Apart from that, however, I'm not very pleased with you!" On reading it, Matthau broke down and cried and then never mentioned it again.
Rough Beginnings
Walter Matthau was born on October 1, 1920, in New York City. According to his son, Charlie Matthau, speaking on "Larry King Live," on July 14, 2000, his real last name was spelled Matthow. Walter Matuschanskayasky, which he claimed was his real name, was made up to run in the credits of Earthquake (1974), so Matthau could get even for being tricked into a much larger part in the movie than he had wanted.
Matthau's Lithuanian seamstress mother, Rose, raised him alone in the mostly Jewish Lower East Side of New York. His father Milton, a former peddler from Kiev, Ukraine, became an electrician and then a process server. He abandoned Matthau and his older brother, Henry, when Matthau was a three-year-old. According to an article in People Weekly, Matthau ran a card game on the roof of his building when he was six years old. He sold refreshments at local Yiddish theaters and broke into acting when, at age 11, he got a small part in The Dishwasher.
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