* Titles in bold will be featured in a Turner Classic Movies salute. Walter Matthau once said in an interview, "I don't look like an actor. I could be anyone from a toilet attendant to a business executive. Most people look at me on the street and say, "Who the hell is that guy? Was I in the Army with him?" Although this comment might have been true at one time in his career, it was certainly not true at the time of his death on July 1, 2000 from a heart attack. Even the most casual moviegoer would be able to recognize Matthau from one of his numerous films over the past five decades, whether it was a comedy like The Odd Couple, a drama (Lonely are the Brave), or a thriller (The Taking of Pelham One Two Three). The son of poor Jewish-Russian immigrants, Matthau was born October 1, 1920 in New York City and grew up on the Lower East Side where he was known as Walter Matuschanskavasky. At the age of eleven years old, he got a job selling refreshments in a Yiddish theatre during intermissions, a stint which eventually led to bit parts in theatre productions. But it wasn't until after he returned from World War II service where he had been a radioman-gunner on Army bombers that he actively pursued an acting career. Acting classes at the New School's Dramatic Workshop and steady work in summer stock productions eventually led to minor roles on the Broadway stage and television. In 1955 Matthau made an impressively villainous debut in The Kentuckian which is memorable for the scene in which he viciously attacks an unarmed Burt Lancaster with a bullwhip. Other dramatic roles followed with Bigger Than Life (1956) and A Face in the Crowd (1957) but the majority of roles being offered to him were variations on villains (King Creole), drunks (Ride a Crooked Trail), and white collar professionals (Fail Safe). He also directed one feature, The Gangster (1960), on which he later commented: "It was one of the worst films ever made." In contrast to his film career in the early sixties, Matthau's parallel career on the stage was more successful and in 1962 he won the Tony Award for his performance in "A Shot in the Dark." The real turning point came in 1965 when he starred in "The Odd Couple", a role which playwright Neil Simon had tailored to fit Matthau's cantankerous but lovable personality. The play was a smash and Matthau's career as a comic actor was launched. Several career milestones followed including an Academy Award as Best Supporting actor as a sleazy lawyer in The Fortune Cookie (the first of six comedies that paired him with Jack Lemmon), the film version of The Odd Couple (the third top-grossing film of 1968), Best Actor Oscar nominations for Kotch (1971) and The Sunshine Boys (1975), and boxoffice hits like Cactus Flower (1969), The Bad News Bears (1976), and Grumpy Old Men (1993). His final film was Hanging Up (2000) in which he played the crotchety father of Meg Ryan, Lisa Kudrow and Diane Keaton. Matthau's health had always been a concern for the actor and he has had several major setbacks over the years beginning with a heart attack during the filming of The Fortune Cookie in 1966. Since then, he underwent heart bypass surgery in 1976, survived a bout of double pneumonia in 1993, had a colon tumor removed in 1995, and was again hospitalized for pneumonia in 1999. Jack Lemmon, who had appeared with Matthau recently in a discussion of their films with Turner Classic Movies host Robert Osborne, had this to say when he learned of Matthau's death: "I have lost someone I loved as a brother, as a closest friend and a remarkable human being. We have also lost one of the best damn actors we'll ever see." In memory of Walter Matthau, Turner Classic Movies will pre-empt its regularly scheduled Saturday programming on July 8 and feature a special Walter Matthau movie salute. - written by Jeff Stafford