When Walter Matthau passed away Saturday, most of the news accounts rightly related that he had spent the first decade of his movie career, from the mid-'50s to the mid-'60s, playing villains.
And then, following his 1966 Oscar-win for "The Fortune Cookie," he moved on to even greater success with comedy.
That's true as far as it goes. But there is so much more left for us in the legacy of Matthau movies.
Young picturegoers who think of him as strictly a "Grumpy Old" foil for Jack Lemmon or as the dementia-ridden father of Diane Keaton, Meg Ryan and Lisa Kudrow in his final movie, "Hanging Up" (a sad farewell film indeed), should rent some of his older movies for a lesson in versatility.
Prior to 1966, Matthau did excel at deceitful or duplicitous characters — when he wasn't playing petty crooks or mobsters.
But even his earliest cinematic work demonstrated a wide range, at which he had also excelled previously on the stage.
Interestingly, his first two movies, in 1955, were Westerns — as a bad guy who goes after Burt Lancaster with a whip in "The Kentuckian" and a villain up against Kirk Douglas in "The Indian Fighter." Matthau later played a drunkard judge opposite Audie Murphy in "Ride a Crooked Trail" (1958) — and that was the end of his cowboy career.
Unless you want to count the sheriff he played in the contemporary Western "Lonely are the Brave" (1962), again in support of Douglas — an excellent little movie that was just one of several memorable Matthau choices that preceded his Oscar.
He also had solid supporting roles in "A Face in the Crowd" (1957), in which Andy Griffith starred as an unsympathetic character and Matthau was the cynical but more-sympathetic-than-usual reporter. Matthau was a crook again in one of Elvis Presley's best films,"King Creole" (1958); a character who is not what he seems in the Hitchcock-like "Charade" (1963), with Cary Grant and Audrey Hepburn; the anti-Russian "expert" in the original 1964 "Fail-Safe"; and a world-weary private eye in another Hitchcockian suspense picture, "Mirage" (1965), starring Gregory Peck.
Then came Matthau's breakthrough performance as "Slick WIllie," a slovenly, devious lawyer in Billy Wilder's great 1966 satire "The Fortune Cookie." Jack Lemmon was the star, playing Matthau's hapless brother-in-law, laid up in bed for most of the film, nursing a phony injury as part of an insurance scam. Lemmon generously let Matthau lope and mug and handily steal the show — and an Oscar as best supporting actor.
That made him an unlikely comic leading man, as he cemented his reputation with some hilarious roles over the next three decades — including those in "A Guide for the Married Man" (1967), "Cactus Flower" (1969), "A New Leaf" (1971), "The Sunshine Boys" (1975), "The Bad News Bears" (1976), "House Calls" (1978), "Hopscotch" (1980), "Dennis the Menace" (1993) and "I.Q." (1994).
He also teamed up with Lemmon again for seven more comedies — "The Odd Couple" (1968), "The Front Page" (1974), "Buddy Buddy" (1981), "Grumpy Old Men" (1993), "Grumpier Old Men" (1995), "Out to Sea" (1997) and "The Odd Couple II" (1968).
Actually, his first grumpy old movie character was back in 1971 (when he was only 51), in a wonderful drama directed by his old pal Lemmon. The picture was "Kotch," and it earned Matthau his first best-actor Oscar nomination. (His second came four years later for "The Sunshine Boys.")
Matthau and Lemmon were also both in "JFK" (1991) and "The Grass Harp" (1995), but not as a team.
Speaking of "The Grass Harp," that low-key period comedy was directed by Matthau's son Charlie, featuring his dad in one of his sweetest roles, as a grandfatherly figure romancing spinster Piper Laurie.
Matthau also had a number of terrific dramatic roles, in films like "Charley Varrick" (1973), "The Laughing Policeman" (1974), "Casey's Shadow" (1977) and the TV-movie "Incident" trilogy, with Matthau as retired judge Harmon Cobb.
And my personal favorite, "The Taking of Pelham One Two Three" (1974), a crackerjack thriller with Matthau as a cop negotiating with terrorist Robert Shaw, who has hijacked a subway train.
So, rent those videos. Get a solid lesson in Acting 101. And you'll also get a first-hand appreciation of an actor who personifies the cliche . . . they just don't make 'em like they used to.
E-MAIL: hicks@desnews.com