10 Actors Who Hid That They Were In Famous Movies

6. Walter Matthau - Earthquake

For those of you not up on sixties comedy or seventies disaster movies, Walter Matthau was the slovenly member of the original Odd Couple and Earthquake was a movie made to tap into the success of The Poseidon Adventure, thrown into competition with the much more expensive The Towering Inferno.

So yeah, Walter Matthau was one of the most recognisable faces in comedy and Earthquake was a film that needed some good word of mouth (this was back in a time when a movie's financial legs took months to mature). So executive producer Jennings Lang, who was a friend of Matthau, offered him a small part in the film. What started off as a background role grew during production, with Matthau giving a scene-stealing performance as a character known only as The Drunk. The actor agreed to do the role for free, on the condition he would be credited under a different name of his choosing. The name he chose? Walter Matuschanskayasky.

Funnily, this minor role has a big impact on Matthau's reputation - a massive rumour was sparked by the pseudonym, with many claiming Matuschanskayasky was his real name. Because that's much more normal.