Editing Walter Matthau (section)

==Personal life==
===Marriage and children===
In 1948, Matthau married Geraldine "Geri" Grace Johnson. Their son David was born in 1953 and their daughter Jenny was born in 1956. The couple divorced in 1959.<ref>{{cite book | last1=Edelman | first1=R. | last2=Kupferberg | first2=A. | title=Matthau: A Life | publisher=Taylor Trade Publishing | year=2002 | isbn=978-1-4616-2519-3 | pages=57–58, 92}}</ref>

Matthau married [[Carol Grace|Carol Marcus]] in 1959. She died in 2003. Their son [[Charles Matthau|Charles (Charlie) Matthau]] was born in 1962. Charlie is a director and directed his father in several movies.

===Gambling===

In 1971, Matthau discussed his longtime compulsive gambling with a writer for ''[[The New York Times]]''. In 1961, while doing a two-week television shoot in Florida for ''[[Tallahassee 7000]]'', he had lost $183,000 ({{Inflation|US|183000|1961|r=0|fmt=eq|cursign=[[United States dollar|US$]]}}), mostly betting on spring-training baseball games. It took Matthau six years to pay off his "Mafia-connected bookmaker", and he somewhat curtailed his betting in the 1970s, although daily racetrack losses of $400–500 were common.<ref>Meehan, Thomas. “What the OTB Bettor Can Learn  from Walter Matthau.” New York Times, 4 July 1971, SM4.</ref>

===Health problems and death===
A heavy smoker, Matthau had a heart attack in 1966 while filming ''[[The Fortune Cookie]]'', the first of at least three in his lifetime. Matthau later quit smoking.{{Citation needed|date=May 2025}}

In 1976, ten years after his first heart attack, he underwent heart-bypass surgery. After working in Minnesota for ''[[Grumpy Old Men (film)|Grumpy Old Men]]'' (1993), he was hospitalized for double pneumonia. In December 1995, he had a colon tumor removed; it was deemed to be benign.<ref>https://scholar.lib.vt.edu/VA-news/ROA-Times/issues/1997/rt9701/970103/01030022.htm</ref> He was hospitalized in May 1999 for more than two months, again owing to pneumonia.<ref name="theguardian.com"/>

[[File:Walter Matthau grave at Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery in Brentwood, California.JPG|thumb|Matthau's gravesite]]

In the late evening of June 30, 2000, Matthau had a [[heart attack]] at his home and was taken by ambulance to the [[Saint John's Health Center|St. John's Health Center]] in [[Santa Monica, California|Santa Monica]], where he died a few hours later at 1:42&nbsp;a.m. on July 1, 2000, at age 79.<ref name=bbc>{{cite news|title=Actor Walter Matthau dies|url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/814676.stm| work=[[BBC News]]|publisher=BBC|access-date=February 3, 2014}}</ref> His death certificate lists the causes of death as "[[cardiac arrest]]" and "[[atherosclerotic heart disease]]", with "end stage [[renal disease]]" and "atrial fibrillation" as significant contributing factors.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UCd_YpT3P50 | archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/varchive/youtube/20211030/UCd_YpT3P50| archive-date=October 30, 2021|title=Walter Matthau Death Certificate | date=July 28, 2015|publisher=YouTube |access-date=April 20, 2020}}{{cbignore}}</ref> He is buried at [[Pierce Brothers Westwood Village Memorial Park and Mortuary|Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery]] in Los Angeles. Matthau's wife [[Carol Grace|Carol Marcus]] died in 2003, and her body is interred in the same plot as her husband.{{Citation needed |date=October 2022}}