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Walter Matthau - An all-rounder exits
Walter
Matthau, who became popular for his role as a loutish sports-writer Oscar
Madison in The Odd Couple, died at the age 79, on July 3.
Specialising in playing shambling, cantankerous cynics, Matthau, with
his slightly stooped posture, seedy, rumpled demeanour, and jowly face,
looked as if he would be more at home as a labourer or small-time insurance
salesman, than as a popular movie star, equally adept at drama and comedy.
Son of poor Jewish-Russian immigrants, he was born Walter Matuschanskavasky
on October 1, 1920, in New York City, and raised in a cold-water flat
on the Lower East Side. Matthau’s introduction to acting came during
his occasional employment at the Second Avenue Yiddish Theater, where
he sold soda-pops during intermission for 50 cents per show.
Following WWII service as a Air Force radioman-gunner, Matthau studied
acting at the New School for Social Research Dramatic Workshop. An experience
with summer stock led to his first Broadway appearances in the 1950s.
Matthau got his big screen break after appearing in the play Will Success
Spoil Rock Hunter? (1955). The actor initially took on unimportant supporting
roles, and was often cast as a thug, or a villain and lout in films like
The Kentuckian (1955) and King Creole (1958). Only occasionally did he
get to play more sympathetic roles in films such as Lonely Are the Brave
(1962).
In 1960, he tried his hand at directing with The Gangster. In addition
to his stage and feature film work, Matthau appeared in a number of television
shows. Just when it seemed that he was to be permanently relegated to
playing supporting and dark character roles on stage and screen, Matthau
won the part of the lovably grumpy, slovenly sports-writer Oscar Madison
in the first Broadway production of Neil Simon’s The Odd Couple (1965).
Simon wrote the role especially for Matthau, and the show made both the
playwright and the actor major stars.
In films, Matthau played his first comic role (for which he won a Best
Supporting Actor nomination) in Billy Wilder’s The Fortune Cookie
(1966). The film was also the first of many times that Matthau would be
paired with Jack Lemmon. There was an unmistakable chemistry between the
well-mannered, erudite Lemmon, and the sharp-tongued, earthy Matthau,
that exploded when they appeared in the hit film version of The Odd Couple
(1967).
Good friends with Lemmon both on-screen and off, Matthau starred in his
directorial debut, Kotch (1971). The two subsequently appeared in The
Front Page (1974) and Buddy Buddy, both of which did little for Matthau
and Lemmon’s careers. As a duo, the two again found success when
they played two coots who were too busy feuding, to realise that they
were best friends in Grumpy Old Men (1993). They reprised their roles
in a 1995 sequel, and also appeared together in The Grass Harp (1995),
Out To Sea (1997), and 1998’s The Odd Couple II.
On his own, Matthau continued developing his comically cynical persona
in such worthy ventures as Plaza Suite (1971), California Suite (1978)
and especially The Sunshine Boys (1975), in which he was paired with George
Burns. The following year, he was ridiculously endearing as a grizzled,
broken-down, beer-swilling, little league coach with a marshmallow heart
in The Bad News Bears (1976). In the 1990s, he was further able to express
his persona in comedies such as 1993’s Dennis The Menace, in which
he played the cantankerous Mr. Wilson, and the romantic comedy I.Q. (1994),
which cast him as Albert Einstein.
Though many of his roles have been comic, Matthau occasionally returned
to his dramatic roots with ventures such as the crime-thriller Charley
Varrick (1973) and The Taking Of Pelham One Two Three (1974). In addition
to his work in feature films, Matthau also occasionally performed in made-for-television
movies, one of which, Mrs. Lambert Remembers Love (1991), was directed
by his son Charles Matthau.
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