Obituaries
Ilene Kaufman Techner
ach week, thousands of people visit our "new"address: www.irakaufman.com .
Just like our current location since 1961, we are available 24 hours a day, seven
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over 3,000 years.
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THE KAUFMAN
COMMUNITY CORNER
Popular Bus Tour of Jewish
Yesteryear again offered by
Jewish Historical Society of
MI, Sun. July 16, 2000
Popular demand and a sold-
out initial tour has prompted
the Jewish Historical Society of
MI again offer a bus tour of
Detroit. See where previous
generations lived, shopped, and
went to shule on a 4-hour bus
tour of Detroit's Jewish
yesteryear, Sun. July 16, 2000.
Learn about Detroit's Jewish
history from downtown to
suburbs on a luxury air-
conditioned bus.
The tour is $15 for JHSM
members, $18 for non-
members. A light snack is
offered. The tour meets at
12:15 pm at the parking lot of
the JCC on 10 Mile.
For more info, call
(248) 557-8315.
18325 West Nine Mile Road, Southfield, MI 48075 • Telephone: 248-569-0020 • Toll Free: 800-325-7105
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He was also an editor of the Yiddish
Forward newspaper.
Mlotek was born in the town of
Proszowice, Poland, and moved with his
family to Warsaw at the age of 7.
As a young man, he was active in the
Bund and other Jewish labor and social-
ist organizations and published Yiddish
poetry in newspapers.
He spent World War II in Shanghai
and moved to the United States in
1949.
Editor's Note: Yiddish theater star
Zalmen Mlotek _is sitting shiva for his
father Joseph Mlotek and will not be
part of the Yiddish Concert in the Park
sponsored by the local Workmen's
Circle. The program of klezmer music
will go on as scheduled at 7 p.m.
Monday, July 10, in Rothstein Park,
Oak Park.
Actor Matthau
Dead At 79
Los Angeles/JTA — Actor Walter
Matthau, who got his start in New
York's Yiddish theater, died July 1 in
Santa Monica, Calif , following a
heart attack.
Matthau,
who turned
grumpiness
into an art
form, was
79. -
During a
stage, movie
and televi-
sion career
spanning 50
years,
Matthau is
perhaps
best
Walter Matthau
remembered
for his role as
the slob Oscar Madison yoked to the
finicky Felix Unger in the film ver-
sion of Neil Simon's The Odd
Couple.
His hangdog looks and growling
voice graced more than 60 films and
23 plays. He won an Oscar in 1966
for best supporting actor as an
unethical lawyer in The Fortune
Cookie, and received best actor nom-
inations for Kotch and The Sunshine
Boys.
In private life, Matthau was "an
incredibly proud Jew" who frequent-
ly participated in Shabbat and High
Holy Day services at the Synagogue
for the Performing Arts, recalled
Rabbi Jerry Cutler.
The actor never hesitated to con-
.
front antisemitism and once had it
out with British actress Vanessa
Redgrave after she praised the
Palestine Liberation Organization
and denigrated Israel, Rabbi Cutler
said.
Born Walter Matuschanskayasky
on New York's Lower East Side, the
future actor experienced the hand-
to-mouth existence of an immigrant
family.
His father, Melos (Milton), a
Russian-born electrician, abandoned
the family when Walter was 3.
His Lithuanian-born mother,
Rose, worked in a sweatshop to sup-
port Walter and his brother. The
family moved frequently from one
cold-water flat to another to stay
ahead of the rent collector.
At 11, Matthau started selling ice
cream and soft drinks in the Yiddish
theaters on Second Avenue. For an
additional 50 cents, he performed in
bit roles. In his first part, with two
lines, Matthau played an old lady in
a crowd scene, he recalled later.
Matthau excelled_as an athlete in
high school and, among numerous
other jobs, worked as a boxing
instructor and basketball coach.
After three years' service in the
Air Force during World War II,
Matthau turned to serious study as
an actor. In his first professional per-
formance, he was cast in Three Men
on a Horse in 1946.
Matthau frequently portrayed
explicitly or implicitly Jewish char-
acters.
In 1994, he played Albert
Einstein in the comic film I. Q. and
two years . later he was an old-time
Jewish radical in Bn Not Rappaport.
Two months ago, his final film
Hanging Up came out, in which he
played a cantankerous family patri-,
arch. In an interview at the time, he
bemoaned the lack of good parts for
older actors.
Matthau was married twice, first
to Grace Johnson, with whom he
had two children, David and Jenny.
After a divorce, he married Carol
Marcus, a close friend of the writers
Truman Capote and James Agee. She
had previously been married twice to
the writer William Saroyan.
The couple's son, Charles, direct-
ed his father in the 1996 film The
Grass Harp.
Matthau displayed a lifelong pas-
sion for sports, classical music and
gambling. In contrast to his profes-
sional grumpiness, the actor was
described by one friend as "the best-
natured of men."