Matthau's heart attack
When is the scene that Walter M is walking through a door when he actually had a heart attack?
shareBetter 5 and a half years later than never. It's in section 15 when he goes upstairs after the case is settled. I know this because I remember Matthau on the Tonight show with Johnny Carson saying when he started up the stairs in the scene, he was 20 or more pounds heavier than when he arrives upstairs, due to recovering from the heart attack and losing so much weight between the scenes.
shareInteresting! As Johnny Carson used to say, "I did not know that."
5-1/2 years later. Are you saying that was during the making of the movie?
That's what Matthau claimed.
shareWe do know that Matthau suffered a heart attack during production. He's noticably thinner in post-attack scenes, often wearing his overcoat indoors to cover up the weight loss.
I didn't realize he had the attack filming that scene, but I have read that the many, many times he had to climb the stairs in that movie(counting re-takes) is evidently what took him down.
And yet he lived for 34 more years!
Matthau drank and smoked like there was no tomorrow, he treated his body pretty badly and by the 1970s he looked prematurely old, which is why it was so easy to cast him in the sunshine boys. I'm kind of surprised that he lived as long as he did. He was a brilliant actor, in comedy or dramatic roles, and my favorite role of his is a non-comedy one: Charley Varrick.
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