Alan Wolf Arkin (born March 26, 1934) is an American actor, director, musician and singer. He is known for starring in such films as Wait Until Dark, The Russians Are Coming, the Russians Are Coming, The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, Catch-22, The In-Laws, Edward Scissorhands, Glengarry Glen Ross, Marley & Me, and Little Miss Sunshine, for which he won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor in 2006. He is the father of actors Adam Arkin, Anthony Arkin, and Matthew Arkin.

Personal life[link]

Arkin was born in Brooklyn, New York City, the son of Beatrice (née Wortis), a teacher, and David I. Arkin, a painter and writer who mostly worked as a teacher.^[1] Arkin was raised in a Jewish family with "no emphasis on religion"; his maternal grandfather was an immigrant from Odessa, Ukraine.^[2] The family moved from Brooklyn to Los Angeles when Arkin was 11 years old,^[2] but an eight-month Hollywood strike cost Arkin's father a set designer job he had wanted to take. During the 1950s Red Scare, Arkin's parents were accused of being Communists, which led to David losing his job when he refused to answer questions about his political affiliation. David challenged the dismissal and was ultimately vindicated, but only after his death.^[3]

Arkin attended Bennington College in Vermont.

Arkin has been married three times. He and Jeremy Yaffe, to whom he was married from 1955 to 1961, have two sons: Adam Arkin, born August 19, 1956, and Matthew Arkin, born in 1960. In 1967, Arkin had son Anthony (Tony) Dana Arkin with actress-screenwriter Barbara Dana (born 1940), to whom he was married from June 16, 1964 to the mid-1990s. In 1996, Arkin married a psychotherapist, Suzanne Newlander.^[3] As of 2007, they live in New Mexico.

He is the first cousin of children's author Edward Irving Wortis, who is better known by his pen name Avi.

Career[link]

Early work[link]

Arkin, who had been taking acting lessons since age 10, became a scholarship student at various drama academies, including one run by the Stanislavsky student Benjamin Zemach, who taught Arkin a psychological approach to acting.^[4] Arkin attended Los Angeles City College from 1951 to 1953. He also attended Bennington College. With two friends, he formed the folk music group The Tarriers, in which Arkin sang and played guitar. The band members co-composed the group's 1956 hit "The Banana Boat Song", a reworking, with some new lyrics, of a traditional, same-name Jamaican calypso folk song combined with another titled "Hill and Gully Rider".^[5] It reached #4 on the Billboard magazine chart the same year as Harry Belafonte's better-known hit version.^[6]

From 1958 to 1968, Arkin performed and recorded with the children's folk group, The Baby Sitters.^[7] He also performed the role of Dr. Pangloss in a concert staging of Leonard Bernstein's operetta Candide, alongside Madeline Kahn's Cunegonde. Arkin was an early member of The Second City comedy troupe in the 1960s.^[8] Arkin and his second wife, Barbara Dana, appeared together on the 1970–71 season of Sesame Street as a comical couple named Larry and Phyllis who resolve their conflicts when they remember how to pronounce the word "cooperate." In 1985, he sang two selections by Jones & Schmidt on Ben Bagley's album Contemporary Broadway Revisited.

Acting[link]

Arkin is one of only six^[9] actors to receive an Academy Award nomination for Best Actor for his first screen appearance (for The Russians Are Coming, the Russians Are Coming in 1966). Two years later, he was again nominated, for The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter.

Among the films for which he has garnered the most favorable critical attention are his Oscar-nominated turns above; Wait Until Dark, as the erudite killer stalking Audrey Hepburn; director Mike Nichols' Catch-22; The Seven-Per-Cent Solution (where he played Sigmund Freud); writer Jules Feiffer's Little Murders, which Arkin directed; the The In-Laws, co-starring Peter Falk; Glengarry Glen Ross; and Little Miss Sunshine, for which he received his third Oscar nomination, in the category of Best Supporting Actor. On the February 11, 2007 he received a BAFTA Film Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role for his portrayal of Grandfather Edwin in Little Miss Sunshine. On February 25, 2007, upon winning the Academy Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role, Arkin, who plays a foul-mouthed grandfather with a taste for heroin said, "More than anything, I'm deeply moved by the open-hearted appreciation our small film has received, which in these fragmented times speaks so openly of the possibility of innocence, growth and connection".^[10] At 72 years old, Arkin became the sixth oldest winner of the Best Supporting Actor Oscar. In 2006–07, Arkin was cast in supporting roles in Rendition and The Santa Clause 3: The Escape Clause as Bud Newman (Carol's Dad), starring with Tim Allen, Martin Short, Elizabeth Mitchell, Judge Reinhold and Wendy Crewson. He also portrayed the Chief of CONTROL in 2008's Get Smart.

On Broadway, Arkin starred in Enter Laughing, for which he won a Tony Award, and Luv. He also directed The Sunshine Boys, among others.

Directing[link]

Arkin's directorial debut, in 1969, was a 12-minute children's film, People Soup, starring his sons Adam Arkin and Matthew Arkin. Based on a story he had published in the Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction in the 1950s, People Soup is a fantasy about two boys who experiment with various kitchen ingredients until they concoct a magical soup which transforms them into different animals and objects. The original story had a girl and a boy as its characters, but Arkin changed them to two boys to cast his sons in the film.^[11]

Arkin's most acclaimed directorial effort is Little Murders, released in 1971. Written by cartoonist Jules Feiffer, Little Murders is a black comedy film starring Elliott Gould and Marcia Rodd about a girl, Patsy (Rodd), who brings home her boyfriend, Alfred (Gould), to meet her severely dysfunctional family amidst a series of random shootings, garbage strikes and electrical outages ravaging the neighborhood. The film opened to a lukewarm review by Roger Greenspan,^[12] and a more positive one by Vincent Canby^[13] in the New York Times. Roger Ebert's review in the Chicago Sun Times was more enthusiastic, saying, "One of the reasons it works, and is indeed a definitive reflection of America's darker moods, is that it breaks audiences down into isolated individuals, vulnerable and uncertain."^[14]

Arkin also directed Fire Sale (1977), Samuel Beckett Is Coming Soon (1993) and Arigo (2000).

Writing[link]

Arkin is the author of many books, including the children's stories Tony's Hard Work Day (illustrated by James Stevenson, 1972), The Lemming Condition (illustrated by Joan Sandin, 1976), Halfway Through the Door: An Actor's Journey Toward Self (1979) and The Clearing (1986 continuation of Lemming). In March 2011, he released his memoir, An Improvised Life.^[15]

Filmography[link]

References[link]

External links[link]

• Alan Arkin at AllRovi
• Alan Arkin at the Internet Broadway Database
• Alan Arkin at the Internet Off-Broadway Database
• Alan Arkin at the Internet Movie Database
• Q&A with Arkin at Time.com
• Folkera Tarriers article
• Stephen Capen Interview on Worldguide, Futurist Radio Hour – October 10, 1995

This biographical article needs additional citations for verification. Please help by adding reliable sources. Contentious material about living persons that is unsourced or poorly sourced must be removed immediately, especially if potentially libelous or harmful. (July 2009)

Paula Prentiss
with husband Dick Benjamin (left) and Jack Cassidy from He & She, 1967
Born	Paula Ragusa (1938-03-04) March 4, 1938 (age 74) San Antonio, Texas
Years active	1960 – 2007
Spouse	Richard Benjamin (1961 – present; 2 children)
Children	Ross Thomas Benjamin (b. 1974) Prentiss Benjamin (b. 1978)

Paula Prentiss (born March 4, 1938), born as Paula Ragusa, is an American actress well known for her film roles in Where the Boys Are, Man's Favorite Sport?, The Stepford Wives, What's New Pussycat?, The Black Marble, and The Parallax View and her co-starring role in the television situation comedy He and She.

Early life[link]

Prentiss was born Paula Ragusa in San Antonio, Texas, the daughter of Paulene (née Gardner) and Thomas J. Ragusa, who was a Social Sciences professor at the University of the Incarnate Word in San Antonio. Prentiss' father was of Italian descent. Prentiss was always the tallest person in her school classes.^[1][2][3][4] In 1958, while attending Northwestern University's school of drama, she met someone taller: her future husband, Richard Benjamin, who also impressed her with his sophistication.^[3] While still a student at Northwestern, she was discovered and offered a Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer film contract.^[3][5] Prentiss initially intended to be a doctor, but somehow became involved with theater while at Northwestern.^[6]

Career[link]

Prentiss first became known as a comedic actress with such films as Where the Boys Are, The Honeymoon Machine, Bachelor in Paradise, and The Horizontal Lieutenant, where she was teamed with actor Jim Hutton.

She later starred with Rock Hudson in Man's Favorite Sport?, in The World of Henry Orient and What's New, Pussycat? with Peter Sellers, Catch-22 and Last of the Red Hot Lovers with Alan Arkin, In Harm's Way with John Wayne and Kirk Douglas, Move with Elliott Gould, The Parallax View with Warren Beatty, and Billy Wilder's last film Buddy Buddy with Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau.

For one season (1967–1968), Prentiss starred with her husband, Richard Benjamin, in the CBS sitcom He & She. Although not a big ratings success, the stylish series was considered ahead of its time in humor and sophistication. It is viewed as a landmark sitcom and a thematic precursor to the crop of MTM-style sitcoms to emerge a couple of seasons later. Prentiss was nominated for an Emmy Award for Best Performance by an Actress in a Comedy.

Personal life[link]

Prentiss and Benjamin in 1973.

Prentiss and actor/director Richard Benjamin married on October 26, 1961; her career was soaring while Benjamin still struggled for acting roles.^[3][7] In 1965, while filming What's New, Pussycat in Paris, Prentiss suffered a nervous breakdown which kept her out of films for five years, returning to work with Benjamin in the short-lived television series, He and She.^[3][7] The couple also appeared together in Catch-22 (1970) and Saturday the 14th (1981), as well as various plays.^[6][8]

They have two adult children, Ross and Prentiss, and live in the Hollywood Hills.

Ann Prentiss, her sister, was also an actress.

Filmography[link]

References[link]

Notes

External links[link]

Biography portal

• Paula Prentiss at the Internet Movie Database
• Paula Prentiss at the Internet Broadway Database
• Paula Prentiss at the Internet Off-Broadway Database
• Paula Prentiss at AllRovi

Peter Falk
As Columbo, circa 1976
Born	Peter Michael Falk (1927-09-16)September 16, 1927 New York City, US
Died	June 23, 2011(2011-06-23) (aged 83) Beverly Hills, California, U.S.
Cause of death	Pneumonia
Nationality	American
Education	Ossining High School
Alma mater	Hamilton College
Occupation	Actor
Years active	1956–2008
Spouse	Alyce Mayo (m. 1960–1976; divorced) Shera Danese (m. 1977–2011; his death)
Children	2 daughters
Website
PeterFalk.com

Peter Michael Falk (September 16, 1927 â€“ June 23, 2011) was an American actor, best known for his role as Lt. Frank Columbo in the television series Columbo. He appeared in numerous films such as The Princess Bride, The Great Race and Next, and television guest roles. He was nominated for an Academy Award twice (for 1960's Murder, Inc. and 1961's Pocketful of Miracles), and won the Emmy Award on five occasions (four for Columbo) and the Golden Globe award once. Director William Friedkin, when discussing Falk's role in his 1978 film The Brink's Job, said that "Peter has a great range from comedy to drama. He could break your heart or he could make you laugh."^[1]

In 1968, he starred with Gene Barry in a ninety-minute television pilot about a highly-skilled, laid-back detective. Columbo eventually became part of an anthology series titled The NBC Mystery Movie, along with McCloud and McMillan & Wife. The detective series stayed on NBC from 1971 to 1978, took a respite, and returned occasionally on ABC from 1989 to 2003. Falk was "everyone's favorite rumpled television detective", wrote historian David Fantle.^[2]

In 1996 TV Guide ranked him number 21 on its 50 Greatest TV Stars of All Time list.^[3]

Early life[link]

Born in New York City, Falk was the son of Michael Peter Falk, owner of a clothing and dry goods store, and his wife, Madeline (née Hochhauser),^[4] an accountant and buyer.^[5] His family was Jewish;^[6] his father was of Russian ancestry^[7] and his mother was of Bohemian descent.^[8][9]

Falk's right eye was surgically removed when he was three because of a retinoblastoma; he wore a glass eye for most of his life.^[10] Despite this, Falk participated in team sports, mainly baseball and basketball, as a boy. In a 1997 interview in Cigar Aficionado magazine with Arthur Marx, Falk said, "I remember once in high school the umpire called me out at third base when I was sure I was safe. I got so mad I took out my glass eye, handed it to him and said, 'Try this.' I got such a laugh you wouldn't believe."^[11]

Falk's first stage appearance was at the age of 12 in The Pirates of Penzance at Camp High Point^[12] in upstate New York, where one of his camp counselors was Ross Martin (they would later act together in The Great Race and the Columbo episode "Suitable For Framing"). Falk attended Ossining High School in Westchester County, New York, where he was a star athlete and president of his senior class. After graduating from high school in 1945, Falk briefly attended Hamilton College in Clinton, New York, and then tried to join the armed services as World War II was drawing to a close. Rejected because of his glass eye, he joined the United States Merchant Marine, and served as a cook and mess boy. "There they don't care if you're blind or not", Falk said in 1997. "The only one on a ship who has to see is the captain. And in the case of the Titanic, he couldn't see very well, either."^[11] Falk recalls this period in his autobiography:

"A year on the water was enough for me, so I returned to college. I didn't stay long. Too itchy. What to do next? I signed up to go to Israel to fight in the war with Egypt. ... I just wanted more excitement ... However, the war, to everyone's amazement, was over in the blink of an eye."^[13]

After a year and a half in the Merchant Marine, Falk returned to Hamilton College and also attended the University of Wisconsin. He transferred to the New School for Social Research in New York City, which awarded him a bachelor's degree in literature and political science in 1951. He then traveled in Europe and worked on a railroad in Yugoslavia for six months.^[14] He returned to New York, enrolling at Syracuse University,^[11] but he recalled in his 2006 memoir, Just One More Thing, that he was unsure what he wanted to do with his life for years after leaving high school.^[15]

Falk obtained a Master of Public Administration degree at the Maxwell School of Syracuse University in 1953. The program was designed to train civil servants for the federal government, a career that Falk said in his memoir that he had "no interest in and no aptitude for."^[16] He applied for a job with the CIA, but was rejected because of his membership in the Marine Cooks and Stewards Union while serving in the Merchant Marine, even though he was required to join and was not active in the union.^[17] He then became a management analyst with the Connecticut State Budget Bureau in Hartford.^[18] Falk characterized his Hartford job as "efficiency expert". "I was such an efficiency expert that the first morning on the job, I couldn't find the building where I was to report for work", he said in 1997. "Naturally, I was late, which I always was in those days, but ironically it was my tendency never to be on time that got me started as a professional actor."^[11]

Career[link]

Stage career[link]

While working in Hartford, Falk joined a community theater group called the Mark Twain Masquers, where he performed in plays that included The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial, The Crucible, and The Country Girl by Clifford Odets. Falk also studied with Eva Le Gallienne, who was giving an acting class at the White Barn Theatre in Westport, Connecticut. Falk later recalled that he had "lied his way" into the class, which was for professional actors. He drove down to Westport from Hartford every Wednesday, when the classes were held, and was usually late.^[11]

In his 1997 interview with Arthur Marx in Cigar Aficionado magazine, Falk said "One evening when I arrived late, she looked at me and asked, 'Young man, why are you always late?' and I said, 'I have to drive down from Hartford.'" She looked down her nose and said, "What do you do in Hartford? There's no theater there. How do you make a living acting?" Falk confessed he wasn't a professional actor. According to Falk, she looked at him sternly and said, "Well, you should be." He drove back to Hartford and quit his job.^[11]

Falk stayed with the Le Gallienne group for a few months more, and obtained a letter of recommendation from Le Galliene to an agent at the William Morris Agency in New York.^[11] In 1956, he left his job with the Budget Bureau and moved to Greenwich Village to pursue an acting career.

His first New York stage role was in an Off-Broadway production of Molière's Dom Juan at the Fourth Street Theatre that closed after its only performance on January 3, 1956. Falk played the second lead, Sganarelle.^[19] His next theater role proved far better for his career. In May, he appeared at Circle in the Square in a revival of The Iceman Cometh with Jason Robards playing the bartender.^[18][20]

Falk made his Broadway debut also in 1956, appearing in Alexander Ostrovsky's Diary of a Scoundrel. As the year came to an end, he appeared again on Broadway as an English soldier in Shaw's Saint Joan, with Siobhán McKenna.^[21] In 1972, he appeared in Broadway's The Prisoner of Second Avenue. According to film historian Ephraim Katz, "His characters derive added authenticity from his squinty gaze, the result of the loss of an eye ..."^[22]

Early films[link]

Despite his stage success, a theatrical agent advised Falk not to expect much film acting work because of his glass eye.^[18] He failed a screen test at Columbia Pictures and was told by studio boss Harry Cohn that "for the same price I can get an actor with two eyes." He also failed to get a role in the film Marjorie Morningstar, despite a promising interview for the second lead.^[23] His first film performances were in small roles in Wind Across the Everglades (1958), The Bloody Brood (1959) and Pretty Boy Floyd (1960).^[24]

Falk's performance in Murder, Inc. (1960) was a turning point in his career. He was cast in the supporting role of killer Abe Reles, in a film based on the real-life murder gang of that name, that had terrorized New York in the 1930s. The New York Times film critic Bosley Crowther, while dismissing the movie as "an average gangster film", singled out Falk's "amusingly vicious performance."^[25]

Crowther wrote:^[25]

Mr. Falk, moving as if weary, looking at people out of the corners of his eyes and talking as if he had borrowed Marlon Brando's chewing gum, seems a travesty of a killer, until the water suddenly freezes in his eyes and he whips an icepick from his pocket and starts punching holes in someone's ribs. Then viciousness pours out of him and you get a sense of a felon who is hopelessly cracked and corrupt.

The film turned out to be Falk's breakout role. In his autobiography, Just One More Thing (2006), Falk said that his selection for the film from thousands of other Off-Broadway actors was a "miracle" that "made my career" and that without it, he would not have gotten the other significant movie roles that he later played.^[26] Falk, who played Reles again in the 1960 TV series The Witness,^[24] was nominated for a Best Supporting Actor Academy Award for his performance in the film.

In 1961, multiple Academy Award-winning director Frank Capra cast Falk in the comedy Pocketful of Miracles. The film was Capra's last feature, and although it was not the commercial success he hoped it would be, he "gushed about Falk's performance."^[2] Falk was nominated for an Oscar for his role. In his autobiography Capra writes about Falk:

The entire production was agony ... except for Peter Falk. He was my joy, my anchor to reality. Introducing that remarkable talent to the techniques of comedy made me forget pains, tired blood, and maniacal hankerings to murder Glenn Ford (the film's star). Thank you Peter Falk."^[27]:480

For his part, Falk says that he "never worked with a director who showed greater enjoyment of actors and the acting craft." Falk says, "There is nothing more important to an actor than to know that the one person who represents the audience to you, the director, is responding well to what you are trying to do." Falk recalled one time that Capra reshot a scene even though he yelled "Cut and Print", indicating the scene was finalized. When Falk asked him why he wanted it reshot, "he laughed and said that he loved the scene so much he just wanted to see us do it again. How's that for support!"^[2]

For the remainder of the 1960s, Falk had mainly small movie roles and TV guest-starring appearances. Falk turned in a gem of a performance as one of two cabbies who falls victim to greed in the epic 1963 star-studded comedy It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World, even though he appears only in the last fifth of the movie. Other roles included a comical crook in the 1964 Rat Pack film, Robin and the 7 Hoods, and the 1965 spoof The Great Race, with Jack Lemmon and Tony Curtis.

Early television roles[link]

in Decoy (1959)

Falk first appeared on television in 1957, in the dramatic anthology programs that later became known as the "Golden Age of Television." He appeared in one episode of Robert Montgomery Presents in 1957, and also appeared in Studio One, Kraft Television Theater, New York Confidential, Naked City, Have Gun–Will Travel and Decoy.^[24] On The Twilight Zone he portrayed a Castro-type revolutionary complete with beard who was drunk with power and kept seeing his assassins in a newly acquired mirror.

In 1961, Falk was nominated for an Emmy Award^[28] for his performance in the episode "Cold Turkey" of James Whitmore's short-lived series The Law and Mr. Jones on ABC. On September 29, 1961, Falk and Walter Matthau guest-starred in the premiere episode, "The Million Dollar Dump," of ABC's crime drama Target: The Corruptors!, with Stephen McNally. He won an Emmy for The Price of Tomatoes, a Dick Powell TV drama in 1962.^[24]

Falk's first television series was in the title role of the drama The Trials of O'Brien, in which he played a lawyer. The show ran in 1965 and 1966 and was cancelled after 22 episodes.^[24]

In 1971, Pierre Cossette produced the first Grammy Awards show on television with some help from Falk. Cossette writes in his autobiography, "What meant the most to me, though, is the fact that Peter Falk saved my ass. I love show business, and I love Peter Falk."^[29]

[edit] Columbo

Although Falk appeared in numerous other television roles in the 1960s and 1970s, he is best known as the star of the TV series Columbo, "everyone's favorite rumpled television detective", writes historian David Fantle. His character was a shabby and ostensibly absent-minded police detective lieutenant, who had first appeared in the 1968 film Prescription: Murder. Falk described his role to Fantle:

Columbo has a genuine mistiness about him. It seems to hang in the air ... [and] he's capable of being distracted ... Columbo is an ass-backwards Sherlock Holmes. Holmes had a long neck, Columbo has no neck; Holmes smoked a pipe, Columbo chews up six cigars a day."^[2]

Television critic Ben Falk adds that Falk "created an iconic cop ... who always got his man (or woman) after a tortuous cat-and-mouse investigation." He notes also that the idea for the character was "apparently inspired by Dostoyevsky's dogged police inspector, Porfiry Petrovich, in the novel Crime and Punishment.^[30]

Falk tries to analyze the character and notes the correlation between his own personality and Columbo's:

I'm a Virgo Jew, and that means I have an obsessive thoroughness. It's not enough to get most of the details, it's necessary to get them all. I've been accused of perfectionism. When Lew Wasserman (head of Universal Studios) said that Falk is a perfectionist, I don't know whether it was out of affection or because he felt I was a monumental pain in the ass."^[2]

With "general amazement", Falk notes that "the show is all over the world". He added, "I've been to little villages in Africa with maybe one TV set, and little kids will run up to me shouting, 'Columbo, Columbo!'"^[2] Singer Johnny Cash recalled acting in one episode, and although he was not an experienced actor, he writes in his autobiography, "Peter Falk was good to me. I wasn't at all confident about handling a dramatic role, and every day he helped me in all kinds of little ways."^[31]

The debut episode in 1971 was directed by 25-year-old Steven Spielberg in one of his earliest directing roles. Falk recalled the episode to Spielberg biographer Joseph McBride:

Let's face it, we had some good fortune at the beginning. Our debut episode, in 1971, was directed by this young kid named Steven Spielberg. I told the producers, Link and Levinson: "This guy is too good for Columbo" ... Steven was shooting me with a long lens from across the street. That wasn't common twenty years ago. The comfort level it gave me as an actor, besides its great look artistically â€” well, it told you that this wasn't any ordinary director."^[32]

The character of Columbo had previously been played by Bert Freed in a single TV episode and by Thomas Mitchell on Broadway. Falk first played Columbo in Prescription: Murder, a 1968 TV-movie, and from 1971 to 1978 Columbo aired regularly on NBC as part of the umbrella series NBC Mystery Movie. All episodes were of TV-movie length, in a 90 or 120 minutes slot including commercials. The show returned on ABC in the form of a less frequent series of TV-movies, still starring Falk, from 1989 until 2003.^[24] Falk won four Emmys for his role in Columbo.^[33]

The series was so popular that co-creator William Link wrote a series of short stories published as The Columbo Collection (Crippen & Landru, 2010) which includes a drawing by Falk of himself as Columbo, and the cover features a caricature of Falk/Columbo by Al Hirschfeld.

Later career[link]

Falk was a close friend of independent film director John Cassavetes and appeared in Cassavetes' films Husbands, A Woman Under the Influence, and, in a cameo, at the end of Opening Night. Cassavetes, in turn, guest-starred in the Columbo episode "Étude in Black" in 1972. Falk describes his experiences working with Cassavetes, and specifically remembers his directing strategies such as "shooting an actor when he might be unaware the camera was running."

You never knew when the camera might be going. And it was never: 'Stop. Cut. Start again.' John would walk in the middle of a scene and talk, and though you didn't realize it, the camera kept going. So I never knew what the hell he was doing. [Laughs] But he ultimately made me, and I think every actor, less self-conscious, less aware of the camera than anybody I've ever worked with."^[34]

In 1978, he appeared on the comedy TV show The Dean Martin Celebrity Roast, where Frank Sinatra was the evening's victim.

Falk at a book signing for his 2006 autobiography Just One More Thing

Falk continued to work in films, including his performance as a questionable ex-CIA agent of dubious sanity in the comedy The In-Laws. Director Arthur Hiller said during an interview that the "film started out because Alan Arkin and Peter Falk wanted to work together. They went to Warner's and said, 'We'd like to do a picture,' and Warner's said fine ... and out came The In-laws ... of all the films I've done, The In-laws is the one I get the most comments on."^[1]:290 Movie critic Roger Ebert compared the film with a later remake:

Peter Falk and Alan Arkin in the earlier film, versus Michael Douglas and Albert Brooks this time ... yet the chemistry is better in the earlier film. Falk goes into his deadpan lecturer mode, slowly and patiently explaining things that sound like utter nonsense. Arkin develops good reasons for suspecting he is in the hands of a madman."^[35]

He also appeared in The Princess Bride, Murder By Death, The Cheap Detective, Vibes, Made, and (as himself) in Wim Wenders' 1987 film Wings of Desire and its 1993 sequel, Faraway, So Close!. In 1998, Falk returned to the New York stage to star in an Off-Broadway production of Arthur Miller's Mr. Peters' Connections. His previous stage work included shady real estate salesman Shelley "the Machine" Levine in a Boston/Los Angeles production of David Mamet's prizewinning Glengarry Glen Ross.

Falk also starred in such holiday television movies as A Town Without Christmas (2001), Finding John Christmas (2003) and When Angels Come to Town (2004). In 2005, he starred in The Thing About My Folks. Although movie critic Roger Ebert was not impressed with most of the other actors, he writes in his review, " ... we discover once again what a warm and engaging actor Peter Falk is. I can't recommend the movie, but I can be grateful that I saw it, for Falk."^[36] In 2007, Falk appeared with Nicolas Cage in the thriller Next.

Personal life[link]

Falk married Alyce Mayo, whom he had met when they were both students at Syracuse University,^[37] on April 17, 1960. They adopted two daughters, Catherine (who is a private investigator) and Jackie. They divorced in 1976. On December 7, 1977, Falk married actress Shera Danese,^[38] who guest-starred on the Columbo series on numerous occasions.

Falk was an accomplished artist, and in October 2006 he had an exhibition of his artwork at the Butler Institute of American Art.^[39] He took classes at the Art Students League of New York for many years.^[40][41] Examples of his sketches can be seen on his official website.

Falk was also a chess aficionado and was a spectator at the American Open in Santa Monica, California, in November 1972, and at the U.S. Open in Pasadena, California, in August 1983.^[42]

His memoir, Just One More Thing (ISBN 978-0786717958) was published by Carroll & Graf on August 23, 2006.

Of death, he once said, "It is just the gateway."^[43]

Failing health and death[link]

Rumors of Falk's dementia plagued the actor in the final years of his life; exacerbated when in late April 2008, Falk was photographed by Paparazzi looking disheveled and acting animated in the streets of Beverly Hills. Though the actor said his behavior was due to his frustration over being unable to remember where he had parked his car, the images of his erratic appearance and behavior were published by the media, and Falk was seldom seen in public after the incident.^[44]

At a two-day conservatorship trial in Los Angeles in June 2009, one of Falk's personal physicians, Dr. Stephen Read, reported that Falk had rapidly slipped into dementia after a series of dental operations in 2007.^[45] Dr. Read said it was unclear whether Falk's condition had worsened as a result of anesthesia or some other reaction to the operations. He went on to add that Falk's condition was so bad he could no longer remember the character of Columbo. Shera Danese Falk was appointed as her husband's conservator.^[46]

The 83-year-old Falk died at his longtime Roxbury Drive Beverly Hills home on the evening of June 23, 2011.^[47][48] The cause of death was later revealed as cardiorespiratory arrest, with pneumonia and Alzheimer's disease as underlying causes.^[49] Falk was survived by his wife and two daughters.^[50] His daughters said they would remember his "wisdom and humor".^[51] Falk is buried at Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery in Los Angeles, California.^[52]

Falk's death was greeted with tributes from many film celebrities.^[53][54] Steven Spielberg said, "I learned more about acting from him at that early stage of my career than I had from anyone else."^[55] Stephen Fry tweeted that Columbo was "TV’s greatest ever detective."^[56] Rob Reiner said, "He was a completely unique actor," and went on to say that Falk's work with Alan Arkin in The In-Laws was "one of the most brilliant comedy pairings we've seen on screen."^[57]

Filmography[link]

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Peter Falk

• Official website
• Peter Falk at the Internet Movie Database
• Peter Falk at the Internet Broadway Database
• Peter Falk at the Internet Off-Broadway Database
• Peter Falk at the TCM Movie Database
• Peter Falk at AllRovi
• Peter Falk on Charlie Rose
• Works by or about Peter Falk in libraries (WorldCat catalog)
• Peter Falk collected news and commentary at The New York Times

• "'Just One More Thing' About Falk, TV's 'Columbo'". Fresh Air. June 27, 2011. NPR. http://www.npr.org/2011/06/27/137446127/just-one-more-thing-about-falk-tvs-columbo. 
• Peter Falk at Emmys.com

Eli Wallach
From the trailer for Baby Doll (1956)
Born	(1915-12-07) December 7, 1915 (age 96) Brooklyn, New York, U.S.
Residence	East Hampton, New York
Nationality	American
Education	University of Texas at Austin
Alma mater	Neighborhood Playhouse
Occupation	Actor
Years active	1945–present
Home town	New York City, New York
Spouse	Anne Jackson (1948–present)
Children	3
Family	A.O. Scott (Great Nephew)
Awards	BAFTA Awards, Tony Awards, Emmy Awards, Honorary Academy Award
Signature

Eli Herschel Wallach (born December 7, 1915) is an American film, television and stage actor who gained fame in the late 1950s. For his performance in Baby Doll he won a BAFTA Award for Best Newcomer and a Golden Globe nomination. Among his most famous roles are Tuco in The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966) and Calvera in The Magnificent Seven. Other portrayals include Don Altobello in The Godfather Part III, Cotton Weinberger in The Two Jakes, and Arthur Abbott in The Holiday. He has remained active well into his nineties, with roles in recent movies such as Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps and The Ghost Writer.

Wallach has received BAFTA Awards, Tony Awards and Emmy Awards for his work. He received an Honorary Academy Award at the 2nd Annual Governors Awards, presented on November 13, 2010.

Early life[link]

Wallach was born in Red Hook, Brooklyn at 166 Union St., the son of Polish Jewish immigrants Bertha (née Schorr) and Abraham Wallach. They were the only Jewish family in an otherwise predominantly Italian American neighborhood.^[1][2][3] His parents owned "Bertha's", a candy store.^[4] Wallach graduated in 1936 from the University of Texas at Austin with a degree in history^[5] and in 1938 received a masters degree in education from the City College of New York.^[6][7] He gained his first Method experience at the Neighborhood Playhouse. While attending the University of Texas Wallach performed in a play with fellow students Ann Sheridan and Walter Cronkite.^[8]

Wallach served as a United States Army staff sergeant in a military hospital in Hawaii during World War II. He was soon sent to Officer Candidate School (OCS) in Abilene, Texas, to train as a medical administrative officer. He graduated as a Second Lieutenant and was sent to Madison Barracks in upstate New York. He was promptly shipped to Casablanca and, later in the war, to France. It was there that a superior discovered his acting history and asked him to form a show for the patients. He and other members from his unit wrote a play called Is This the Army?, which was inspired by Irving Berlin's This is the Army. In the comedic play, Wallach and the other men clowned around as various dictators, with Wallach portraying Adolf Hitler, the leader of Nazi Germany.

Career[link]

Wallach took classes in acting at the Dramatic Workshop of the New School in New York with the influential German director Erwin Piscator. Wallach made his Broadway debut in 1945 and won a Tony Award in 1951 for his performance in the Tennessee Williams play The Rose Tattoo. Additional theater credits include Mister Roberts, The Teahouse of the August Moon, Camino Real, Major Barbara, Luv, and Staircase, co-starring Milo O'Shea, which was a serious depiction of an aging homosexual couple. He also played a role in a tour of Antony and Cleopatra, produced by the actress Katharine Cornell in 1946.^[9] He last starred on stage as the title character in Visiting Mr. Green.

Wallach's film debut was in Elia Kazan's controversial Baby Doll, and he went on to a prolific career in films, although rarely in a starring role. Other early films include The Lineup, The Misfits, The Magnificent Seven (he portrayed the Mexican bandit Calvera), Lord Jim as the General, a comic role in How to Steal a Million (the latter two with Peter O'Toole), and perhaps most famously, as Tuco (the 'Ugly') in Sergio Leone's The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. After the latter's success, Wallach appeared in several other "Spaghetti Westerns", including Ace High with Terence Hill and Bud Spencer.

Wallach is central to one of the most infamous show business legends. In 1953 he was cast as Angelo Maggio in the movie From Here to Eternity but was abruptly replaced by Frank Sinatra before filming began. Sinatra went on to win an Oscar for the performance and revived his career. Sinatra used pressure from his underworld connections to get the part. That inspired a similar incident depicted in the classic 1972 film The Godfather. To spare Sinatra embarrassment, Wallach says he turned down the role to appear in a Tennessee Williams play: "Whenever Sinatra saw me, he’d say, 'Hello, you crazy actor!'"^[2]

In 2006, Wallach made a guest appearance on the NBC show Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, playing a former writer who was blacklisted in the 1950s. His character was a writer on The Philco Comedy Hour, a show that aired on a fictional NBS network. This is a reference to The Philco Television Playhouse, in several episodes of which Wallach actually appeared in 1955. Wallach earned a 2007 Emmy nomination for his work on the show.

Before accepting a role as a villain in Leone's Once Upon a Time in the West, Henry Fonda called Wallach and asked "What the hell does he [Leone] know about the West?" Wallach assured Fonda he would be pleasantly surprised if he accepted the role. After the film's success, Fonda called Wallach back to thank him.

Wallach and Leone, though having built a good relationship during shooting The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, had a falling-out later on. Leone had asked Wallach to play a role in his upcoming film, A Fistful of Dynamite, but the actor explained he had a scheduling conflict. After much pleading Wallach finally relented and turned down the other offer and waited for Leone to raise enough Hollywood money for the picture. However, the studio Leone went to had an actor, Rod Steiger, with one more picture in his studio contract and the studio announced that Leone would have to use him if they were to put up any financing. Leone then called to apologize to Wallach, who remained dumbstruck on the other end of the line. After even refusing to give Wallach a token payment for losing out on two jobs, the actor said, "I'll sue you"—to which Leone replied, "Get in line", and slammed down the phone. In his autobiography, Wallach relates the incident as regrettably being the final time the two spoke to one another. On February 27, 2011, he received an Honorary Academy Award for his contribution to the film industry.

Wallach played Mr. Freeze in the 1960s Batman television series. He wrote in his autobiography that he received more fan mail about his role as Mr. Freeze than about all of his other roles combined.

Personal life[link]

Wallach and Jackson in 2010

Eli Wallach has been married to stage actress Anne Jackson (born 1926) since March 5, 1948, and they have three children: Peter (born 1951), Roberta (born 1955) Katherine (born 1958): Roberta had an acting experience as a mentally disturbed teenager in Paul Zindel's The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds.

In 2005, Wallach released his autobiography The Good, the Bad and Me: In My Anecdotage. In this tome, Wallach wrote about his most famous role as Tuco in The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, commenting that he did not realize he was going to be "blessed" with that title until he saw the film. He remarked that it was an honor to work with Clint Eastwood, whom he praised for his professionalism. Wallach also mentioned that director Sergio Leone was notoriously careless regarding the safety of his actors during dangerous scenes. It was during filming that Wallach accidentally drank from a bottle of acid that a film technician had carelessly placed next to his soda bottle. He spat it out immediately, but was furious because his vocal cords could have been damaged if he had swallowed any of it. Leone gave him some milk to wash his mouth out with and apologized for the incident, but also commented that accidents do happen.^[10]

Wallach lost sight in his left eye as the result of a stroke. According to his autobiography, the incident occurred "some years ago".

A. O. Scott, a film critic for the New York Times, is his great-nephew.^[11]

Filmography[link]

Film[link]