Posted on 06/24/2018 7:27:53 PM PDT by eastforker
Military Bio:
Walter Matthau Born Walter Matuschanskavasky in New York City on October 10, 1920, died July 2, 2000 . Matthau grew up in New York's Lower East Side, the son of Russian-Jewish immigrants. He enlisted in the Army Air Corps in April 1942. After basic training, he was trained at the Army Air Force radio school at Savannah, Georgia, as a radio operator and gunner. (All flight crewmembers were required to take gunnery training.) After training, he was assigned to the 453rd Bomb Group and went overseas to RAF station 144, Old Buckenham, near Attleborough, England as part of the 8th Air Force. Matthau was a ground radio operator and cryptographer, and saw service in France, Belgium, Holland and Germany. He remembers serving with Jimmy Stewart, who was an operations officer giving mission briefings to the group. He returned to Reno, Nevada, as part of the Air Transport Command, and was discharged in October 1945 from Sacramento, California, as a staff sergeant.
(Excerpt) Read more at combatvets.net ...
Matuschanskavasky
That’s why he never had a personalized license plate.
Yup, but still a great American!
Damnit I ain’t got there yet, just hold on!
> Walter Matthau Born Walter Matuschanskavasky... <
According to most biographies of him, Matthau was born Walter John Matthow. But he sometimes made up nonsensically long last names during interviews as a way to amuse himself.
I remember reading somewhere that he once told an interviewer that his middle name was “Foghorn”.
Ping!
Dr. Ruth Westheimer was a sniper in Israel.
https://www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/dr-ruth-sniper
There was a time when actors and movie personalities were patriots. For the most part, those days are long gone.
from the era when comedians were actually funny!! Thanks, Sgt Matthau.
Hahahha that’s great. He also was waaaaay into sports betting, if I recall.
The sheriff in “Lonely are the Brave”. Nearly upstaged Kirk Douglas. But so did George Kennedy. Top 10 best movies of all time.
Out of curiosity I did a bit more digging since my last post. Matthau was evidently quite inventive when talking to reporters. From the link below:
Matthau made up stories so often that family and friends, as well as interviewers, never knew when he was pulling their leg, so details of his early life are questionable. He once said his mother was a gypsy and his father (or grandfather) was an “Orthodox priest in Czarist Russia, who was removed after he claimed that the Pope was infallible”. According to his official website, www.matthau.com, among the tall tales he told about himself were that “he was in line of succession to the throne of England...”.
http://www.tcm.com/this-month/article/138987%7C0/Walter-Matthau-Profile.html
Everything I have ever heard about him points to him being a complete maniac. I love that he was telling Very Important Hollywood Reporters all this crap, ha.
Freegards
Lemmon: "Are you comfortable?"
Matthau: "I make a living."
Lee Marvin fought in the battle of Saipan, I believe.
I read he made 23 landings as a Marine Raider. Quite the resume topper. Sterling Hayden was a OSS operative.
#2. Matthau had a personalized license plate but it was wrapped all the way around the car. People thought he was advertising something. That is why he shortened his name, plus the fact that it wouldn’t fit on a pay check.
Get it right dude.
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