The Jack Lemmon Fansite

Timeline

This is Jack Lemmon's timeline, showing important dates in his life...

1925 - Jack Lemmon is born on the February 8. On his birth certificate, his full name was John Uhler Lemmon III. However, people had always called him Jack.

1935 - Young Jack had been through ten operations to cure several illnesses including tonsillitis and mastoiditis (a very rare ear infection). Jack had missed a year of school, due to this.

1938 - At the beginning of his teenage years, Jack started to attend Phillips Andover Academy in Massachusetts.

1940 - In order to stay better from his illnesses as a child, Jack's level of fitness reached an all-time high as he came first in an all-boys running tournament for a two-mile course, at the age of fifteen.

1942 - Jack loses his virginity at seventeen and the girl in question is rumoured to have been known as Jayne. Jack revealed details: "It was quite a strange experience as everything was quite dangerous. Well, dangerous to the fact that during it all, I got my foot caught in the roof supports of the car."

1943 - Eighteen-year-old Jack becomes a graduate from Harvard University.

1949 - Jack makes a short appearance as a plasterer/painter in The Lady Takes A Sailor (1949).

1950 - On May 7, Jack marries blonde television actress and model, Cynthia Stone.

1953 - Jack and Cynthia have a son, Chris Lemmon, now an actor and author.

1954 - After landing an exclusive contract at Columbia Pictures, 29 year old Jack makes his movie debut as Judy Holliday's boyfriend in It Should Happen to You (1954).

1955 - Jack wins his first Oscar award for Best Supporting Actor for his role as Ensign Pulver in Mister Roberts (1955).

1956 - His marriage to Cynthia Stone began to hit the rocks by aound 1955. Jack applied for a divorce in October 1956. However, the two remained great friends, both personally and for the sake of their son.

1957 - Operation Mad Ball (1957) is a big hit for Jack - and the part alerted a certain filmmaker named Billy Wilder.

1959 - Jack stars in the legendary Some Like It Hot (1959) with Marilyn Monroe and Tony Curtis.

1960 - Jack continued to make the classic movies when he starred as C.C Baxter in The Apartment (1960) with Shirley MacLaine. The film was another box office triumph.

1962 - After dating for five years, Jack marries his second wife, gorgeous actress and model Felicia Farr. The marriage ceremony took place in Paris, while Jack was in the middle of filming the comedy Irma La Douce (1963) on location there.

1963 - At the Grauman's Chinese Theatre in Hollywood, Jack and Shirley MacLaine engrave their footprints, handprints and signatures in the famous wet cement where lots of other stars have also engraved.

1965 - Jack is reunited with close pal Tony Curtis alongside movie beauty Natalie Wood for the wacky comedy The Great Race (1965).

1966 -  During the filming of The Fortune Cookie (his first film with Walter Matthau), Jack's second wife Felicia gives birth to their daughter, Courtney Lemmon, now an actress and is half-sister to actor Chris Lemmon.

1968 - The Odd Couple is released and is one of the biggest hits of that year.

1973 - In the beginning of the 1970s, Jack starred in more comedies. But now it was time to fit in another drama. This time, Jack starred in "Save the Tiger" (1973) and won his second Oscar award for Best Actor for this film.

1975 - After starring in "The Front Page" (1974) with Walter Matthau, Jack stars in "The Prisoner of Second Avenue" (1975).

1984 - There was a special reunion party, celebrating 25 years since the release of Some Like It Hot (1959). Cast and crew were all invited to the party, which also celebrated the legend of the movie and Marilyn Monroe, who died in 1962.

1988 - Jack receives a Lifetime Achievement and Outstanding Contribution to Film Award.

1992 - In the 1990s, Jack was still working. He starred in the drama, "Glengarry Glen Ross" (1992), which was one of the greatest movies of that year.

1993 - Jack starred in the comedy, "Grumpy Old Men" (1993) with Walter Matthau and a sequel was produced two years later.

2001 - The world was shocked when everyone's favourite comedy actor Jack Lemmon died of bladder cancer on June 27, 2001. He had been fighting the illness secretly for over two years. His death was splashed all over the front page newspapers around the globe. Jack Lemmon, the person, was dead. But Jack Lemmon, the legend, lives on forever.