He was also close friends with actors Tony Curtis, Ernie Kovacs, Walter Matthau, and Kevin Spacey.

Among their pairings was 1968's The Odd Couple, as Felix Ungar ( Lemmon ) and Oscar Madison ( Matthau ).

It was the only movie that Lemmon ever directed and Matthau was nominated for the Best Actor Oscar for his performance.

He was interred at Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery in Westwood, California where he is buried near his friend and co-star, Walter Matthau, who died almost exactly one year before Lemmon.

Walter Matthau ( October 1, 1920 – July 1, 2000 ) was an American actor best known for his role as Oscar Madison in The Odd Couple and his frequent collaborations with Odd Couple star Jack Lemmon, as well as his role as Coach Buttermaker in the 1976 comedy The Bad News Bears.

Matthau was born Walter John Matthow in New York City's Lower East Side on October 1, 1920, the son of Rose ( née Berolsky ; from Lithuania ), who worked in a sweatshop, and Milton Matthow, an electrician and peddler ( from Russia ), both Jewish immigrants.

" Matthau was a respected stage actor for years in such fare as Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter?

Matthau was visibly banged up during the Oscar telecast, having been involved in a bicycle accident, nonetheless he scolded actors who had not bothered to come to the ceremony, especially the other major award winners that night: Elizabeth Taylor, Sandy Dennis and Paul Scofield.

So, as another of his traditional goofs, he wrote that his true name was " Walter Foghorn Matthau ".

The rumor that his birth name was " Matuschanskayasky " was given additional credence by the release of the 1974 film Earthquake in which Matthau had agreed to provide a cameo performance without compensation on the condition that he not be credited under his real name.

The film was remade in 1949 as Sorrowful Jones with Bob Hope and Lucille Ball and again as Little Miss Marker in 1980 with Walter Matthau, Julie Andrews, Tony Curtis, Bob Newhart, Brian Dennehy, and Lee Grant.

The film was nominated for Academy Awards for Best Actor in a Leading Role ( Walter Matthau ), Best Film Editing ( Ralph E. Winters ), Best Music, Song ( for Marvin Hamlisch and Johnny Mercer for " Life Is What You Make It ") and Best Sound ( Richard Portman, Jack Solomon ).

" The film was a drama about three sisters coping with the senility and eventual death of their elderly father, played by Walter Matthau.

O ' Connor's last feature film was the Jack Lemmon-Walter Matthau comedy Out to Sea, in which he played a dance host on a cruise ship.

The production gained Tony Awards for Walter Matthau, Best Actor ( Play ), Best Author ( Play ), Best Direction of a Play, and Best Scenic Design ( Oliver Smith ), and was nominated for Best Play.

Matthau was replaced with Jack Klugman, starting in November 1965 and later Pat Hingle, starting in February 1966.

In 1968, The Odd Couple was made into a highly successful film starring Jack Lemmon as Felix and Walter Matthau ( once more ) as Oscar.

Klugman was familiar with the role as he had replaced Walter Matthau in the original Broadway run.

The film was a remake of the 1974 film of the same title starring Walter Matthau and Robert Shaw.

To the American audiences, the most notable actor to play Martin Beck is Walter Matthau from the 1973 film called The Laughing Policeman, though his character was called " Jake Martin ".

As a young child she was signed by the Ford Modeling Agency, and at the age of six she was cast as Opal on Pee-wee's Playhouse which was quickly followed by film appearances in Heartburn written by Nora Ephron, directed by Mike Nichols ; A Man Called Sarge ; and Dennis the Menace with Walter Matthau and Christopher Lloyd.

Subsequent remakes include Sorrowful Jones ( 1949 ; Bob Hope, Lucille Ball ), 40 Pounds of Trouble ( 1962 ; Tony Curtis ), and Little Miss Marker ( 1980 ; Walter Matthau, Julie Andrews, Bob Newhart, Tony Curtis ).

In the shorts and earlier episodes, Castellaneta voiced Homer with a loose impression of Walter Matthau ; however, during the second and third seasons of the half-hour show, Homer's voice evolved to become more robust, to allow the expression of a fuller range of emotions.

His last major project was House Calls, which began as a 1978 movie based on one of his stories, and starred Walter Matthau and Glenda Jackson ; it spun off the 1979-1982 television series of the same name, starring Wayne Rogers and Lynn Redgrave in the leads.

* In the 1974 film Earthquake, Walter Matthau agreed to provide a cameo performance without compensation on the condition that he not be credited under his real name ; he was credited under a fictitious name of his choosing, " Walter Matuschanskayasky.

His films include Norbit, starring Eddie Murphy ( in their fourth film together ) for DreamWorks / Paramount ; Garfield and Garfield 2, both for Fox ; the Eddie Murphy comedy Daddy Day Care, produced with Revolution Studios ; the two Dr. Dolittle films, starring Eddie Murphy ; the Jack Lemmon / Walter Matthau trilogy Out to Sea, Grumpy Old Men, and Grumpier Old Men ; and Fat Albert, written by Bill Cosby, among many others.

He had two children, Jenny and David, by his first wife, and a second son, Charlie Matthau, with his second wife.

" In a DVD review of the first season, David B. Grelck gave the episode a rating of 3½ / 5 and commented: " Surprisingly, this early episode has a lot of the zest of the later shows, despite fairly odd looking art and a very Walter Matthau voice for Homer, still has some laughs ".

The Fortune Cookie ( alternative UK title: Meet Whiplash Willie ) is a 1966 film starring Walter Matthau and Jack Lemmon in their first on-screen collaboration, and directed by Billy Wilder.

* This was the first film to feature the movie partnership of Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau.

This was the sixth film starring both Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau and their first on-screen pairing since 1981's Buddy Buddy.

Her first movie role was as Kay Butler in the 20th Century Fox crime drama The Laughing Policeman ( 1973 ) starring Walter Matthau, Bruce Dern, and Louis Gossett, Jr.

Other notable actors who performed at the theater over the years include Dick Van Dyke, Grace Kelly, Ethyl Merman, Angela Lansbury, and Walter Matthau.

The police mount an extensive search, with Sheriff Johnson ( Walter Matthau ) and his Deptuty Sheriff Harry ( William Schallert ) following him in a jeep.

* Walter Matthau as Sheriff Morey Johnson

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

A production starring Walter Matthau as Nathan Detroit, Helen Gallagher as Adelaide, Ray Shaw as Sky and Leila Martin as Sarah had 31 performances, running from April 20 to May 1, and May 31 to June 12, 1955.

Morris Buttermaker ( Walter Matthau ), an alcoholic and former minor-league baseball player, is recruited by a city councilman and attorney who filed a lawsuit against an ultra-competitive Southern California Little League which excluded the least skilled athletes ( including his son ) from playing.

This is the blaring song playing at the bar " The Other End " where Matthau goes to arrange his flight from Georgia.

However, health problems kept Matthau from appearing in the film and Garner was instead chosen to star opposite Lemmon in their only project together.

Holden is a keen poker player, and spent a year playing professionally while researching his 1990 book Big Deal: A Year as a Professional Poker Player ( ISBN 0743294815 ), which has been praised by poker enthusiasts from David Mamet and Salman Rushdie to Walter Matthau and is frequently described as a ' cult classic '.