Walter John Matthau (né Matthow; /ˈmæθaʊ/ MATH-ow;[1] October 1, 1920 – July 1, 2000) was an American screen and stage actor, known for his "hangdog face" and for playing world-weary characters.

[2] He starred in 10 films alongside his real-life friend Jack Lemmon, including The Odd Couple (1968) and Grumpy Old Men (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 Leading Actor in a Play in 1965, his second after A Shot in the Dark in 1962.

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!

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).

[citation needed] 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 Kyiv.

[6][7] 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 Bellvue 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.”[8] 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).

Around the same time, he 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 the critical and box-office hit A Face in the Crowd (1957), directed by Elia Kazan.

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 achieved great success in the comedy film The Fortune Cookie (1966) as 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.

[14] 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.

He starred in House Calls (1978), sharing the screen with Glenda Jackson and his Odd Couple stage partner, Carney.

Matthau starred in three crime dramas in the mid-1970s: as a detective investigating a mass murder on a bus in The Laughing Policeman (1973), as a bank robber on the run from the Mafia and the law in Charley Varrick (also 1973) and as a New York transit official in the action-thriller The Taking of Pelham One Two Three (1974).

A change of pace about misfits and delinquents on a Little League baseball team turned out to be a solid hit when Matthau starred as coach Morris Buttermaker in the comedy The Bad News Bears (1976).

The original script, a dark work based on the novel of the same name, was rewritten and transformed into a comedy in order to play to Matthau's specific talents.

[19] Matthau wrote the scene in which Kendig and Isobel—apparently strangers—meet in a Salzburg restaurant and strike up a conversation about wine that ends in a passionate kiss.

[18] The next year, he was nominated again for the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor in a Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy for his portrayal of the fictional Associate Justice Daniel Snow in First Monday in October (1981).

[citation needed] The New York Times critic Janet Maslin disliked the film but praised Matthau's performance.

Although a box-office dud that barely grossed its budget, the film found a new audience via repeated broadcasts on cable TV in the following years.

This led to further pairings late in their careers, including appearances in The Grass Harp (1995), Out to Sea (1997) and a Simon-scripted sequel to their much earlier success, The Odd Couple II (1998).

[27] On the late evening of June 30, 2000, Matthau had a heart attack at his home and was taken by ambulance to the St. John's Health Center in Santa Monica, where he died a few hours later at 1:42 a.m. on July 1, 2000, at age 79.