Matthau Ascends; Lemmon Descends
When Jack Lemmon was brought onto The Odd Couple in 1967 for 1968, he was one of the biggest stars of the 60s...the "go to guy" for verbal, neurotic comedy.
The one-two punch of 1959's Some Like It Hot and 1960's The Apartment(both Billy Wilder movies and both among his best) launched Lemmon for the 60's, and outside of one grim alcoholism drama('The Days and Wine and Roses"), Jack Lemmon was THE comedy lead of the 60's. Audiences seemed to relate to his handsome yet insecure presence on screen, he reminded men of the troubles of trying to BE men in the face of a competitive workplace and with women watching; women seemed to find him cute and cuddly.
Lemmon also memorably played somewhat bad guys a couple of times in the sixties: the lecherous landlord surrounded by women in Under the Yum Yum Tree(a big hit for him, he noted with some embarrassment) and the macho, mustachioed, black-suited live action cartoon bad guy Professor Fate in Blake Edwards The Great Race.
As Lemmon loomed over the 60's as a star, a much different guy named Walter Matthau was dutifully but carefully slogging his way to the top of the "character actor" ranks supporting more handsome men like Cary Grant, Gregory Peck and Kirk Douglas -- in very good movies where audiences always found Matthau's presence reassuringly funny and deadpan.
In 1966, history was made: Jack Lemmon pushed for Matthau to be his co-star in The Fortune Cookie. Matthau famously noted that he told Lemmon "what's the matter with you? You've given me the better part,"and Lemmon replied "Isn't it about time?"
Lemmon pushed for Matthau to play the crooked lawyer "Whiplash Willie"in The Fortune Cookie over studio picks Frank Sinatra or Jackie Gleason, much bigger names. Perhaps Lemmon didn't want to share the screen with a "great," but in any event, he turned Walter Matthau into a star and a leading man. Matthau won the Best Supporting Actor Oscar for "The Fortune Cookie," but noted "it was really a lead." And now Matthau became a leading man for changing times.
Folks may forget that Matthau toiled in silly studio fodder for a couple of years(A Guide For the Married Man, The Secret Life of an American Wife) before The Odd Couple was set to be a movie. Matthau had made his name already on Broadway in The Odd Couple, and he'd proved himself with Lemmon in The Fortune Cookie, so he was pretty much a lock for the movie. Still: Lemmon was the bigger star still, getting one million for The Odd Couple while Matthau only got $350,000.
The Odd Couple was a gargantuan hit (surprisingly so given the youth-oriented countercultural times) and it did two things: it set up Walter Matthau to be one of the biggest stars of the 70's...and secured Jack Lemmon as somewhat of a relic of the 60's. Matthau's career zoomed upwards; Lemmon's career slowly drifted downwards.
As a box office attraction, that is. In the 70's, Lemmon did more and more dramatic work and was called "the American Olivier," but at the theater, folks wanted to see Matthau -- deadpan, a "guy's guy"(not a man's man)...tall, funny, and just handsome enough to play romantic leads believably and to help not-so-handsome guys in the audience feel "if he can do it, I can do it."
Even though Jack Lemmon got paid a lot more than Walter Matthau to be in The Odd Couple, I always have felt that Lemmon rather killed his career with that one movie. Matthau's Oscar may be a slob...but we are always on HIS side...bemused, irritated, bothered...by Lemmon's super-neurotic whimpering fussbudget of a wimp. Jack Lemmon was just too good as Felix Unger...men didn't want to be him, women didn't want to know him.
Jack Lemmon worked in the 70's...and got an Oscar for DRAMATIC work(in Save The Tiger, where he played an even bigger loser than Felix Unger) but he just wasn't a popular star anymore. For his part, Walter Matthau took alphabetical second billing to his friend and benefactor even as his star was bigger. The Lemmon-Matthau films of 1974(The Front Page) and 1981 (Buddy Buddy) -- both for Billy Wilder -- were bad and out of touch. Wilder's career ended.
But something changed ...two more times.
In the 80's, Matthau's looks had finally deteriorated to where he wasn't really even semi-handsome anymore, and his star fell. Lemmon kept plugging in dramatic work, and his star rose.
And in the 90's, both men found success as the "Grumpy Old Men." This one "old guy hit" allowed Lemmon and Matthau to team with relative success("Grumpier Old Men," "Out to Sea" and the terrible "Odd Couple II," right on through the 90s , with the men dying a year apart in 2000(Matthau) and 2001(Lemmon.)
That Lemmon and Matthau lasted so long can probably be traced to exactly how much of a hit "The Odd Couple" was. And it all evened out: Lemmon was the big star in the 60s', Matthau was the big star in the 70s, and the two men rode out loss of box office and old age to a successful conclusion.