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Walter Matthau (; born Walter John Matthow; October 1, 1920 – July 1, 2000) was an American actor, comedian and film director. He won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his performance in the Billy Wilder film The Fortune Cookie (1966). He is best known for his film roles in A Face in the Crowd (1957), King Creole (1958), and as a coach of a hapless little league team in the baseball comedy The Bad News Bears (1976). He also starred in 10 films alongside Jack Lemmon, including The Fortune Cookie (1966), The Odd Couple (1968) and its sequel The Odd Couple II (1998), The Front Page (1974), Buddy Buddy (1981) JFK (1991), Grumpy Old Men (1993) and its sequel Grumpier Old Men (1995), The Grass Harp (1995), and Out to Sea (1997). The The New York Times called this "one of Hollywood's most successful pairings." Matthau is also known for his performances in 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, Kotch (both 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). 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 Actor in a Play in 1965, his second after A Shot in the Dark in 1962. Matthau also received two British Academy Film Awards and a Golden Globe Award. In 1963, he received a Primetime Emmy Award nomination for his performance in The DuPont Show of the Week. In 1982, he received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Early life 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. His parents were Jewish; his mother, Rose (née Berolsky or Beransky), was a Lithuanian immigrant who worked in a garment sweatshop, and his father, Milton Matuschansky, was a Ukrainian peddler and electrician, from Kiev. They married in New York in 1917. 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 he 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 first began acting in the shows that the camp staged on Saturday nights. He also attended Surprise Lake Camp. His high school was Seward Park High School. He worked for a short time as a concession stand cashier in the Yiddish Theatre District. World War II During World War II, Matthau saw active service as a radioman-gunner on a Consolidated B-24 Liberator bomber in the U.S. Army Air Forces with the Eighth Air Force in England. He was with the same 453rd Bombardment Group as James Stewart. While based in England at RAF Old Buckenham, Norfolk he flew missions to continental Europe during the Battle of the Bulge. He ended the war with the rank of Staff Sergeant, and returned home to America for demobilization at the war's end intent on pursuing a career as an actor. Acting career Early work Matthau was trained in acting at the Dramatic Workshop of The New School with 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, for his performance in the latter winning the 1962 Tony Award for Best Featured Actor in a Play. Matthau appeared in the pilot of Mister Peepers (1952) with Wally Cox. For reasons unknown he used the name Leonard Elliot. His role was of the gym teacher Mr. Wall. He made his motion picture debut as a whip-wielding bad guy in The Kentuckian (1955) opposite Burt Lancaster. He played a villain in King Creole (1958), in which he gets beaten up by Elvis Presley. Around the same time, he made Ride a Crooked Trail with Audie Murphy, and Onionhead (both 1958) starring Andy Griffith; the latter was a flop. Matthau and Griffith later appeared 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 movie called The Gangster Story (1960) and played a sympathetic sheriff in Lonely Are the Brave (1962), which starred Kirk Douglas. He appeared in the Cary Grant-Audrey Hepburn crime thriller Charade (1963). On television, he 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). 1960s Comedies were rare in Matthau's work at that time. He was cast in a number of stark dramas, such as Fail Safe (1964), in which 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 him in the play The Odd Couple in 1965, with Matthau playing slovenly sportswriter Oscar Madison, opposite Art Carney as Felix Ungar. Matthau later 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. He achieved great success in the comedy film, The Fortune Cookie (1966), as a shyster lawyer, William H. "Whiplash Willie" Gingrich, starring yet again opposite Lemmon; the first of many 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 had a serious heart attack. He gave up his three pack a day smoking habit as a result. Matthau appeared during the Oscar telecast shortly after having been injured in a bicycle accident; nonetheless, he scolded actors who had not attended the ceremony, especially the other major award winners that night: Paul Scofield, Elizabeth Taylor and Sandy Dennis. Broadway-hits-turned-into-films continued to cast Matthau in lead roles, such as Hello, Dolly! and Cactus Flower (both 1969); for the latter film, Goldie Hawn received an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress. 1970s It was during this time Matthau began to appear in more comedy films including the black comedy A New Leaf (1971) and the comedy-drama Pete 'n' Tillie (1972). Oscar nominations would come his way again for Kotch (1971), directed by Lemmon; and The Sunshine Boys (1975). The latter was another adaptation of a Neil Simon stage play—this time about a pair of forme.... Discover the Milton Gussow popular books. Find the top 100 most popular Milton Gussow books.