July 3, 2000
No more, the beloved Frick - THE COMMENTARY
By Joseph Planta
VANCOUVER -- Walter Matthau is dead. The beloved star of film and television died Saturday morning of a heart attack at the age of 79.
The career of Matthau began, as all real actors do, on the stage. A check on his biography had something about him being a boxing instructor before turning to the world of acting. He bummed around the theatre, until Neil Simon sent over a draft of his classic, The Odd Couple. The brilliant piece of work that it is, Matthau saw that and told Simon he’d do the play on two conditions: First, he would have to invest $10,000 dollars and second he’d play the role of neat and tidy Felix.
Anyone who’s seen the play or who’s followed the career of Matthau will know he’s been typecast as the Oscar part of The Odd Couple duo. His rational for making that demand, was that Felix would challenge him as an actor, whereas Oscar’s gruff, grumpy and crusty character was written to be so easy for Matthau, he thought he could simply, “mail it in.” Simon simply retorted to Matthau, “You’re Oscar or you act in somebody else’s play.”
He won the Tony that year and was cast in the film version of The Odd Couple after winning the Oscar, the next year for Best Supporting Actor. His Oscar win was for his role in Billy Wilder’s classic, The Fortune Cookie. It was his first teaming with the legendary Jack Lemmon. He and Lemmon went on to make something like 8 films together, including the film version of The Odd Couple and the two grumpy films, Grumpy Old Men and Grumpier Old Men. It was in the making of the latter two films, that co-star Ann-Margaret nicknamed, Matthau, Frick and Lemmon, Frack.
Walter Matthau was not a handsome man. Nor could he have the generic look and sound of the actors of the era. He walked his own way and he talked his own way. Unlike the actors of that era: the Clint Eastwood’s and the Steve McQueen’s, Walter Matthau would not have been categorised in their genre. He made characters what they were. He never played the larger than life super heros or debonair secret agents. He was a simple man who took simple characters and made them endearing. He knew his trade well and he practised it superbly.
His performance as the evil government official in the original Fail Safe or the cranky Kotch, was equally matched with his charming sense of comedic timing and his distinct flair for musical comedy. He took on the role of Horace Vandergelder in the film version of Hello, Dolly! opposite Barbra Streisand and in his last film, Hanging Up, he crooned the old standard, Once Upon A Time with heart breakingly poignant honesty. His swan song.
His brilliant work in four other Neil Simon works, including Plaza Suite and The Sunshine Boys earned him raves, as well as an Oscar nod for Sunshine. The last time the duo of Matthau and Lemmon teamed up was for the sequel, The Odd Couple II, which was a critical and box office failure, but trademark Walter Matthau. He was at his crotchety great self and utter brilliance.
At the 1998 Oscars, he and Lemmon strode out onstage to the old Odd Couple theme music and a montage of their work together. The award they presented that night was for Screenplay and they handed the Oscar to the two writers of Good Will Hunting, Matt Damon and Ben Affleck. It was almost symbolic seeing Lemmon and Matthau handing the Oscar to the duo of up and coming stars who were set on matching the brilliance of their predecessors.
Walter Matthau made comedy look easy. As any actor, director, writer or half-wit will tell you, including Matthau - comedy is hard. He made it look simple and effortless, even when he was being serious. As Jack Lemmon said on Saturday, “We’ve also lost one of the best damn actors we’ll ever see.”
On face value it doesn’t look like much - a grumpy curmudgeon since the beginning of time, but Walter Matthau’s career represented acting at its very finest. He wasn’t the type of star, that Mr. Lemmon was that would do the celebrity thing, he was a humble man who came and acted. He’d also tell a joke or just make the whole crew bust up, and did so endearing himself to all he worked with. He had humour in his every step. He was not a vibrant or a man who relished in a sense of flamboyancy. His body of work however, from The Sunshine Boys to Dennis the Menace to A Face in The Crowd or The Front Page, was an eclectic blend of humour and pathos, drama and slapstick.
The beloved Frick is no more and will be sorely missed. The world of acting, is a hell of a lot darker, without him.
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An archive of Joseph Planta's previous columns can be found by clicking HERE .