[Deathwatch] Carol Matthau, actress and writer, 78

[Deathwatch Central <cdw@slick.org>]

LOS ANGELES - Carol Matthau, an actress and writer who had been the
wife of William Saroyan and was the widow of Walter Matthau, died July
20 of a brain aneurysm in Manhattan. She was 78.

She was married to Matthau for 41 years until his death in 2000. She
was said to be the inspiration for Holly Golightly, the heroine of
Truman Capote's "Breakfast at Tiffany's."

She wrote of her Hollywood and literary friends in the 1992 memoir
"Among the Porcupines." 

Carol Matthau, inspiration for Holly Golightly
Fri Jul 25, 8:35 AM ET
By Elaine Woo

Carol Matthau, a former actress and writer who married famously three
times ? twice to author and playwright William Saroyan and once to
actor Walter Matthau ? died Sunday of a brain aneurysm at her home in
New York City. She was 78.

She was married to the comic actor for 41 years until his death in 2000
at age 79. Her first marriage to Saroyan in 1943 lasted six years; her
second, in 1951, lasted six months.

She professed to be the inspiration behind Holly Golightly, the
protagonist of Truman Capote's 1958 novella ''Breakfast at Tiffany's.''


She wrote, often tartly, of her charmed circle of Hollywood and
literary friends in a 1992 memoir, ''Among the Porcupines.''

Born in New York City, Matthau never knew her father and lived in
foster homes as a young child after her Russian immigrant mother,
Rosheen Doree, went to work in a factory following a failed marriage.

When she was 8, her mother married Bendix Corp. executive Charles
Marcus. Matthau lived with them in a posh 18-room apartment on Fifth
Avenue and attended the tony Dalton School.

Matthau was 16 when bandleader Artie Shaw introduced her to Saroyan.
When they were married in a civil ceremony in Dayton, Ohio, in 1943,
she was two months' pregnant with their first child, Aram. A daughter,
Lucy, was born three years later, in 1946.

Saroyan was a gambler who squandered all their savings and abused her
both emotionally and physically.

She often joined Capote, a childhood friend, at a Manhattan nightclub
for 3 a.m. parleys over gin and beer. At 7 a.m. they would buy coffee
and doughnuts and eat it in front of Tiffany's. Years later she
reported in her memoir that he told her she was the model for Holly
Golightly. ''You are Holly,'' she recalled him saying. ''It's just that
you don't do those rotten things Holly did.''

She married Walter Matthau in 1959. In 1962, their son, Charles, was
born.

Elaine Woo is a reporter for the Los Angeles Times, a Tribune
Publishing newspaper.