Considered proficient in both dramatic and comic roles, Lemmon was known for his anxious, middle-class everyman screen persona in comedy-drama films.

For his work on television he received the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Miniseries or Movie for Tuesdays with Morrie (1999).

He had a long-running collaboration with actor and friend Walter Matthau, which The New York Times called "one of Hollywood's most successful pairings",[4] that spanned ten films between 1966 and 1998 including The Odd Couple (1968), The Front Page (1974) and Grumpy Old Men (1993).

[5] He was the only child of Mildred Burgess (née LaRue; 1896–1967)[6] and John Uhler Lemmon Jr. (1893–1962),[7] who rose to vice-president of sales[5][8] of the Doughnut Corporation of America.

[5] Forbidden to act onstage due to academic probation, Lemmon broke Harvard rules to appear in roles using pseudonyms such as Timothy Orange.

[15] A member of the V-12 Navy College Training Program, Lemmon was commissioned by the United States Navy,[10] serving briefly with the rank of ensign as a communications officer on the aircraft carrier USS Lake Champlain during World War II before returning to Harvard after completing his military service.

[16][17] After graduation with a bachelor's degree in war service sciences[18] in 1947,[19] he studied acting under coach Uta Hagen at HB Studio[20] in New York City.

[2] Lemmon believed his stage career was about to take off when he was appearing on Broadway for the first time in a 1953 revival of the comedy Room Service, but the production closed after two weeks.

[23] 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.

[9] Columbia's head, Harry Cohn, wanted to change Lemmon's name, in case it was used to describe the quality of the actor's films, but he successfully resisted.

Bosley Crowther in his review for The New York Times described Lemmon as possessing "a warm and appealing personality.

Director John Ford decided to cast Lemmon after seeing his Columbia screen test, which had been directed by Richard Quine.

[2] In the military farce Operation Mad Ball (1957) set in a U.S. Army base in France after World War II, Lemmon played a calculating private.

[9] Lemmon's first role in a film directed by Blake Edwards was in Days of Wine and Roses (1962) portraying Joe Clay, a young alcoholic businessman.

[2] In 1967, Lemmon's production company Jalem produced the film Cool Hand Luke, which starred Paul Newman in the lead role.

[38] 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.

[39] The much-admired comedy Kotch (1971), the only film Lemmon directed,[12] starred Matthau, who was nominated for the Best Actor Oscar.

[24] Lemmon in Save the Tiger (1973) plays Harry Stoner, a businessman in the garment trade who finds someone to commit arson by burning down his warehouse to avoid bankruptcy.

[41] 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.

[12] His later career is said to have been affected by other bad choices, such as Mass Appeal (1984), about a conservative Catholic priest, Macaroni (1985), a tale about old Army friends with Marcello Mastroianni, and That's Life.

A return to London in 1989 for the antiwar play Veterans' Day, with Michael Gambon, was poorly received by critics, and following modest audiences, soon closed.

[12][24] Lemmon also worked with Kevin Spacey in the films The Murder of Mary Phagan (1987), Dad (1989), and Glengarry Glen Ross (1992), as well as the production of Long Day's Journey into Night.

Lemmon and Matthau had small parts in Oliver Stone's film JFK (1991), in which both men appeared without sharing screen time.

[15] In 1996, Lemmon was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Spoken Word Or Nonmusical Album for his narration on "Harry S Truman: A Journey To Independence".

For his role in the William Friedkin-directed[2] version of 12 Angry Men (1997), Lemmon was nominated for Best Actor in a Made-for-TV Movie in the 1998 Golden Globe Awards.

The emotional crowd gave Lemmon a standing ovation to which he replied that, "This is one of the nicest, sweetest moments I have ever known in my life.

Lemmon married actress Felicia Farr on August 17, 1962, while shooting Irma La Douce in Paris.

Lemmon's packed gallery was there not only for his humor, but also to root him on in his lifelong quest to "make the cut" to round four, something he was never able to achieve.

[58] Guests who attended the private ceremony included Billy Wilder, Shirley MacLaine, Kevin Spacey, Gregory Peck, Sidney Poitier, Kirk Douglas, Michael Douglas, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Frank Sinatra's widow Barbara and Walter Matthau's son Charlie.

[59] Film critic Stanley Kauffmann described Lemmon as "easily one of the most expert American actors of his generation".