Trivia: A private school-educated everyman who could play outrageous comedy and wrenching tragedy, Jack Lemmon burst onto the movie scene as a 1950s Columbia contract player and remained a beloved star until his death in 2001. Whether through humor or pathos, he excelled at illuminating the struggles of average men against a callous world; as director Billy Wilder once noted, "There was a little bit of genius in everything he did." Born in 1925, the son of a Boston doughnut company executive, Lemmon was educated at Phillips Andover Academy and taught himself to play piano as a teen. A budding thespian by the time he entered Harvard, he was elected president of the famed Hasty Pudding Club. After his college career was briefly interrupted by a stint in the Navy at the end of World War II, Lemmon graduated from Harvard and headed to New York to pursue acting. By the early '50s, Lemmon had appeared in hundreds of live TV roles, including in the dramatic series Kraft Television Theater and Robert Montgomery Presents, as well as co-starring with first wife, Cynthia Stone, in two short-lived sitcoms. After Lemmon landed a major role in the 1953 Broadway revival of Room Service, a talent scout for Columbia Pictures convinced the actor to try Hollywood instead. Defying Columbia chief Harry Cohn's demand that he change his last name lest the critics take advantage of it in negative reviews, Lemmon quickly made a positive impression in his first film, the Judy Holliday comic hit It Should Happen to You (1954) and quickly became a reliably nimble comic presence at Columbia. A loan out to Warner Bros. for the smash Mister Roberts (1955), however, truly began to reveal his ability. Drawing on his Navy memories to play the wily Ensign Pulver, Lemmon held his own opposite heavyweights Henry Fonda and James Cagney and won a Best Supporting Actor Oscar for his fourth film. A free-agent star by the end of the 1950s, he began one of his two most auspicious creative collaborations when writer/director Billy Wilder tapped him to play one of the cross-dressing musicians in the gender-tweaking comic classic Some Like It Hot (1959). As enthusiastically female bull fiddler Daphne to Tony Curtis' preening Lothario sax player Josephine, Lemmon danced a sidesplitting tango with millionaire suitor Joe E. Brown and delivered a sublime speechless reaction to Brown's nonchalant acceptance of his manhood. Fresh off a Best Actor nomination for Hot, he then gave an image-defining performance in Wilder's multiple-Oscar winner The Apartment (1960). As ambitious New York office drone C.C. Baxter, who climbs the corporate ladder by loaning his small one-bedroom to his philandering bosses, Lemmon was both the likeable cynic and beleaguered romantic, perfectly embodying Wilder's sardonic view of a venal world. Lemmon's turn as the put-upon quotidian schnook pervaded the rest of his career. Determined to prove that he could play serious roles as well as comic, Lemmon campaigned to play Lee Remick's alcoholic husband in Blake Edwards' film adaptation of the teleplay Days of Wine and Roses (1962). Revealing the darker side of middle-class desperation, Lemmon earned still more critical kudos and another Oscar nomination. Despite this triumph, he returned to comedy, re-teaming with Wilder and The Apartment co-star Shirley MacLaine in Irma la Douce (1963). Though the love story between a Parisian prostitute and a cop-turned-lover in disguise was a lesser effort, Irma la Douce became a major hit for the trio. Continuing to display his skill at offsetting his characters' unseemly behavior with his innate, ordinary-guy affability, Lemmon's mid-'60s comic roles included a lascivious landlord in Under the Yum Yum Tree (1963) and a homicidal husband in How to Murder Your Wife (1965). Lemmon began his second legendary creative partnership when Wilder cast Walter Matthau opposite him in The Fortune Cookie (1966). The duo's popularity was cemented when they re-teamed for the hit film version of Neil Simon's The Odd Couple (1968). Despite his genuine pathos as suicidal, anal-retentive divorcé Felix Unger, Lemmon still managed to evoke great hilarity with Felix's technique for clearing his sinuses, becoming a superbly neurotic foil to Matthau's very casual Oscar Madison. Matthau subsequently starred in Kotch (1971), Lemmon's sole directorial effort, and Lemmon appeared in scion Charles Matthau's The Grass Harp (1995). Lemmon and Matthau also fittingly co-starred in Wilder's final film, Buddy Buddy (1981). After starring in The Out-of-Towners (1970) and Avanti! (1972), Lemmon took minimal salary in order to play a disillusioned middle-aged businessman in the drama Save the Tiger (1973). Though the film did little business, Lemmon finally won the Best Actor Oscar that had eluded him for over a decade and moved easily between comedy and drama from then on. As in The Odd Couple, he marshaled both humor and gloom for his portrayal of an unemployed, despondent gray flannel suit executive in Neil Simon's The Prisoner of Second Avenue (1972). His reunion with Wilder and Matthau for another screen version of the fast-talking newspaperman comedy The Front Page (1974), however, was strictly for laughs. Working less frequently in films in the mid-'70s, Lemmon managed to retain his status as one of the best actors in the business with his passionate turn as a conscience-stricken nuclear power plant executive in the prescient drama The China Syndrome (1979). Along with the Best Actor prize at the Cannes Film Festival, Lemmon also earned an Oscar nomination for Syndrome. He received another Oscar nod when he reprised his 1978 Tony-nominated performance as a dying press agent in the film version of Tribute (1980). Lemmon continued to push himself as an actor throughout the 1980s and 1990s. As an anguished father who seeks the truth about his son's disappearance in Constantin Costa-Gavras' politically charged Missing (1982), he repeated his Cannes win and Oscar nomination diptych. In 1986, Lemmon returned to Broadway in the challenging role of wretched patriarch James Tyrone in Eugene O'Neill's Long Day's Journey Into Night. Though critics began voicing their doubts after such films as Dad (1989), Lemmon offset his affection for sentiment in the early '90s with vivid performances as a slightly seedy character in JFK (1991), a fading, high-strung real estate agent in David Mamet's harsh Glengarry Glen Ross (1992), and a truant father in Robert Altman's Short Cuts (1993). Lemmon proved that older actors could still draw crowds when he co-starred with Matthau as warring neighbors in the hit comedy Grumpy Old Men (1993) and the imaginatively titled sequel Grumpier Old Men (1995). The two concluded their decades-long, perennially appealing odd couple act with Out to Sea (1997) and The Odd Couple II (1998). Along with gathering such lifetime laurels as the Kennedy Center Honors and the Screen Actors' Guild trophy, Lemmon also continued to win nominations and awards for his work in such TV dramas as the 1997 version of 12 Angry Men (inspiring Golden Globe rival Ving Rhames to famously surrender his prize to Lemmon) and Inherit the Wind (1999). Lemmon's Emmy-worthy turn as a serenely wise dying professor in Tuesdays With Morrie proved to be his final major role and an appropriate end to his stellar career. One year after longtime friend Matthau passed away in July 2000, Lemmon succumbed to cancer on June 27, 2001. He was survived by his second wife, Felicia Farr (whom he married in 1962), and his two children.

Trivia: Goodman graduate Barbara Harris was among the earliest members of Chicago's Second City improvisational troupe. Harris' "everybody's best friend" demeanor, her good looks and offbeat sense of humor assured her steady work both off and on Broadway. In 1967 she won a Tony Award for her work in the whimsical Broadway musical The Apple Tree. Harris made her film debut as the heart-on-sleeve social worker Sandra (which happened to be her real first name) in 1965's A Thousand Clowns. She then re-created her Broadway role in the hot-and-cold movie version of Arthur Kopit's Oh Dad, Poor Dad, Mama's Hung You in the Closet and I'm Feeling So Sad. In 1971, Harris was nominated for an Oscar for her performance in Who is Harry Kellerman and Why Is He Saying Those Terrible Things About Me? (did she enjoy selecting films with long-winded titles?) Her subsequent film appearances were as infrequent as they were unpredictable. Only director Robert Altman would have had the inspired notion of casting the very urban Barbara as a country-western wannabe in Nashville (1975); and only Alfred Hitchcock would have come up with the brilliant idea of casting Barbara as a lovably crooked psychic in Family Plot (1976). Both were out-of-left-field casting choices, and both worked superbly -- a tribute not only to the directors' intuition but also to Barbara Harris' boundless versatility.

Trivia: One of Hollywood's elder statesmen, Jason Robards Jr. had a rich, deep voice and authoritative aura that befit the distinguished citizens he often played. The son of stage and screen actor Jason Robards Sr., Robards kept alive his rich heritage throughout the second half of the 20th century.Born July 26, 1922, in Chicago, Robards was a military man before becoming an actor. He served seven years in the Navy, and was at Pearl Harbor when it was attacked in 1941 (he later received the Navy Cross). Following his service, Robards moved to New York to pursue an acting career. He found work in incidental plays, radio soap operas, and live television dramas, driving a cab and teaching school to support himself. After a decade of obscurity, he rose to prominence in 1956 in the Circle in the Square production of Eugene O'Neill's The Iceman Cometh. He appeared on Broadway the following year in Long Day's Journey Into Night, for which he won a New York Drama Critics Award. Following that success, he remained a busy and popular Broadway performer, and, in 1958, got the opportunity to appear with his father in The Disenchanted.Making his onscreen debut in The Journey (1959), Robards maintained a TV and screen career while continuing to work on the stage. He tended to appear in two or three movies per year during the '60s, including the acclaimed 1962 screen adaptation of Long Day's Journey Into Night and Sergio Leone's much lauded 1968 Western Once Upon a Time in the West. Two years after his role in the war epic Tora! Tora! Tora! (1970), the actor was in a near-fatal car crash, but managed to make a complete recovery, returning to Broadway two years later. He ended the '70s by winning Oscars for his supporting roles in All the President's Men (1976) and Julia (1977), and was nominated for the same award for his portrayal of reclusive billionaire Howard Hughes in Melvin and Howard (1980), The slew of awards and nominations during this period also served as a nice complement to the six Tony awards he had been nominated for between 1960 and 1974. In 1978, Robards returned to the material that had helped to cement his reputation by directing himself in a revival of Long Day's Journey Into Night, which opened at Brooklyn Academy of Music Opera House.Robards continued to act on-stage and in film throughout the '80s, in addition to working on a number of documentaries and made-for-TV movies. Among his more notable television portrayals were the title role in the acclaimed 1980 miniseries F.D.R.: The Last Year (1980) and a lead part in You Can't Take It With You (1984). He also participated in the 1982 documentary Burden of Dreams, a highly acclaimed film about the making of Werner Herzog's Fitzcarraldo. Robards' screen roles during that decade were usually limited to the part of the patriarch in such films as Square Dance (1987) and Parenthood (1989), although he was introduced to a younger audience with his lead in the 1989 comedy Dream a Little Dream, which featured Corey Haim and Corey Feldman and little else. Robards worked steadily throughout the '90s, taking on roles in such acclaimed features as Philadelphia (1993), A Thousand Acres (1997), and Beloved (1998). He also continued to appear in a number of TV miniseries. In 1999, Robards lent his voice to the widely lauded documentary The Irish in America: The Long Journey Home, further demonstrating that, in addition to being one of Hollywood's most respected figures, he was also one of its most versatile. One of Robards' last roles was a suitably complex one, a dying man longing for a reconciliation with his estranged son in Paul Thomas Anderson's Magnolia (1999). The actor died of cancer, himself, the following year.

Trivia: If character actor Herb Edelman was one of the more successful stage and screen purveyors of "Everyman" roles, it was probably because he'd held down an astonishing array of meat-and-potato jobs before settling into acting. Edelman studied to be a veterinarian at Cornell University, but left during the first year. He took a tentative stab at journalism before toiling as an Armed Forces radio operator and announcer. While stationed in the Far East, Edelman entertained the notion of becoming a "Jewish Buddhist." He returned to his hometown to attend Brooklyn College, dropped out to become a hotel manager, was briefly the "straight" half of a comedy team, worked in advertising, drove a hack, and dropped back into college. Finally turning to acting full time in summer stock, Edelman began picking up small roles in New York productions, including the scene-stealing exhausted delivery man inNeil Simon's Barefoot in the Park (1965), a role he recreated for the 1967 film version. Forming strong bonds with both Simon and with Barefoot star Robert Redford, Edelman would later appear in Simon's The Odd Couple and California Suite, and in the Redford/Barbara Streisand vehicle The Way We Were (1973). In 1968, Edelman co-starred with Bob Denver in the two-season TV sitcom The Good Guys. Nine years later, he starred as one-half of the title role in the weekly TV comedy/fantasy Big John, Little John (Robbie Rist was the "Little" one). Other TV series featuring Herb Edelman on a regular or recurring basis included Ladies Man, 9 to 5, Strike Force and Murder She Wrote. Fans of the sitcom The Golden Girls may remember Edelman for playing Stanley, Bea Arthur's irksome ex-husband. Edelman died of emphysema at the Motion Picture Hospital in Los Angeles on July 21, 1996; he was 62.

Trivia: Actress Lisa Gerritsen embarked on a dramatic career for a very brief albeit memorable period of time -- from around 1969 (at the age of 12) to 1978 (at the age of 21), when she finally hung up her acting gloves and moved out of the spotlight. The world first took notice of Gerritsen when she signed for a role in the short-lived NBC sitcom My World and Welcome to It (1969-1970). Loosely adapted from the writings of humorist James Thurber, the program starred William Windom (She's Having a Baby) as John Monroe -- a husband and father of one who worked as a writer and cartoonist, suffered from an enormous sense of insecurity, and lived in his daydreams. Gerritsen co-starred as Lydia Monroe, John's preteen daughter. Unfortunately, despite a cover article in TV Guide circa 1969 and an abortive attempt by CBS to revive the series in 1972, it never connected with a substantial audience. Several months after a big-screen debut as a terrified airline passenger in the star-studded epic Airport (1970), Gerritsen then cropped up in another regular supporting role on a series, this time on the still-influential sitcom The Mary Tyler Moore Show. On that program, she played Bess Lindstrom, the teenage daughter of Phyllis Lindstrom (Cloris Leachman), the landlady of Mary Richards' (Moore) building. The series as a whole ran until 1977, but five years in, producer Grant Tinker decided to spin off the characters of Phyllis and Bess into their own sitcom, simply and elegantly titled Phyllis; as a result, Leachman and Gerritsen promptly left the program to head up the new show. The premise of that outing (which debuted in 1975 and ran for two years) had Phyllis and Bess moving to San Francisco following the sudden death of husband and father Lars, where Phyllis took a job in a commercial photography studio. Phyllis represented Gerritsen's last major acting role, and thereafter, she moved into an unrelated field. Her resumé also includes guest appearances on such programs as Gunsmoke, The Odd Couple, and Bonanza.

Trivia: Severn Darden was born in New Orleans, educated at Mexico City College, and given his first professional acting opportunity at Virginia's Barter Theater. A charter member of the Compass Theater, the improvisational group that would later evolve into Second City, Darden distinguished himself as an "intellectual" monologist, effortlessly weaving allusions to Freud and Kant into his hilariously nonsensical ramblings. From 1963's Goldstein onward, Darden worked in films as a character actor and sometimes writer/director. He chalked up quite a few eccentric characterizations in films like Dead Heat on a Merry-Go-Round (1966) and They Shoot Horses, Don't They? (1969). He was at the top of his form in The President's Analyst (1967) as Kropotkin, a gay Soviet counterintelligence agent who turns out (much to his own surprise) to be one of the film's heroes. The peripatetic Severn Darden settled down long enough to appear as a TV-series regular on Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman (1977; as Popesco), Beyond Westworld (1980; as Foley), and Take Five (1987; as psychiatrist Noah Wolf).

Trivia: Born in the Middle East to American parents, Lisa Eilbacher was the sister of busy child actress Cindy Eilbacher. Likewise launching her career at an early age, Lisa made her film debut as Jason Robards Jr.'s teenage daughter in The War Between Men and Women (1972). Best remembered for her portrayal of pilot trainee Cory Seegar in An Officer and a Gentleman (1984) and for her work as Eddie Murphy's leading lady in Beverly Hills Cop (1984), Eilbacher also has the distinction of being the first actress to portray kidnaped heiress Patricia Hearst in the 1979 TV movie The Ordeal of Patty Hearst. Lisa Eilbacher's other TV work has included regular roles on such series as The Texas Wheelers, The Hardy Boys: Nancy Drew Mysteries and Ryan's Four, and the starring role in the 1985 private eye weekly Me and Mom (1985, as "Me").

Trivia: Ruth Shoecraft was born in Michigan and raised in Ohio, where her father served as a county sheriff. At 20, Shoecraft attended the American Academy of Dramatic Arts, but put her theatrical aspirations on the back burner when she married a Florida widower named Patrick John McDevitt. When her husband died in 1934, Shoecraft returned to the stage asRuth McDevitt, first in community theatre, then on Broadway and in radio. She made her first film in 1951, but for the most part steered clear of Hollywood, preferring to appear in such Manhattan-based plays as The Solid Gold Cadillac, Picnic, The Best Man and Absence of a Cello. McDevitt's entree into weekly television was on the classic early-1950s Wally Cox sitcom Mr. Peepers, in which she played Wally's mom. Her next series stint was as rifle-wielding Grandma Hanks in the short-lived 1967 western comedy Pistols and Petticoats. During the 1960s, she returned to films, usually playing a dotty little old lady with more on the ball than people suspected. Still going strong in the early 1970s, Shoecraft played recurring roles on the TV series All in the Family and Kolchak. Ruth McDevitt made her last appearance at age 80 in the made-for-TV feature One of My Wives is Missing (1976).

Trivia: Character actor of stage, screen, and television, Joey Faye was among the last of the great burlesque comedians. Over his 65-year career he performed alongside stars ranging from Gypsy Rose Lee, Marlene Dietrich, Abbott and Costello, Tony Randall, and John Wayne. The son of a sideshow barber working with the Barnum and Bailey circus, Faye (born Joseph Palladino) started out as a Borscht Belt comic during the early '30s. While working in primarily Russian Jewish Catskills resorts, Faye starred alongside such comics as Phil Silvers, Rags Ragland, and the aforementioned duo. Faye appeared 36 times on Broadway (including a command performance of Guys and Dolls for President Lyndon B. Johnson) and for the U.S.O. His films include Close Up (1948; his film debut), How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying (1967), and Once Upon a Time in America (1984). On April 26, 1997, the 87-year-old Faye, by then a resident of the Actor's Home in Englewood, NJ, died of heart failure.

Trivia: America's most recognizable pop psychologist, columnist, author, lecturer, business consultant, and radio personality, Dr. Joyce Brothers has created a fun side-career making cameo appearances in feature films and television shows. Brothers first appeared on television in 1955 on The $64,000 Question, becoming only the second person to win the game show. She used her new celebrity to launch a career, first appearing in guest spots as a commentator before getting her own show, The Dr. Joyce Brothers Show. In addition to hosting her own show, she continued to appear as a guest on both talk shows and game shows, and often appeared on sitcoms as herself, maintaining a presence onscreen for more than five decades. Brothers died in 2013 at the age of 85.

Trivia: Bill Hickman is best known for his stunt work and expert driving in films of the '60s and '70s. Hickman specialized in chase scenes and prime examples of his work can be seen in such films as Bullitt, The Love Bug, The French Connection and What's up, Doc? He started out as a child appearing in the "Our Gang" series. Later in his career he also did some directing.

Trivia: American character actress Olive Dunbar usually played severe, disapproving gossips in films on television.

Trivia: A former actor and stand-up comedian, Danny Arnold was best known for writing and producing such high-quality television sitcoms as Bewitched and That Girl. Over his career, he won two Emmy's, one for My World and Welcome to It and one for the series for which he is most famous, Barney Miller. This latter show also won Arnold a Peabody Award. He was honored with the Paddy Chayefsky Award in 1985 by the Writer's Guild of America to celebrate his lifetime of achievement. A native of New York City, Arnold started out acting in summer stock and doing comedy in vaudeville, but began his career in Hollywood at Columbia Studios as a sound editor in 1944. He appeared in films as an actor opposite the hot young comic duo Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis. Arnold wrote the screenplay for a third Martin and Lewis vehicle, The Caddy (1953). In 1956, Arnold started writing for such television series as The Tennessee Ernie Ford Show and The Rosemary Clooney Show. He started contributing to television sitcoms in 1963. Though his subsequent work was popular with audiences, Arnold frequently butted heads with TV executives regarding issues of content and fair shooting schedules. While working on Barney Miller, Arnold became so sick of the constant network battles that he founded his own distribution company so he could syndicate shows as he wished, but with the cancellation of his subsequent series Joe Bash and Stat, his plans with Miller never came to fruition.