“The Odd Couple” star died in 2000.

Walter Matthau shocked son with reason he refused to be frozen after death

"The Odd Couple" star died in 2000.

By Raechal Shewfelt

Raechal Shewfelt

Raechal Shewfelt is a writer at **. She has been working at EW since 2024. Her work has previously appeared on Yahoo and in American *Journalism Review* and *The Shreveport Times*.

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October 20, 2025 11:28 p.m. ET

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Walter Matthau stars in 'The Fortune Cookie' in 1966. Credit:

Silver Screen Collection/Getty

It's understandable that Charlie Matthau would want to spend some time — as much as he can — with his late father, actor Walter Matthau.

The star of movies such as *The Odd Couple*, *The Bad News Bears*, and the 1974 original of *The Taking of Pelham One Two Three*, died in 2000. But before then, Charlie had a chance to talk to him about something he's long been interested in doing: having his brain and body frozen with the idea that it could one day be brought back to life.

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"He is my best buddy, and if I come back for the next lifecycle, if this thing actually works, I would like to hang out with my best buddy," Charlie said while talking with Mike Fleming Jr. for his Monday Deadline column. "So I thought, OK, We're going to go out to dinner and convince him. I know he's going to say, 'Charlie, this is a bunch of bulls---, and you're crazy.’ And then I'm going to say, 'Well, if that's the way you feel, then you really have to do this, because it's not going to work anyway, and you're going to make your son happy.'"

Things didn't go exactly as planned.

"So we go to dinner and I say, I'd like to talk to you about cryonics," said Charlie, whose mother was the late Carol Matthau. "And he just looks at me and he goes, 'I'm not doing it.' I said, 'Oh, really? OK. Why not?' He looks at me and he says, 'Because I'm afraid it'll work.'"

Walter Matthau and his son, Charlie, at a 1997 AFI tribute.

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Walter Matthau died at 79, having won the 1967 Oscar for Best Actor in a Supporting Role for *The Fortune Cookie* and acting nominations again in 1972 for *Kotch* and in 1976 for *The Sunshine Boys*, among his with numerous accolades.

When he won at the Academy Awards ceremony, he kept his speech short and sweet, summing up his way of thinking as he sported a scratched-up face: "The other day, as I was falling off my bicycle, I had the following thoughts: *I was given a very juicy part. I was allowed to work with talented, exhilarating, and beautiful people. I was given a good deal of money. And a great deal of joy. *And now, really, don't you think this is going a little too far?"

Walter's final appearance was in *Hanging Up*, a 2000 comedy written by Delia and Nora Ephron and directed by Diane Keaton, who died Oct. 11, also at age 79. It starred Keaton, Meg Ryan, and Lisa Kudrow as Matthau's daughters.**

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