His chief claims to mainstream familiarity were his roles as the fiddler in the film version of Fiddler on the Roof and the old man ("Imam") who translates the inscription on the headpiece of the Staff of Ra for Indiana Jones in Raiders of the Lost Ark.

Lemkow appeared as a dancer, together with Sara Luzita, in John Huston's 1952 film Moulin Rouge.

Other films include Blake Edwards' A Shot in the Dark as the Cossack who drinks the poison intended for Peter Sellers' Inspector Clouseau, Sellers's films The Wrong Arm of the Law, The Wrong Box and Ghost in the Noonday Sun, Woody Allen's Love and Death and the Morecambe and Wise comedy film The Intelligence Men (1965).

He provides choreography for The Celestial Toymaker (1966) in Doctor Who and the spoof Bond film Casino Royale (1967).

A biography called Tutte Lemkow; På tå hev written by Margaret Ljunggren was published in Oslo in 1989.