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Born in 1920, Walter Matthau was a celebrated performer on both the stage and screen, known for his gruff, rumpled persona. Let’s take a look back at 15 of his greatest films, ranked worst to best.

Matthau turned to acting after serving in the United States Army Air Force during WWII. He became a frequent presence on the small screen with appearances in “Alfred Hitchcock Presents,” “Goodyear Playhouse,” and “The Du Pont Show of the Week” (which brought him an Emmy bid in 1963), to name a few. During this period he also appeared in several films, few of them comedies, including “A Face in the Crowd” (1957) and “Fail Safe” (1964).

At the same time, he gained increasing respect as a stage actor with Tony Award-winning performances in “A Shot in the Dark” (Featured Actor in a Play in 1962) and “The Odd Couple” (Actor in a Play in 1965). It was in the latter role of Oscar Madison,...

Herman Raucher, a best-selling author and the Academy Award nominated screenwriter of “Summer of ’42,” died Dec. 28 of natural causes at Stamford Hospital in Stamford, Conn. He was 95.

Raucher got his start in the industry working in live television. He wrote one hour dramas for anthology series including “Studio One,” “Good Year Playhouse” and “The Alcoa Hour.” In his screenwriting career, he wrote the scripts for two films starring Anthony Newley, “Sweet November” (1968) and “Can Heironymus Merkin Ever Forget Mercy Humppe and Find True Happiness?” (1969), which Newley also directed.

Raucher was inspired by Bobbie Gentry’s popular song “Ode to Billie Joe” to write the screenplay for Max Baer Jr.’s 1976 romance film of the same name starring Robby Benson and Glynnis O’Connor. Raucher also co-wrote the script for the 1977 film “The Other Side of Midnight.”

Raucher is remembered for penning the script for the popular coming-of-age film “Summer of ’42,...

Herman Raucher, the best-selling author and screenwriter who earned an Oscar nomination for the coming-of-age classic Summer of ’42 and wrote the script for the thought-provoking Watermelon Man, has died. He was 95.

Raucher died Thursday of natural causes at Stamford Hospital in Stamford, Connecticut, his daughter Jenny Raucher told The Hollywood Reporter.

Raucher, who started out in live television, penned the screenplays for two Anthony Newley-starring films: Sweet November (1968), directed by Robert Ellis Miller and also featuring Sandy Dennis, and Can Heironymus Merkin Ever Forget Mercy Humppe and Find True Happiness? (1969), featuring Joan Collins.

He also was given inspiration from Bobbie Gentry’s 1967 hit song to write the screenplay to Ode to Billy Joe (1976), a love story that starred Robby Benson and Glynnis O’Connor and was helmed by Max Baer Jr.

With the Robert Mulligan-directed Summer of ’42 (1971) in postproduction, someone came up with the idea of Raucher writing a...

Inga Swenson, the versatile actress best known for memorable portrayals of combative women on the TV hits Soap and Benson, has died. Her son confirmed the news to TMZ. Swenson was 90.

Swenson’s involvement on the shows began with a multi-episode arc on Soap in 1978 as the conniving revenge-seeking Ingrid Svenson, the Swedish birth mother of Corinne Tate (Diana Canova). That led to a new role on the show’s spinoff, Benson, as Gretchen Kraus, an autocratic and combative German cook.

Over the course of the latter Swenson’s character was frequently at odds with Benson (Robert Guillaume) himself, often trading insults with him as he sought to run household affairs for Governor Eugene X. Gatling (James Noble). Despite their rivalry, Benson and Kraus later became close friends on the show. Swenson was Emmy nominated three times for the role, in 1980, 1982 and 1985.

A year before her first TV credit – an...

Inga Swenson, who as Gretchen Kraus on the 1979-1986 sitcom Benson was an incredible comedic foil for Robert Guillaume’s titular butler, died on July 23 in Los Angeles.

Swenson died at a board-and-care facility as a result of natural causes, her son Mark told TMZ, with her husband of 70 years, Lowell Harris, at her side. Her health reportedly was on the decline for the past six months.

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Actor Eileen Ryan, the mother of actors Sean Penn and Christopher Penn and musician Michael Penn, died Sunday at her home, just a week short of her 95th birthday.

Ryan, born Eileen Annucci, met fellow actor Leo Penn in 1957 at rehearsals for The Iceman Cometh, a Circle in the Square production (Leo Penn had taken over for Jason Robards). The two were married within a few months, a marriage that lasted 41 years until Leo Penn’s death in 1998.

Related: Hollywood & Media Deaths 2022: A Photo Gallery

From her first TV appearance in 1955’s Goodyear Television Playhouse, Ryan had a steady and prolific acting career for decades, with guest roles on The Twilight Zone, The Detectives, Ben Casey, Marcus Welby, M.D., Little House on the Prairie, Ally McBeal, and Grey’s Anatomy, among many others. On the big screen, she often appeared in the her sons’ various projects, including At Close Range,...

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Clu Gulager, the real-life cowboy from Oklahoma known for his turns on The Tall Man, The Virginian, The Last Picture Show and horror movies including The Return of the Living Dead, has died. He was 93.

Gulager died Friday of natural causes at the Los Angeles home of his son John and daughter-in-law Diane, they told The Hollywood Reporter.

Gulager also portrayed the protégé of hitman Charlie Strom (Lee Marvin) taken out by a mob boss (Ronald Reagan) in Don Siegel’s The Killers (1964), a race-car mechanic opposite Paul Newman in Winning (1969) and a detective working alongside John Wayne’s character in John Sturges’ McQ (1974).

More recently, he showed up on the big screen in such critical darlings as Tangerine (2015), Blue Jay (2016) and Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (2019).

Gulager’s performance in The Killers convinced Peter Bogdanovich to cast him as Abilene,...

On August 20, 2017, Jerry Lewis took a pratfall off this mortal coil, presumably knocking an unwitting dowager on her keister and sending a surprised cop into an open manhole on his way out. The durable enfant terrible was all of 91 years when he finally left the building though he had been making spirited public appearances as recently as January of this year.

For the inquisitive Jerry fan, Shawn Levy’s 1997 King of Comedy: The Life and Art of Jerry Lewis, remains the first and last stop for the straight scoop on America’s premiere nudnik. Levy, who endured the full fury of the comedian’s legendary wrath to get his story, is as admiring of his subject’s accomplishments as he was repelled by his whiplash mood swings. The hard knock apprenticeship in the Catskills, the Freudian-fueled soap opera of his partnership with Dean Martin, the boastful sex-capades, they’re all there and then some.

April 9th will mark the four year anniversary of director Sidney Lumet's passing, at age 86. Lumet was the first director I interviewed whose one-sheet posters hung on my wall as a kid. He was an idol, an icon, and an inspiration. I wasn't yet 30 in April 1997, when I met him at The Four Seasons Hotel in Beverly Hills for our interview at the press junket for "Night Falls On Manhattan," one of his solid, authentic urban dramas that blended crime, politics and personal revelations that became his signature.

Lumet immediately put any butterflies I had at ease. Diminutive, but with the infectious energy of a teenager, his was a disarming presence. He paid me a compliment on my sportcoat, saying that I looked a bit like the young Mickey Rourke (which I still don't see, but what the hell), then went on to regale me for an hour with...

A few weeks ago HBO and then CBS announced that they would launch stand-alone online services in U.S. in 2015. Before that, Netflix had made known that it would start producing features, crushing theatrical release windows once and for all, after it had contributed to the change of the patterns of attention and the way TV series are made by releasing its House of Cards episodes all at once, as a 13-hour movie. ‘Now the real shakeout begins’, wrote Ted Hope in Hollywood Reporter. ‘We are witnessing the march from once lucrative legacy practices built around titles to a new focus on community.’ Michael Wolff, writing also in the Hollywood Reporter, disagrees: ‘Streaming services from the two networks don’t signal television’s capitulation to Netflix and the web; it’s actually the opposite, as the medium expands yet again to gobble up more revenue.’ And in that sense, he says,...

In this wild and wacky season of Archer Vice, Isis matriarch, Malory (Jessica Walter) has endured her role as the plot pusher, but she’s also taken more of a supportive role this season. That doesn’t mean she hasn’t had her set of conflicts to deal with. She is desperately trying to find a way to make money off of the shit-ton of cocaine they have stashed in the Tunt Manor, but it’s dwindling because Pam (Amber Nash) keeps eating it. Now she has been forced her to milk what she can of Cheryl’s (Judy Greer) talents singing country songs as her latest alter ego, Cherlene.

If that’s not enough, Malory has also been dumped by her husband, Ron Cadillac (played by Walter’s real life husband, Ron Leibman), is reminding Lana (Aisha Tyler) of the mistake she has growing in her belly and for...

At 94 the legendary Ernest Borgnine doesn't want to be called "Mr. Borgnine," preferring "Ernest" or even "Ernie." Speaking in his signature gravelly voice, Borgnine is matter-of-fact about his achievements, still delighted and slightly awed that he has been able to make his living doing what he loves most: acting. He continues to be enthralled with movies, though he is no admirer of much of what is produced today and is dismissive about acting methods. "I learned to act by just sitting on a park bench and watching people go by," he says. "I follow what the author has written and take it from there. I don't have a method. You work with your head and your heart and then you create a character."Whatever his method—or perhaps more precisely, non-method—it has worked for him. For more than six decades, the Oscar winner has rolled up more than 200 movie and TV credits,...

Los Angeles - Actor Leslie Nielsen, who was best known for his roles in Airplane and the Naked Gun series, died Sunday of complications from pneumonia. He was 84. 'We are saddened by the passing of beloved actor Leslie Nielsen, probably best remembered as Lt Frank Drebin in The Naked Gun series of pictures, but who enjoyed a more than 60-year career in motion pictures and television,' said a statement from his family, according to Us media reports. Nielsen was born on February 11, 1926, in Regina, Canada. His acting career started with frequent appearances on live drama series such as Goodyear Playhouse and the 1956 science fiction classic Forbidden Planet. But he remains best-known for his deadpan comedy...

Horton Foote, the prolific playwright and screenwriter who gave enduring voice to the values of small-town America in such movies as "To Kill a Mockingbird," "Tender Mercies" and "The Trip to Bountiful" and plays like the Pulitzer Prize-winning "The Young Man From Atlanta," died Wednesday in Hartford, Conn. He was 92.

Foote died in his sleep in his apartment. He was working on "The Orphans' Home Cycle," a collection of nine plays that will be presented next fall at the Hartford Stage, where his daughter, actress Hallie Foote, is now appearing in a production of "Mockingbird."

The Texas-born writer's career spanned more than 50 years in film, TV and theater. He earned two Academy Awards -- best adapted screenplay for 1962's "Mockingbird" and best original screenplay for 1983's "Mercies" -- and was nominated for a third for 1985's "Bountiful."

Robert Duvall won the best actor Oscar for "Mercies," and Geraldine Page took...

Paul Newman, who combined Method training with matinee idol looks to become the personification of the cool '60s rebel in such iconic roles as the reckless Hud, the defiant Cool Hand Luke and the hotshot Butch Cassidy, died Friday. Surrounded by friends and family, including his wife, Joanne Woodward, the actor and philanthropist passed away at his farmhouse home near Wesport, Conn., after a long battle with cancer. He was 83.

In a film career that spanned nearly six decades, Newman received seven Oscar nominations before he was finally presented with an Honorary Oscar in 1986 "in recognition of his many and memorable and compelling screen performances and for his personal integrity and dedication to his craft."

But then he pulled out a trump card of his own, winning the best actor Academy Award the following year for "The Color of Money," in which he reprised the role of pool shark Fast Eddie Felsen,...