Jack Of All Trades

THE FORTUNE COOKIE (1966) Mr. Lemmon, meet Mr. Matthau. When the actors encountered each other for the first time on the set of the Billy Wilder comedy, Matthau immediately broke Lemmon up with a joke about a Japanese rabbi--and thereby established the happy, rambling vibe that carried them through eight films together. Cookie was Matthau's turn to shine (he won a Best Supporting Actor Oscar), but Lemmon does marvelously fussy work, even in neck brace and wheelchair.

THE ODD COUPLE (1968) As it's the one great Neil Simon comedy and the epitome of Matthau's onscreen persona, so Couple presents the apotheosis of Lemmon as civilized man caving in under the stresses of divorce and dust mites. It remains as relevant as roommates; the scene where Oscar casually refers to a spoon and Felix shrieks in psychotic triumph, "A-ha! That is a ladle!" still causes empathetic wincing in two-bedroom shares across the land.

SAVE THE TIGER (1973) Or: Bud Baxter's Midlife Crisis. Steve Shagan's script about one day in the life of a garment manufacturer--the usual arson-for-insurance arrangements, call girls, and nervous breakdowns--became a labor of love for Lemmon, who worked for the minimum $165 per week. The result? A heavy-handed film featuring an Oscar-winning star performance that's both sentimental and startlingly fearless.

THE CHINA SYNDROME (1979) After a run of misfires, Lemmon bounced back in this too-topical thriller about the dangers of nuclear power (it opened the week of the Three Mile Island crisis). Here, as in 1982's Missing, the actor finds his midlife metier: fretfully conservative men radicalized and ennobled almost against their will. His role as the doomed power plant supervisor was secondary to stars Jane Fonda and Michael Douglas--but was anyone surprised when he upstaged them both?

GLENGARRY GLEN ROSS (1992) Or: Bud Baxter at the End of the Road. There were critics who resisted Lemmon, suggesting that his nervous-Nellie sensitivity was little more than finely shaved ham. They missed the point: He played men who were like that--and who were terrified that the mask was slipping. The adaptation of David Mamet's play about Darwinian survival in the real estate business gives Lemmon his last great part in this vein--a feeble old shark shivering as the young pups flash by him, teeth glinting.

TUESDAYS WITH MORRIE (1999) Based on Mitch Albom's best-seller, this Oprah Winfrey-produced TV special won Lemmon an Emmy for playing Morrie Schwartz, Albom's terminally ill professor, friend, and dispenser of unsentimental life lessons. Wheelchair-bound, unable to use his hands, the actor relies on eyes and voice for a performance of unexpected stillness. Lemmon played so many uncertain men in his career--how lovely that his last major role was a dying man serenely embracing life.