An invitation specified “cheerful attire” for those who were invited to the Walter Matthau tribute on Sunday. Aside from the tears of his longtime buddy, Jack Lemmon, the night captured the comedy of the late Matthau, according to Mrshobiz.com.
The guests reminisced on Matthau’s funniest jokes including an interview with CNN’s Larry King. The newscaster said that Matthau complained that he got tired of bad interviewers and so he made up stories about his life.
“I told one interviewer that my grandmother was Chinese, and he printed it,” King quoted Matthau as saying.
However, nothing could subdue the sadness of Lemmon, whose collaboration with Matthau began with The Fortune Cookie.
But he did manage to fit in a few stories of his own.
“The exodus of the public began after the first reel,” Lemmon recalled, “and by the end of this movie there were two rows of people left — probably from the studio. I asked, ‘Walter what do you think of the picture?’ He said, ‘Get out of it!’”
Lemmon concluded tearfully: “He was my best friend. One thing is a constant, when I was with Walter in a film or personally, it was always magic time.”
Meanwhile, Diane Keaton, who directed and co-starred with Matthau in his last film, “Hanging Up,” called him “the funniest man on Earth” reported Mrshowbiz.com.
Neil Simon, who wrote The Odd Couple, The Sunshine Boys and other films for Matthau, declared: “Walter was brilliantly funny, extraordinarily funny. But he was not a comic. He was first and foremost an actor.”
Lauren Bacall read a statement from Matthau’s widow, Carol, in which she said, “We had lots of fights and perfect love.”
Among those who attended the event were Sophia Loren, Matthau’s co-star in Grumpier Old Men, Gregory Peck, Angie Dickinson, Carl Reiner and producers Walter Mirisch and Howard W. Koch.
The program was organized by Matthau’s son, Charlie, and concluded with a montage of scenes from the actor’s many films.
Matthau, who died of heart failure July 1 at age 79, won a supporting actor Academy Award for The Fortune Cookie, and cemented his stardom as Oscar Madison in The Odd Couple-Albawaba.com.
© 2000 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
