Background and career
Walter John Matthau (né Matthow, MATH-ow; October 1, 1920 – July 1, 2000) was an American actor, known for his "hangdog face" and for playing world-weary characters. He starred in 10 films alongside his real-life friend Jack Lemmon, including The Odd Couple (1968) and Grumpy Old Men (1993). The New York Times called this "one of Hollywood's most successful pairings". Among other accolades, Matthau won an Academy Award, one BAFTA Award, and two Tony Awards. On Broadway, Matthau originated the role of Oscar Madison in The Odd Couple by playwright Neil Simon, for which he received a Tony Award for Best Leading Actor in a Play in 1965, his second after A Shot in the Dark in 1962. Matthau won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his performance in the Billy Wilder film The Fortune Cookie (1966), with further Best Actor nominations for Kotch (1971) and The Sunshine Boys (1975). He gained further recognition for his portrayal of the coach of a hapless little league team in the baseball comedy The Bad News Bears (1976). Matthau is also known for his performances in Elia Kazan's A Face in the Crowd (1957), the Elvis Presley vehicle King Creole (1958), Stanley Donen's romance Charade (1963), Fail Safe (1964), Gene Kelly's musical Hello, Dolly! (1969), Elaine May's screwball comedy A New Leaf (1971) and Herbert Ross's ensemble comedy California Suite (1978). He also starred in Plaza Suite (1971), Charley Varrick (1973), The Taking of Pelham One Two Three (1974), The Sunshine Boys (1975), House Calls (1978), Hopscotch (1980) and Dennis the Menace (1993). In 1982, Matthau received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
Matthau was born Walter John Matthow on October 1, 1920, in New York City's Lower East Side. He had two brothers, one older and one younger. Matthau's parents were Jewish; his mother, Rose (née Berolsky or Beransky), was a Lithuanian immigrant who worked in a garment factory, and his father, Milton Matuschanskayasky (later Matthow), was a Ukrainian peddler and electrician from Kiev (now Kyiv, Ukraine). They married in New York in 1917. A New York Times interview described his early years: "When Matthau was 3 years old, and his older brother, Henry, was 5, his father ... lit out for parts unknown, leaving him and his brother to be raised by their mother. ... In 1935 ... Matthau learned of his father's death in Bellevue Hospital. ... During his childhood, Matthau ... lived in a succession of cold-water tenement apartments in the Ukrainian area of the Lower East Side ... being forced to vacate each apartment after only a few months because they'd got so hopelessly far behind in the rent that their landlord would have them evicted. ... Matthau ... hasn't the slightest nostalgia these days for his poverty-ridden childhood, 'It was a nightmare—a dreadful, horrible, stinking nightmare,' he grimly remembers." As part of a lifelong love of practical jokes, Matthau created the rumors that his middle name was Foghorn and his last name was originally Matuschanskayasky (under which Matthau is credited for a cameo role in the film Earthquake). As a young boy, Matthau attended a Jewish non-profit sleepaway camp, Tranquillity Camp, where he began acting in the shows that the camp staged on Saturday nights. Matthau also attended Surprise Lake Camp. His high school was Seward Park High School. Matthau acted in several Yiddish theater productions and worked for a short time as a concession stand cashier in the Yiddish Theatre District.
During World War II, Matthau saw active service as a radioman-gunner in the U.S. Army Air Forces from 1942 to 1945, and was stationed in England, Germany, and France. He returned home to America for demobilization at the war's end, intent on pursuing a career as an actor.
Matthau parlayed a childhood job selling soda in Yiddish theaters into appearing in their productions. Matthau was trained in acting at the Dramatic Workshop of The New School with German director Erwin Piscator. Matthau 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, for his performance in the latter winning the 1962 Tony Award for Best Featured Actor in a Play.
Matthau played the gym teacher, Coach Burr, in the pilot episode of Mister Peepers (1952), credited as David Tyrell. He made his motion picture debut as a whip-wielding bad guy in The Kentuckian (1955) opposite Burt Lancaster. Matthau played a villain in King Creole (1958), where he gets beaten up by Elvis Presley. Around the same time, Matthau made Ride a Crooked Trail with Audie Murphy, and Onionhead (both 1958) starring Andy Griffith; the latter a box-office flop. Matthau and Griffith appeared previously in the critical and box-office hit A Face in the Crowd (1957), directed by Elia Kazan. Matthau appeared with James Mason in Bigger Than Life (1956), directed by Nicholas Ray. Matthau directed a low-budget film called The Gangster Story (1960) and played a sympathetic sheriff in Lonely Are the Brave (1962), which starred Kirk Douglas. Matthau appeared in the Cary Grant-Audrey Hepburn crime thriller Charade (1963). On television, Matthau appeared twice on Naked City, as well as in four installments of Alfred Hitchcock Presents. He appeared eight times between 1962 and 1964 on The DuPont Show of the Week and as Franklin Gaer in an episode of Dr. Kildare ("Man Is a Rock", 1964).
Comedies were rare in Matthau's work at that time. He was cast in a number of stark dramas, such as Fail Safe (1964), where he portrayed Pentagon adviser Dr. Groeteschele, who urges an all-out nuclear attack on the Soviet Union in response to an accidental transmission of an attack signal to U.S. Air Force bombers. Neil Simon cast Matthau in the play The Odd Couple in 1965, where he played slovenly sportswriter Oscar Madison, opposite Art Carney as Felix Ungar. Matthau reprised the role in the film version, with Jack Lemmon as Felix Unger. He played detective Ted Casselle in the Hitchcockian thriller Mirage (1965), directed by Edward Dmytryk.
