Which actor played C.C. Baxter in 'The Apartment'?

Jack Lemmon played C.C. “Buddy Boy” Baxter in Billy Wilder’s The Apartment.

Released in 1960, The Apartment casts Lemmon as an insurance clerk who lends his Upper West Side apartment to senior executives for their extramarital affairs. He hopes the arrangement will help him advance at work, but his life becomes tangled with Fran Kubelik, an elevator operator played by Shirley MacLaine, and Jeff Sheldrake, the personnel chief played by Fred MacMurray.

Lemmon’s performance combines physical comedy with vulnerability, making Baxter both amusing and sympathetic. The role also marked his second major collaboration with Wilder after Some Like It Hot. Wilder and screenwriter I. A. L. Diamond wrote the film as a sophisticated comedy-drama about ambition, loneliness, workplace power, and moral compromise.

The Apartment was nominated for ten Academy Awards and won five, including Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Original Screenplay. Lemmon was nominated for Best Actor but did not win. Walter Matthau, Tony Curtis, and Fred MacMurray are associated with other notable comedies or Wilder films, but none played Baxter.