After almost five decades as an entertainer, Jack Lemmon '47 can still captivate audiences of all generations.

In a Hollywood culture rampant with cutthroat competition, it is hard to find an actor who is as well liked, respected and lauded as Lemmaon.

Lemmon's fame had its humble roots in New York.

"I went to New York and started like everyone else, beating the pavement, trying to see agents and seeing if I could get an agent or get something," Lemmon told a crowded Eliot House library in April 1995.

After "beating the pavement" for many years in New York, Lemmon proceeded to flourish as an actor, his work prolifically spanning radio, stage, film, and television.

But his background and career path make Lemmon, 72, an anomaly among his Hollywood peers.

The son of a company president, Lemmon was educated at Phillips Academy in Andover, Mass., before entering Harvard in 1943.

At Phillips Academy, Lemmon's interest in acting was nearly overshadowed by his desire to learn to play the piano by ear. By senior year, however, his propensity toward the arts prevailed and he acted in, acted in, wrote and directed his senior-year musical.

Lemmon's dramatic career did not begin to flourish fully until his days at Harvard, when he became a member, and was eventually elected president, of the Hasty Pudding The-atricals.

During his time at Harvard, Lemmon's devotion to the arts was not affected by what Lemmon later described as the University's lack of focus on the performing arts.

"When I was here, there was nothing in the arts," Lemmon said at the Eliot event. "If you had told any of us that did care about acting, writing, directing, film, painting or whatever at that time [that the Loeb Drama Center was] going to be here one day, we would have said, 'You're crazy, not here, not at this place, because they don't care. They are not interested.

"It was totally different than it is today as far as attitude and any concentration in the arts--creative or interpretive."

Nevertheless, Lemmon pursued theater with a passion--acting, writing and composing for Pudding shows despite his inability to read music, a handicap which he admittedly possesses to this day.

Lemmon's devotion to the theater, however, may have had an impact on other aspects of his college education.

"The only reason I know French is because I flunked the course so many times that it sunk in by osmosis." Lemmon said at the Kennedy Center Honors award ceremony.