Walter Matthau Biography

Walter Matthau (October 1, 1920 " July 1, 2000) was an American actor best known for his role as Oscar Madison in The Odd Couple and his frequent collaborations with Odd Couple star Jack Lemmon, as well as his role as Coach Buttermaker in the 1976 comedy The Bad News Bears. He won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his performance in the 1966 Billy Wilder film The Fortune Cookie.

Early life

Matthau was born Walter John Matthow in New York City's Lower East Side on October 1, 1920, the son of Rose (née Berolsky; from Lithuania), who worked in a sweatshop, and Milton Matthow, an electrician and peddler (from Russia), both Jewish immigrants. As a young boy, Walter attended a Jewish non-profit sleepaway camp, Tranquillity Camp, where he first began acting in the shows the camp would stage on Saturday nights. He also attended Surprise Lake Camp. His high school was Seward Park High School. Matthau had a brief career as a Yiddish Theater District concessions stand cashier.

Career

During World War II, Matthau served in the U.S. Army Air Forces with the Eighth Air Force in England as a B-24 Liberator radioman-gunner, in the same 453rd Bombardment Group as James Stewart. He reached the rank of staff sergeant and became interested in acting. He took classes in acting at the Dramatic Workshop of The New School in New York with the influential German director Erwin Piscator. He often joked that his best early review came in a play where he posed as a derelict. One reviewer said, "The others just looked like actors in make-up, Walter Matthau really looks like a skid row bum!" Matthau was a respected stage actor for years in such fare as Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter? and A Shot in the Dark. He won the 1962 Tony Award for Best Featured Actor in a play.

In 1952, Matthau appeared in the pilot of Mr. Peepers with Wally Cox. For reasons unknown he used the name Leonard Elliot. His role was of the gym teacher Mr. Wall. In 1955, he made his motion picture debut as a whip-wielding bad guy in The Kentuckian opposite Burt Lancaster.

Matthau appeared as a villain in subsequent movies, such as 1958's King Creole (in which he is beaten up by Elvis Presley). That same year, he made a western called Ride a Crooked Trail with Audie Murphy and Onionhead starring Andy Griffith and Erin O'Brien, which was a flop. Matthau had a featured role opposite Griffith in the well received drama A Face in the Crowd, directed by Elia Kazan. Matthau also directed a low-budget 1960 movie called The Gangster Story. In 1962, he was a sympathetic sheriff in Lonely are the Brave, which starred Kirk Douglas. He appeared opposite Audrey Hepburn in Charade.

Appearances on television were common too, including two on ABC's police drama, Naked City, as well as the 1963 episode "A Tumble from a Tall White House" of The Eleventh Hour. He appeared eight times between 1962 and 1964 on The DuPont Show of the Week and as Franklin Gaer in 1964 in the episode "Man Is a Rock" on Dr. Kildare. Lastly, he starred in the syndicated crime drama Tallahassee 7000, as a Florida-based state police investigator, in the 1961"1962 season.

Comedies were rare in Matthau's work at that time. He was cast in a number of stark dramas, such as 1964's Fail-Safe, in which he portrayed Pentagon adviser Dr. Groeteschele, who urges all out nuclear attack on the Soviet Union in response to an accidental transmission of an attack signal to U.S. Air Force bombers, in the tense, and timely cold-war thriller.

In 1965, however, a plum comedy role came Matthau's way when Neil Simon cast him in the hit play The Odd Couple playing the slovenly sportswriter Oscar Madison opposite Art Carney as Felix Ungar. Matthau would later reprise the role in the film version opposite Jack Lemmon as Felix Ungar. Also in 1965, he played detective Ted Casselle in the Hitchcockian thriller Mirage, with Gregory Peck and Diane Baker, a film directed by Edward Dmytryk, based on a novel by Howard Fast.

He achieved great film success in a 1966 comedy as a shyster lawyer called William H. "Whiplash Willie" Gingrich starring opposite Lemmon in The Fortune Cookie, the first of numerous collaborations with Billy Wilder, and a role that would earn him an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor. Filming had to be placed on a five-month hiatus after Matthau suffered a heart attack.

Matthau was visibly banged up during the Oscar telecast, having been involved in a bicycle accident, nonetheless he scolded actors who had not bothered to come to the ceremony, especially the other major award winners that night: Elizabeth Taylor, Sandy Dennis and Paul Scofield.

Oscar nominations would come Matthau's way again for 1971's Kotch, directed by Lemmon, and 1975's The Sunshine Boys, another Simon vehicle transferred from the stage, this one about a pair of former vaudeville stars. For the latter role he won a Golden Globe award for Best Actor in a Musical or Comedy.

Broadway hits turned into films continued to cast Matthau in the leads with 1969's Hello, Dolly! and that same year's Cactus Flower, for which co-star Goldie Hawn received an Oscar. He played three different roles in the 1971 film version of Simon's Plaza Suite and was in the cast of its followup California Suite in 1978.

Matthau starred in three crime dramas in the mid-1970s, as a detective investigating a mass murder on a bus in The Laughing Policeman, as a bank robber on the run from the Mafia and the law in Charley Varrick and as a New York transit cop in the action-adventure The Taking of Pelham One Two Three. A change of pace about misfits on a Little League baseball team turned out to be a solid hit in 1976 when Matthau starred as coach Morris Buttermaker in the comedy The Bad News Bears

In 1982, Matthau portrayed Herbert Tucker in I Ought to Be in Pictures. There he worked with Ann-Margret and Dinah Manoff, the daughter of the actress whom Matthau starred with in Plaza Suite, Lee Grant.

Matthau played Albert Einstein in the film "IQ", also starring Tim Robbins and Meg Ryan. His partnership with Lemmon became one of the most successful pairings in Hollywood. They became lifelong friends after making The Fortune Cookie and would make a total of 10 movies together"?11 counting Kotch, in which Lemmon has a cameo as a sleeping bus passenger. Apart from their many comedies, the two appeared (though not on screen together) in the 1991 Oliver Stone drama about the presidential assassination, JFK.

Matthau played the role of Mr. Wilson in the 1993 movie Dennis the Menace.

They had a surprise box-office hit in the comedy Grumpy Old Men, reuniting for a sequel, Grumpier Old Men, that co-starred Sophia Loren and Ann-Margret. That led to more pairings late in their careers, notably Out to Sea and a Simon-scripted sequel to one of their great successes, The Odd Couple II. Hanging Up, a 2000 film directed by Diane Keaton, was Matthau's final appearance on screen.

Personal life

Marriages

Matthau was married twice; first to Grace Geraldine Johnson from 1948 to 1958, and then from 1959 until his death in 2000 to Carol Marcus. He had two children, Jenny and David, by his first wife, and a second son, Charlie Matthau, with his second wife. David is a radio news reporter, currently at WKXW "New Jersey 101.5" in Trenton, New Jersey. Jenny is president of the Natural Gourmet Institute in New York City. Matthau also helped raise his stepchildren, Aram Saroyan and Lucy Saroyan. His grandchildren include William Matthau, an engineer, and Emily Rose Roman, a student at SUNY Binghamton. Charlie Matthau directed his father in The Grass Harp (1995).

Death

Matthau died of a heart attack in Santa Monica on July 1, 2000. He was 79 years old. His remains are interred in the Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery in Los Angeles. In 2001, Atlantis: The Lost Empire was dedicated in his memory.

Less than a year later, remains of Jack Lemmon (who died of colon and bladder cancer) were buried at the same cemetery. After Matthau's death, Lemmon as well as other friends and relatives had appeared on Larry King Live in an hour of tribute and remembrance; many of those same people appeared on the show one year later, reminiscing about Lemmon.

Carol Marcus, also a native of New York, died of a brain aneurysm in 2003. Her remains are buried on top of Matthau's.

The remains of actor George C. Scott are buried to the left of those of Walter Matthau, in an unmarked grave and Farrah Fawcett's remains are buried to the right.

Work

Filmography

Year	Film	Role	Notes
1955	The Kentuckian	Stan Bodine
1955	The Indian Fighter	Wes Todd
1956	Bigger Than Life	Wally Gibbs
1957	A Face in the Crowd	Mel Miller
1957	Slaughter on Tenth Avenue	Al Dahlke
1958	King Creole	Maxie Fields
1958	Voice in the Mirror
1958	Ride a Crooked Trail	Judge Kyle
1958	Onionhead	Red Wildoe
1960	Gangster Story	Jack Martin	Also director
1960	Strangers When We Meet	Felix Anders
1962	Lonely Are the Brave	Sheriff Morey Johnson
1962	Who's Got the Action?	Tony Gagouts
1963	Island of Love
1963	Charade	Carson Dyle aka Hamilton Bartholomew
1964	Ensign Pulver	Doc
1964	Fail-Safe	Professor Groeteschele
1964	Goodbye Charlie	Sir Leopold Sartori
1965	Mirage	Caselle
1966	The Fortune Cookie	William H. "Whiplash Willie" Gingrich	Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor Kansas City Film Critics Circle Award for Best Supporting Actor Laurel Award for Top Male Supporting Performance Nominated " Golden Globe Award for Best Actor " Motion Picture Musical or Comedy
1967	A Guide for the Married Man	Paul Manning
1968	The Odd Couple	Oscar Madison	Nominated " Golden Globe Award for Best Actor " Motion Picture Musical or Comedy
1968	The Secret Life of an American Wife	The Movie Star	Nominated " BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role
1968	Candy	General
1969	Hello, Dolly!	Horace Vandergelder	Nominated " BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role
1969	Cactus Flower	Dr. Julian Winston
1971	A New Leaf	Henry Graham
1971	Plaza Suite	Sam Nash/Jesse Kiplinger/Roy Hubley
1971	Kotch	Joseph P. Kotcher	Kansas City Film Critics Circle Award for Best Actor Nominated " Academy Award for Best Actor
1972	Pete 'n' Tillie	Pete Seltzer	BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role
1973	The Laughing Policeman	Detective Sergeant Jake Martin
1973	Charley Varrick	Charley Varrick	BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role
1974	The Taking of Pelham One Two Three	Lieutenant Zachary "Z" Garber
1974	Earthquake	Drunk	Credited as Walter Matuschanskayasky
1974	The Front Page	Walter Burns	David di Donatello for Best Foreign Actor Nominated " Golden Globe Award for Best Actor " Motion Picture Musical or Comedy
1975	The Lion Roars Again	Himself	Short subject
1975	The Gentleman Tramp		Documentary
1975	The Sunshine Boys	Willy Clark	Golden Globe Award for Best Actor " Motion Picture Musical or Comedy Nominated " Academy Award for Best Actor Nominated " BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role
1976	The Bad News Bears	Morris Buttermaker
1978	Casey's Shadow	Lloyd Bourdelle
1978	House Calls	Dr. Charles "Charley" Nichols
1978	California Suite	Marvin Michaels
1980	La polizia ha le mani legate		Documentary
1980	Little Miss Marker	Sorrowful Jones
1980	Hopscotch	Miles Kendig
1981	First Monday in October	Associate Justice Daniel Snow
1981	Buddy Buddy	Trabucco
1982	Neil Simon's I Ought to Be in Pictures	Herbert Tucker
1983	The Survivors	Sonny Paluso
1985	Movers & Shakers	Joe Mulholland
1986	Pirates	Captain Thomas Bartholomew Red
1988	The Little Devil	Father Maurice
1988	The Couch Trip	Donald Becker
1991	JFK	Senator Russell B. Long
1992	Beyond 'JFK': The Question of Conspiracy		Documentary
1992	How the Grinch Stole Christmas!	Narrator
1993	Dennis the Menace	George Wilson
1993	Grumpy Old Men	Max Goldman
1994	I.Q.	Albert Einstein
1995	The Grass Harp	Judge Charlie Cool
1995	Grumpier Old Men	Max Goldman
1996	I'm Not Rappaport	Nat Moyer
1997	Out to Sea	Charlie Gordon
1998	The Odd Couple II	Oscar Madison
1998	Love After Death
1998	The Life and Times of Hank Greenberg	Himself	Documentary
2000	Hanging Up	Lou Mozell

Stage

Year	Stage	Role	Notes
1948	Anne of the Thousand Days
1950	The Liar
1951	Twilight Walk	Sam Dundee
1952	Fancy Meeting You Again	Sinclair Heybore
1952	One Bright Day	George Lawrence
1952	In Any Language	Charlie Hill
1952	The Grey-Eyed People	John Hart
1953	The Ladies of the Corridor	Paul Osgood
1953	The Burning Glass	Tony Lack
1955	Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter?	Michael Freeman
1955	Guys and Dolls	Nathan Detroit
1958	Once More, with Feeling!	Maxwell Archer	Nominated " Tony Award for Best Featured Actor in a Play
1961	Once There Was a Russian	Potemkin
1961	A Shot in the Dark	Benjamin Beaurevers
1963	My Mother, My Father and Me	Herman Halpern
1965	The Odd Couple	Oscar Madison	Tony Award for Best Actor in a Play

Television

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1954	The Motorola Television Hour		Episode: "Atomic Attack"
1954	Justice
1958	Alfred Hitchcock Presents		Episode: "The Crooked Road"
1959	Alfred Hitchcock Presents		Episode: "Dry Run"
1960	Juno and the Paycock
1961	Alfred Hitchcock Presents		Episode: "Cop for a Day"
1961	Route 66		Episode: "Eleven, the Hard Way"
1961	Tallahassee 7000		Cast member
1961"1962	Target: The Corruptors!		Two episodes
1972	Awake and Sing!	Moe Axelrod
1978	Actor
1978	Saturday Night Live	Host	Season 4, Episode 7 (2 December 1978)
1978	The Stingiest Man in Town	Ebenezer Scrooge	Voice role
1990	The Incident	Harmon J. Cobb
1991	Mrs. Lambert Remembers Love
1992	Against Her Will: An Incident in Baltimore	Harmon J. Cobb
1994	Incident in a Small Town	Harmon J. Cobb
1998	The Marriage Fool