted Ford from the production. This was supposed to be Jack’s big break, and so far things weren’t looking good. Eventually, the studio replaced Ford with Mervyn LeRoy, who had produced The Wizard of Oz, and then hired Joshua Logan as a third director. After all, Logan had written and directed Mr. Roberts for the stage. At Fonda’s request, Logan reshot many of Ford’s scenes, setting the production back and using immense resources. In the end, not only did Mr. Roberts look good, it was a huge success, and that wasn’t all. While the heavyweight leads in the film didn’t get any Academy Award nominations, Lemon not only got a nod for Best Supporting Actor, he also took the trophy home. With the Oscar, Lemon’s blood, sweat, and tears gave way to true fame.

Lemon came out of Mr. Roberts and proceeded to work nonstop. In doing so, he met iconic director Billy Wilder, who had already won an Oscar for the classic film Sunset Boulevard. One day, Wilder pitched Lemon a movie where two men dress up like women to avoid a mafia situation. It was, of course, the film that would become Some Like It Hot. As it turned out, Lemon wasn’t Wilder’s first choice; the director had wanted comedian Jerry Lewis to play the role of Jerry/Daphne, but Lemon got it for one crucial reason: Lewis didn’t want to appear in drag. He later admitted he’d made a big mistake once he saw Lemon’s success with the film. Apparently, Lemon sent Lewis an annual box of chocolates to thank him for saying no. Lemon is an absolute revelation in Some Like It Hot, running around in a dress with an abandoned few.

People can manage to see if they could pass themselves off as women. Lemon proposed that the pair put on dresses and makeup and walk around the studio to see how people reacted. When no one raised an eyebrow, Lemon suggested taking the test to the next level: the women’s washroom. Not one woman in the washroom raised an objection. Marilyn Monroe’s antics on the set of Some Like It Hot are legendary; she was late, she didn’t know her lines, and most infamously, once took nearly 50 takes to say, “It’s me, Sugar.” While Curtis was notoriously cruel to Monroe about these failings, Lemon was unfailingly supportive. Messed up lines or not, Some Like It Hot was an immediate critical and box office success. Lemon was bigger than ever before, but that only meant it was a long way down.

At this point, Lemon’s comedic chops were common knowledge, but he was starting to get antsy about getting typecast. To remedy this situation, he signed up for the 1962 drama Days of Wine and Roses. His risk didn’t pay off at first; the serious film followed a self-destructive couple addicted to booze, and the change of Lemon’s tone sent about 40 couples storming out of the cinema during a preview screening. When he got the part in the movie, Lemon wanted to see the real lives of people with addiction issues, so he spent a few evenings observing the dry-out rooms at Lincoln Heights Correctional Facility. The time he spent there was frightening for Lemon, especially watching people suffering from alcohol withdrawal. Evidently, this experience stayed with him because it caused a horrific moment on set.

In one scene, Lemon’s character is in a sanitarium in a straitjacket. He got so into portraying withdrawal that he began to go into hysterics, and the crew had to shake him back to the present moment. In the end, though, like many of Lemon’s gambles, he won big when the movie came out. The critics tripped over themselves to praise both Lemon and his co-star Lee Remick, and they both received nominations for Academy Awards. It was official: Lemon could do both drama and comedy. There was nothing stopping him now—nothing, that is, except his personal life. Lemon’s career was clearly going to be long-lasting, but his marriage, not so much. He and his wife Cynthia Stone called it quits after having a son together in 1962. Lemon tried marriage again with Felicia Farr, having a daughter with her four years later. In 1962, Lemon’s father passed, and suddenly his frequently fragile mother, Millie, was more vulnerable than ever.

For years, he tried to support her as best he could, but one day it all came crashing down. In 1967, Lemon had a date to spend the day with his mother, his wife, and his daughter. Yet when they turned up at his mother’s apartment, there was no answer at the door. In a panic, Lemon forced his way in, and what he saw shook him to his core: his lifeless mother, dressed perfectly for a day with her boy. Doctors said that the cause of death was heart failure. With both parents now gone, Lemon threw himself into work, for better or worse. By the 1970s, Lemon had appeared in countless films and decided it was time for a passion project. He began lobbying Paramount to help him make Save the Tiger, a message movie about the crumbling American dream. The studio finally agreed with one stipulation: it had to cost less than a million dollars. Lemon was so convinced that he could make Save the Tiger into a great film, he did something drastic: he took a huge pay cut. He gambled on the movie being a hit, but what he ended up with was a disappointment.

Save the Tiger did poorly with audiences, and this showed in the box office receipts. Even though Save the Tiger as a whole was a flop, Lemon’s performance wasn’t. As they had so many times before, critics singled him out as the bright spot of the film, and he won the Academy Award for Best Actor. In 1962, Lemon had wonderfully portrayed a man with an addiction to booze in Days of Wine and Roses. In 1974, his own demons came out. Lemon was presenting an award to his friend James Cagney, and his words were downright incoherent. When people confronted him, Lemon sheepishly blamed a combination of medication and drink. Two years later, Lemon was fined for driving while inebriated. Clearly, he had a problem that he wasn’t owning up to. In spite of his drinking problem, Lemon continued with dramas, and they continued to bring him success.

He received another Best Actor nomination for the 1979 disaster film The China Syndrome, and his final Oscar consideration was for the 1982 political drama Missing. Even so, Lemon wanted to make a comeback into comedy, and it couldn’t have gone worse. Back in the late 1960s, Lemon had made a few hit comedies with funnyman Walter Matthau and reunited with him in 1981’s Buddy Buddy. It was all set to be a triumph, with Billy Wilder returning to direct Lemon. Instead, it was a huge flop. Roger Ebert said that Buddy Buddy was a comedy with no laughs, and Gene Siskel said it was the worst film of the year. In 1997, he got a role in a TV remake of 12 Angry Men, portraying the main juror who argues for clemency in the trial. Audiences loved him, and the Golden Globes nominated him for Best Actor in a TV movie.

And when awards night came, something completely unexpected happened: on awards night, the Golden Globe didn’t go to Lemon, but instead to Ving Rhames for Don King: Only in America. However, once Rhames took the mic, he very emotionally called for Lemon to join him on stage: “Is Mr. Jack Lemon here?” An equally emotional Lemon obliged, and Rhames then handed over the award he had just won to the veteran actor amidst standing ovations from the crowd. On June 27, 2001, 76-year-old Jack Lemon died after a battle with cancer. But there was one thing he admitted before the end: he finally owned up to having a drinking problem and confessed that he’d been dealing with it privately in the intervening years. Lemon’s remains are now in Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery near his old friends Billy Wilder, Walter Matthau, and Marilyn Monroe.