So, you’ve just made an all-time classic. What do you do next? Better it, of course.

Still glistening from the triumph of Some Like It Hot, Lemmon reteamed with Billy Wilder for a darker, leaner comic gem.

“Lemmon’s a ham,” teased Wilder. “A fine ham but you have to trim a little fat...” But there was little flab on the actor’s CC ‘Bud’ Baxter: a mensch in a metropolis, an office drone stagnating in a sterile cubicle.

Exploited by his bosses, too timid to make a stand, until love gives him wings. “I don’t have a preference between drama or comedy,” claimed Lemmon. “I just want to be remembered as good.” Mission accomplished.

Greatest moment: Breaking the Faustian pact: Bud returns his ‘executive washroom’ key.

Also See: Jerry/Daphne (Some Like It Hot), Harry Stoner (Save The Tiger),  Shelley Levene (Glengarry Glen Ross).