Walter Matthau, crotchety comic actor, is dead

Walter Matthau, crotchety comic actor, is dead
ASSOCIATED PRESS

SANTA MONICA, JULY 2: Walter Matthau, the foghorn-voiced movie villain who became a master of crotchety comedy with his Oscar-winning The Fortune Cookie and followed with The Odd Couple, Grumpy Old Men and many other hits, died on Saturday of a heart attack. He was 79.

Matthau was pronounced dead shortly after being brought into St John's Health Center in Santa Monica, said hospital spokeswoman Lindi Funston.

Often cast as a would-be con man foiled by life's travails, Matthau bellowed complaints against his tormentors and moved his lanky frame in surprising ways.

Said his frequent costar, Jack Lemmon: "Walter walks like a child's windup toy."

Matthau's performance as Lemmon's brother-in-law in The Fortune Cookie won him the Academy Award as Best Supporting Actor of 1966. He was twice nominated for Best Actor: as the cantankerous oldster in Kotch, 1971 (directed by Lemmon); and as the feuding vaudeville partner of George Burns in The Sunshine Boys, 1975.

But it was The Odd Couple that won Matthau stardom. In 1965, he appeared in New York as the slobby sportswriter Oscar Madison in Neil Simon's play. Art Carney was the fastidious photographer Felix Unger, who shared an apartment with Madison after both had been divorced.

Matthau repeated the role in the 1968 film, with Lemmon as Felix. They reprised their roles 30 years later in the 1998 film Odd Couple II.