Matthau : Taylor Trade Publishing : 9780878332748 : 087833274X : 04 Sep 2002 : For most people, he was best known as Oscar Madison, the unkempt, curmudgeonly yin to the yang of his prim and proper housemate, Felix Unger. But that role was just one of many sterling performances from the always outspoken Walter Matthau (1920-2000), a great comic actor and on-screen grouch extraordinaire. Born Walter Matthow in the Jewish tenements of New York's Lower East Side, he was a child actor in New York's Yiddish theater, and later a World War II link-trainer instructor. For ten years he paid his dues on Broadway, in summer stock, and on television before landing his film debut in The Kentuckian in 1955. By the time of his 1968 casting as cantankerous but lovable slob Oscar Madison in the film version of Neil Simon's The Odd Couple, Matthau had won major Hollywood stardom. Matthau also offers unflinching examination of the legend's impoverished but culturally rich upbringing; his gambling addictio