Early Life
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. His surname has often incorrectly been listed as Matuschanskayasky (see below for a detailed discussion). As a young boy, Walter attended a Jewish non-profit sleepaway camp, Tranquillity Camp, where he first began acting in the shows the camp would stage on Saturday nights. He also attended Surprise Lake Camp. His high school was Seward Park High School.
Read more about this topic: Walter Matthau
Famous quotes containing the words early and/or life:
“I realized how for all of us who came of age in the late sixties and early seventies the war was a defining experience. You went or you didn’t, but the fact of it and the decisions it forced us to make marked us for the rest of our lives, just as the depression and World War II had marked my parents.”
—Linda Grant (b. 1949)
“My life is superficial, takes no root in the deep world; I ask, When shall I die, and be relieved of the responsibility of seeing a Universe which I do not use? I wish to exchange this flash-of-lightning faith for continuous daylight, this fever-glow for a benign climate.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)