The Career of Walter Matthau - My Favorite Actor

Walter Matthau - When asked about arguments with his wife.

"I love working with Lemmon. The problem on this picture is that beside it being winter in Minnesota, I have to room with him and he keeps walking around with his woo-hoo hanging out."

Walter Matthau - On re-teaming with Jack Lemmon for the first time in over a decade for Grumpy Old Men.

The first time I saw Walter Matthau on the big screen was a cold, winter day in early 1975 when my father took me to see The Front Page in which he starred with frequent collaborator Jack Lemmon. The rapid fire pace of the movie was, perhaps, a little over the head of a nine-year old but there was something about that pug dog look on his face with his classically bad but famous slouch. The next year I saw Matthau in The Bad News Bears and a forever fan was born. I would eagerly await any Matthau picture from then on while trying to catch all of his earlier films when I could.

Walter Matthau became my favorite actor and I still hold him to that standing. Known for his slouch and booming voice, Matthau commanded the screen and is one of the few who were able to successfully play comedic roles as well as serious ones, sometimes even playing the villain.

Matthau was born Walter Matthow on October 1, 1920. When he began acting after WWII he changed the spelling of his last name believing there was a more elegant look to it. He spent the next decade working heavily on Broadway and in live television but success eluded him for many years. A self-admitted chronic gambler, Matthau had difficulty keeping money in his pocket and often took roles just to cover debts he had incurred with the bookies. Matthau would recount near the end of his life that he had estimated losing over $5,000,000 gambling.

Matthau's first real break in motion pictures came in 1957 when he took on the role of Elvis Presley's rival in King Creole. Presley would end up beating up Matthau at the end of the film. Years later Matthau had nothing but praise for the famous singer. Matthau continued taking smaller roles in lesser known films while still working on Broadway. In 1959 Matthau received his first Tony award nomination for Best Supporting Dramatic Actor for the play Once More, With Feeling.

Matthau received good reviews for his role as the sheriff in 1962's Lonely Are The Brave and would win his first Tony that same year for A Shot In The Dark. Matthau would then appear in supporting roles in such films as Charade, Mirage, Ensign Pulver, Fail-Safe and Goodbye Charlie.

Matthau found true success in 1965 when he originated the role of slob Oscar Madison on Broadway in Neil Simon's The Odd Couple. Matthau would go on to win his second (and final) Tony Award for the role. Art Carney, who originated the role of neat-freak Felix Unger, would have to leave the show before his contract was up because he had a contentious relationship with Matthau which led to a nervous breakdown.

In 1966 Matthau found film fame. In Billy Wilder's The Fortune Cookie, Matthau played ambulance chasing lawyer Willie Gingrich, who concocts a plan to defraud a company after his brother-in-law is injured at a football game. Matthau would team with Jack Lemmon for the first of 11 films together. It was during filming that Matthau's excessive smoking habit and the strain of gambling got to him and he suffered a massive heart attack at the age of 45. Wilder decided to shoot around Matthau until he was healthy and he would go on to win the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. Just two days earlier Matthau suffered facial injuries when he had a bicycle accident on the Pacific Coast Highway. Despite being cut and bruised on his face, Matthau was there to accept the award and famously chided Elizabeth Taylor, Paul Scofield and Sandy Dennis, each of whom would win the other acting awards, for not attending the ceremony.

In 1967 Matthau starred in the all-star comedy A Guide for the Married Man as a businessman eager to have his first affair despite being married to the gorgeous and seemingly perfect Inger Stevens. Best friend Robert Morse trains Matthau on the do's and don'ts with famous comics appearing in flashbacks illustrating these stories. The next year Matthau found fame and fortune when he played Oscar Madison in the movie version of The Odd Couple, his second teaming with Lemmon. His next few films, Candy and The Secret Life of an American Wife, were disappointments. In 1969 he was famously mis-cast in the all-star musical dud Hello Dolly co-starring Barbra Streisand. Streisand's diva-like behavior led to near legendary tales of arguments between the two with Matthau nearly quitting the picture. Years later he would admit that he would love to work with Streisand again, but only if it was in Macbeth. Matthau would finish out the decade co-starring with Ingrid Bergman and Goldie Hawn (in her Academy Award winning performance) in Cactus Flower.

Matthau's next 3 films all got released in 1971 and all would be box office disappointments despite strong critical reaction to all of them. A New Leaf, directed by Elaine May, is one of the funniest movies ever made that so few people have seen. Matthau plays a spoiled millionaire who suddenly discovers he is broke. His solution? He will find a rich woman to marry and then kill her to inherit her fortune. Unfortunately he gets stuck with May, a klutzy expert on plants and plant life. Next up was Plaza Suite, based on Neil Simon's hit play in which Matthau played the lead in three different stories. Christmas of 1971 brought Kotch, a touching story of an old man trying to find his place in a family that doesn't seem to want him. Jack Lemmon directed the film and Matthau would receive his second Academy Award nomination, this time for Best Actor.

Matthau would continue on a cinematic role for the next several years. In 1972 he paired with Carol Burnett for the romantic comedy/drama Pete N Tillie which got mixed reviews but was a box office hit. In 1973 Matthau began playing more serious roles to help escape his identity as a comedic actor. First up he played the title role in Charley Varrick, a terrific action film in which Matthau plays a bank robber who, along with his dim-witted sidekick, has inadvertently stolen mob money and is being hunted. Dirty Harry director Don Siegel directed. He followed that with The Laughing Policeman, a thriller about the murder investigation of a group of people gunned down on a public bus. In 1974 Matthau enjoyed one of his most popular roles as Transit inspector Zachary Garber, who tries to save the lives of hostages on a subway train while trying to outsmart the kidnappers in The Taking of Pelham One-Two-Three.

Later in 1974, a cameo appearance in a disaster film led to a wild story that the press spent years trying to prove or dis-prove. As a favor to producer Jennings Lang, Matthau took the part of a drunk in a bar for the disaster hit Earthquake for no salary on the condition that he not be credited. Lang agreed since the part was a half day shoot with no dialogue. During rehearsals Matthau began improvising lines pretending to drink to famous people for the amusement of the crew. What he didn't know was that director Mark Robson took the rehearsal footage and spread it out throughout the movie feeling it was needed comic relief. Matthau refused to be credited and told Lang to use his real last name, Matuschanskayasky. For years after Matthau insisted it was his real last name and that was believed until shortly after his death when his son Charlie appeared on Larry King and admitted the name had been made up. Matthau ended 1974 with his third on screen pairing with Lemmon in The Front Page.

In 1975 Matthau would receive his third and final Academy Award nomination (for Best Actor) in The Sunshine Boys as a vaudevillian talked into re-teaming with his famous partner whom he now despises. 1976 brought Matthau the role many people remember him best for, as the alcoholic swimming pool cleaner Morris Buttermaker, who teaches a group of misfit kids to play baseball in the smash hit The Bad News Bears. In 1978 Matthau had 3 more films in theaters. House Calls teamed him with Glenda Jackson, Richard Benjamin and, interestingly, his Odd Couple foe Art Carney in a wonderful romantic comedy. Casey's Shadow was a heartwarming comedy/drama with Matthau as a rancher whose son takes a liking to a horse that looks weak but soon is being trained as a prized racehorse. California Suite re-teamed Matthau with Elaine May in one of four segments. Matthau plays a man who gets drunk with his brother and comes back to his room to find a hooker, a birthday present from his brother. Unfortunately she drinks a bottle of liquor and is passed out cold only minutes before his wife (May) is due to arrive.

The 1980's would be a letdown for Matthau as far as film quality goes. He continued to work steadily but the films were less enjoyable thus less successful. In 1980 Matthau appeared in two films, the first being Little Miss Marker based on the Damon Runyan fable of a bookie who takes in a little girl when her father abandons her after losing a bet. Hopscotch is an enjoyable action/comedy with Matthau re-teaming with his House Calls romantic lead Glenda Jackson in the story of an ex-CIA agent being hunted by his own people after revealing his is writing a tell-all book. In 1981 Matthau and Lemmon teamed for the 4^th time on screen in Billy Wilder's swan song, Buddy, Buddy. The film was a critical and box office disaster that would lead Matthau into a string of box office duds.

In 1982 Matthau played a movie director whose daughter comes to Hollywood to find him in I Ought To Be In Pictures. The next year he teamed with then superstar comedian Robin Williams for The Survivors, a comedic mess where two comedic actors with distinctly different tones come together and don't mesh. Movers And Shakers was next and was so bad it was released very sparingly around the country in 1985. In 1986 Matthau took the lead role and was horribly mis-cast in Roman Polanski's Pirates, a notorious flop that also never received wide theatrical release. Matthau then took a supporting role in the 1988 Dan Aykroyd flop The Couch Trip and appeared in one scene in Oliver Stone's masterful JFK (in which Jack Lemmon also appears though the two have no scenes together). And then, at the age of 73, Walter Matthau became a bankable box office star once again.

It all started in 1993 when Matthau was cast as angry next door neighbor Mr. George Wilson in the hit Dennis The Menace. Later that year he teamed for the 6^th time with Jack Lemmon for Grumpy Old Men, an unexpected box office sleeper hit. In 1994 Matthau delivered an award worthy performances as Einstein in "IQ" with Tim Robbins and Meg Ryan. In 1995 Matthau teamed for the 7^th time with Jack Lemmon in the indie-drama The Grass Harp, directed by his son Charlie. Later that year came the inevitable sequel, Grumpier Old Men which happened to be even more delightful then the original with a box office total almost equal that of its predecessor. In 1997 Matthau and Lemmon were now the hottest comedy team in movies and teamed a 9^th time for Out To Sea, a mild comedy set on a cruise ship. In 1998 Matthau and Lemmon teamed for a 10^th and final time on screen together in The Odd Couple II, a poorly conceived and poorly executed sequel to their 1968 classic. The film was a disappointment at the box office. Matthau's final film was Hanging Up, a 2000 comedy in which he played the dying father of Meg Ryan, Diane Keaton and Lisa Kudrow. Sadly his health problems were all to apparent on screen.

At the time of his illness, Matthau and Lemmon were set to star in Grumpiest Old Men but the film never came to be as Walter Matthau died of heart failure at the age of 79 on July 1, 2000.

Curiously, Jack Lemmon would die almost one year to the day later on June 27, 2001. The odd couple was reunited once again.