Peter Falk
Encyclopedia
Peter Michael Falk was an American actor, best known for his role as Lieutenant 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 and 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."
In 1996 TV Guide
ranked him number 21 on its 50 Greatest TV Stars of All Time list.
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. He was "everyone's favorite rumpled television detective", wrote historian David Fantle. Describing his [Falk's] role, Variety columnist Howard Prouty wrote, "The joy of all this is watching Columbo the fiendishly clever cover stories of the loathsome rats who consider themselves his better."
store, and his wife, Madeline (née Hochhauser), an accountant and buyer
. His father was Russian
ancestry and his mother of Polish
descent with Hungarian and Czech roots.
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. 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."
Falk's first stage appearance was at the age of 12 in The Pirates of Penzance
at Camp High Point
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." Falk recalls this period in his autobiography:
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. He returned to New York, enrolling at Syracuse University
, 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.
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." 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. He then became a management analyst with the Connecticut State Budget Bureau in Hartford
. 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."
, 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.
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.
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. 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. 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.
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
. 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 ..."
Despite his stage success, a theatrical agent advised Falk not to expect much film acting work because of his glass eye. 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. His first film performances were in small roles in Wind Across the Everglades (1958), The Bloody Brood
(1959) and Pretty Boy Floyd (1960).
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."
Crowther wrote:
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. Falk, who played Reles again in the 1960 TV series The Witness, 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." Falk was nominated for an Oscar for his role. In his autobiography Capra writes about Falk:
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!"
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
.
." 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
. 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 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.
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.
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."
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
.
Falk tries to analyze the character and notes the correlation between his own personality and Columbo's:
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!'" 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."
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:
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. Falk won four Emmys for his role in Columbo.
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.
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."
In 1978, he appeared on the comedy TV show The Dean Martin Celebrity Roast
, where Frank Sinatra
was the evening's victim.
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." Movie critic Roger Ebert
compared the film with a later remake:
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." In 2007, Falk appeared with Nicolas Cage
in the thriller Next.
, 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, 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
. He took classes at the Art Students League of New York
for many years. 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.
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."
At a two-day conservatorship
trial in Los Angeles in June 2009, one of Falk's personal physicians, Dr. Stephen Read, reported Falk rapidly slipped into dementia
after a series of dental operations in 2007. 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.
Falk died at his longtime Roxbury Dr. Beverly Hills home on the evening of June 23, 2011 at the age of 83. The cause of death was later revealed as cardiorespiratory arrest, with pneumonia
and Alzheimer's disease
as underlying causes. Falk was survived by his wife and two daughters. His daughters said they would remember his "wisdom and humor". Falk is buried at Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery
in Los Angeles, California
.
Falk's death was greeted with tributes from many film celebrities. Steven Spielberg
said, "I learned more about acting from him at that early stage of my career than I had from anyone else." Stephen Fry
tweeted that Columbo was "TV’s greatest ever detective." 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."
The Los Angeles Police Department
also issued a statement of condolence to Falk's family, stating they were "proud" to be associated with Columbo as well as stating that he was "one of the all-time great TV cops."
The Princess Bride (film)
The Princess Bride is a 1987 American film based on the 1973 novel of the same name by William Goldman, combining comedy, adventure, romance, and fantasy. The film was directed by Rob Reiner from a screenplay by Goldman...
, The Great Race
The Great Race
The Great Race is a 1965 slapstick comedy film starring Jack Lemmon, Tony Curtis, and Natalie Wood, directed by Blake Edwards, written by Blake Edwards and Arthur A. Ross, and with music by Henry Mancini and cinematography by Russell Harlan. The supporting cast includes Peter Falk, Keenan Wynn,...
and Next, and television guest roles and was nominated for an Academy Award twice (for 1960's Murder, Inc. and 1961's Pocketful of Miracles
Pocketful of Miracles
Pocketful of Miracles is a 1961 American comedy film that stars Bette Davis and Glenn Ford, directed by Frank Capra. The screenplay by Hal Kanter and Harry Tugend is based on the screenplay Lady for a Day by Robert Riskin, which was adapted from the Damon Runyon short story "Madame La Gimp".The...
), and won the Emmy Award
Emmy Award
An Emmy Award, often referred to simply as the Emmy, is a television production award, similar in nature to the Peabody Awards but more focused on entertainment, and is considered the television equivalent to the Academy Awards and the Grammy Awards .A majority of Emmys are presented in various...
on five occasions (four for Columbo) and the Golden Globe award
Golden Globe Award
The Golden Globe Award is an accolade bestowed by the 93 members of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association recognizing excellence in film and television, both domestic and foreign...
once. Director William Friedkin
William Friedkin
William Friedkin is an American film director, producer and screenwriter best known for directing The French Connection in 1971 and The Exorcist in 1973; for the former, he won the Academy Award for Best Director...
, when discussing Falk's role in his 1978 film The Brink's Job
The Brink's Job
The Brink's Job is a 1978 film directed by William Friedkin and starring Peter Falk, Peter Boyle, Allen Garfield, Warren Oates, Gena Rowlands, and Paul Sorvino. It is based on the Brink's robbery in Boston, where almost 3 million dollars were stolen....
said that "Peter has a great range from comedy to drama. He could break your heart or he could make you laugh."
In 1996 TV Guide
TV Guide
TV Guide is a weekly American magazine with listings of TV shows.In addition to TV listings, the publication features television-related news, celebrity interviews, gossip and film reviews and crossword puzzles...
ranked him number 21 on its 50 Greatest TV Stars of All Time list.
In 1968, he starred with Gene Barry
Gene Barry
Gene Barry was an American stage, screen, and television actor. Barry is best remembered for his leading roles in the films The Atomic City and The War of The Worlds and for his portrayal of the title character in the TV series Bat Masterson, among many roles.-Personal life:Barry was born...
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. He was "everyone's favorite rumpled television detective", wrote historian David Fantle. Describing his [Falk's] role, Variety columnist Howard Prouty wrote, "The joy of all this is watching Columbo the fiendishly clever cover stories of the loathsome rats who consider themselves his better."
Early life
Born in New York City, Falk was the son of Michael Peter Falk, owner of a clothing and dry goodsDry goods
Dry goods are products such as textiles, ready-to-wear clothing, and sundries. In U.S. retailing, a dry goods store carries consumer goods that are distinct from those carried by hardware stores and grocery stores, though "dry goods" as a term for textiles has been dated back to 1742 in England or...
store, and his wife, Madeline (née Hochhauser), an accountant and buyer
Purchasing manager
-External links:* http://www.careeroverview.com/purchasing-manager-career.html...
. His father was Russian
Russians
The Russian people are an East Slavic ethnic group native to Russia, speaking the Russian language and primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries....
ancestry and his mother of Polish
Poles
thumb|right|180px|The state flag of [[Poland]] as used by Polish government and diplomatic authoritiesThe Polish people, or Poles , are a nation indigenous to Poland. They are united by the Polish language, which belongs to the historical Lechitic subgroup of West Slavic languages of Central Europe...
descent with Hungarian and Czech roots.
Falk's right eye was surgically removed when he was three because of a retinoblastoma
Retinoblastoma
Retinoblastoma is a rapidly developing cancer that develops in the cells of retina, the light-detecting tissue of the eye. In the developed world, Rb has one of the best cure rates of all childhood cancers , with more than nine out of every ten sufferers surviving into...
; he wore a glass eye for most of his life. Despite this, Falk participated in team sports, mainly baseball and basketball, as a boy. In a 1997 interview in Cigar Aficionado
Cigar Aficionado
Cigar Aficionado is an American magazine that is dedicated to the world of cigars. Published since September 1992, the magazine is known for its articles about different brands of cigars worldwide, and for the celebrities that have appeared on its cover. It is also noted for its opposition to the...
magazine with Arthur Marx
Arthur Marx
Arthur Julius Marx was an American author, a former ranked amateur tennis player, and son of entertainer Groucho Marx and his first wife, Ruth Johnson....
, 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."
Falk's first stage appearance was at the age of 12 in The Pirates of Penzance
The Pirates of Penzance
The Pirates of Penzance; or, The Slave of Duty is a comic opera in two acts, with music by Arthur Sullivan and libretto by W. S. Gilbert. The opera's official premiere was at the Fifth Avenue Theatre in New York City on 31 December 1879, where the show was well received by both audiences...
at Camp High Point
Camp High Point
Camp High Point was an eight-week-long summer camp on Route 28A in West Shokan , New York. Located at the foot of Mt. High Point, on the shores of the Ashokan Reservoir, Camp High Point was a coeducational camp. It consisted of two separate campuses and a central area for administration, dining,...
in upstate New York, where one of his camp counselors was Ross Martin
Ross Martin
Ross Martin was a Polish-born American Emmy-nominated actor known for playing Artemus Gordon in the western TV series The Wild Wild West, starring Robert Conrad, and Andamo on Mr...
(they would later act together in The Great Race
The Great Race
The Great Race is a 1965 slapstick comedy film starring Jack Lemmon, Tony Curtis, and Natalie Wood, directed by Blake Edwards, written by Blake Edwards and Arthur A. Ross, and with music by Henry Mancini and cinematography by Russell Harlan. The supporting cast includes Peter Falk, Keenan Wynn,...
and the Columbo episode "Suitable For Framing"). Falk attended Ossining High School
Ossining High School
Ossining High School is public high school, located in Ossining, New York, colloquially known as OHS. Its building is located within the boundaries of the Downtown Ossining Historic District, added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1989....
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
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
was drawing to a close. Rejected because of his glass eye, he joined the United States Merchant Marine
United States Merchant Marine
The United States Merchant Marine refers to the fleet of U.S. civilian-owned merchant vessels, operated by either the government or the private sector, that engage in commerce or transportation of goods and services in and out of the navigable waters of the United States. The Merchant Marine is...
, 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." 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."
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
Yugoslavia
Yugoslavia refers to three political entities that existed successively on the western part of the Balkans during most of the 20th century....
for six months. He returned to New York, enrolling at Syracuse University
Syracuse University
Syracuse University is a private research university located in Syracuse, New York, United States. Its roots can be traced back to Genesee Wesleyan Seminary, founded by the Methodist Episcopal Church in 1832, which also later founded Genesee College...
, 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.
Falk obtained a Master of Public Administration
Master of Public Administration
The Master of Public Administration is a professional post-graduate degree in Public Administration. The MPA program prepares individuals to serve as managers in the executive arm of local, state/provincial, and federal/national government, and increasingly in nongovernmental organization and...
degree at the Maxwell School
Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs
The Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs is the public policy school of Syracuse University...
of Syracuse University
Syracuse University
Syracuse University is a private research university located in Syracuse, New York, United States. Its roots can be traced back to Genesee Wesleyan Seminary, founded by the Methodist Episcopal Church in 1832, which also later founded Genesee College...
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." He applied for a job with the CIA
Central Intelligence Agency
The Central Intelligence Agency is a civilian intelligence agency of the United States government. It is an executive agency and reports directly to the Director of National Intelligence, responsible for providing national security intelligence assessment to senior United States policymakers...
, 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. He then became a management analyst with the Connecticut State Budget Bureau in Hartford
Hartford, Connecticut
Hartford is the capital of the U.S. state of Connecticut. The seat of Hartford County until Connecticut disbanded county government in 1960, it is the second most populous city on New England's largest river, the Connecticut River. As of the 2010 Census, Hartford's population was 124,775, making...
. 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."
Stage career
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-MartialThe Caine Mutiny Court-Martial
The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial is a two-act play by Herman Wouk, which he adapted from his own novel, The Caine Mutiny.Wouk's novel covered a long stretch of time aboard the USS Caine, a Navy minesweeper in the Pacific...
, The Crucible
The Crucible
The Crucible is a 1952 play by the American playwright Arthur Miller. It is a dramatization of the Salem witch trials that took place in the Province of Massachusetts Bay during 1692 and 1693. Miller wrote the play as an allegory of McCarthyism, when the US government blacklisted accused communists...
, and The Country Girl
The Country Girl (1954 film)
The Country Girl is a 1954 drama film adapted by George Seaton from a Clifford Odets play of the same name, which tells the story of an alcoholic has-been actor struggling with the one last chance he's been given to resurrect his career. It stars Bing Crosby, Grace Kelly and William Holden. Seaton,...
by Clifford Odets
Clifford Odets
Clifford Odets was an American playwright, screenwriter, socialist, and social protester.-Early life:Odets was born in Philadelphia to Romanian- and Russian-Jewish immigrant parents, Louis Odets and Esther Geisinger, and raised in Philadelphia and the Bronx, New York. He dropped out of high...
. Falk also studied with Eva Le Gallienne
Eva Le Gallienne
Eva Le Gallienne was a well-known actress, producer, and director, during the first half of the 20th century.-Early life and early career:...
, who was giving an acting class at the White Barn Theatre
White Barn Theatre
The White Barn Theatre was a small theater founded by actress, producer and theater impresario Lucille Lortel on the property of her estate in Norwalk, Connecticut that premiered numerous plays from major playwrights and plays that went on to successful Broadway and Off-Broadway runs.Lortel founded...
in Westport, Connecticut
Westport, Connecticut
-Neighborhoods:* Saugatuck – around the Westport railroad station near the southwestern corner of the town – a built-up area with some restaurants, stores and offices....
. 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.
In his 1997 interview with Arthur Marx
Arthur Marx
Arthur Julius Marx was an American author, a former ranked amateur tennis player, and son of entertainer Groucho Marx and his first wife, Ruth Johnson....
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.
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
William Morris Agency
WME is the largest talent agency in the world, with offices in Beverly Hills, New York City, Nashville, London, and Miami. WME represents elite artists from all facets of the entertainment industry, including motion pictures, television, music, theatre, publishing, and physical production...
in New York. In 1956, he left his job with the Budget Bureau and moved to Greenwich Village
Greenwich Village
Greenwich Village, , , , .in New York often simply called "the Village", is a largely residential neighborhood on the west side of Lower Manhattan in New York City. A large majority of the district is home to upper middle class families...
to pursue an acting career.
His first New York stage role was in an Off-Broadway
Off-Broadway
Off-Broadway theater is a term for a professional venue in New York City with a seating capacity between 100 and 499, and for a specific production of a play, musical or revue that appears in such a venue, and which adheres to related trade union and other contracts...
production of Molière
Molière
Jean-Baptiste Poquelin, known by his stage name Molière, was a French playwright and actor who is considered to be one of the greatest masters of comedy in Western literature...
's Dom Juan
Dom Juan
Dom Juan or The Feast with the Statue is a French play by Molière, based on the legend of Don Juan. Molière's characters Dom Juan and Sganarelle are the French counterparts to the Spanish Don Juan and Catalinón, characters who would later become familiar to opera goers as Don Giovanni and Leporello...
at the Fourth Street Theatre that closed after its only performance on January 3, 1956. Falk played the second lead, Sganarelle. 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
The Iceman Cometh
The Iceman Cometh is a play written by American playwright Eugene O'Neill in 1939. First published in 1940 the play premiered on Broadway at the Martin Beck Theatre on 9 October 1946, directed by Eddie Dowling where it ran for 136 performances to close on 15 March 1947.-Characters:* Night Hawk-...
with Jason Robards
Jason Robards
Jason Nelson Robards, Jr. was an American actor on stage, and in film and television, and a winner of the Tony Award , two Academy Awards and the Emmy Award...
playing the bartender.
Falk made his Broadway debut also in 1956, appearing in Alexander Ostrovsky's Diary of a Scoundrel
Enough Stupidity in Every Wise Man
Enough Stupidity in Every Wise Man is a five-act comedy by Aleksandr Ostrovsky. The play offers a satirical treatment of bigotry and charts the rise of a double-dealer who manipulates other people's vanities...
. As the year came to an end, he appeared again on Broadway as an English soldier in Shaw
George Bernard Shaw
George Bernard Shaw was an Irish playwright and a co-founder of the London School of Economics. Although his first profitable writing was music and literary criticism, in which capacity he wrote many highly articulate pieces of journalism, his main talent was for drama, and he wrote more than 60...
's Saint Joan
Saint Joan (play)
Saint Joan is a play by George Bernard Shaw, based on the life and trial of Joan of Arc. Published not long after the canonization of Joan of Arc by the Roman Catholic Church, the play dramatises what is known of her life based on the substantial records of her trial. Shaw studied the transcripts...
, with Siobhán McKenna
Siobhán McKenna
Siobhán McKenna was an Irish stage and screen actress.-Background:Born Siobhán Giollamhuire Nic Cionnaith in Belfast, Northern Ireland into a Catholic and nationalist family, she grew up in Galway City and in County Monaghan, Ireland speaking fluent Irish...
. In 1972, he appeared in Broadway's The Prisoner of Second Avenue
The Prisoner of Second Avenue
The Prisoner of Second Avenue is an American black comedy play by Neil Simon, later made into a film released in 1975.The play ran on Broadway from November 1971 until September 1973, with Peter Falk and Lee Grant starring as Mel and Edna Edison, and Vincent Gardenia as Mel's brother Harry. The...
. According to film historian Ephraim Katz
Ephraim Katz
Ephraim Katz was a writer, journalist, and filmmaker who devoted his life to gathering the information in his book, The Film Encyclopedia, first published in 1979....
, "His characters derive added authenticity from his squinty gaze, the result of the loss of an eye ..."
Early films
Columbia Pictures
Columbia Pictures Industries, Inc. is an American film production and distribution company. Columbia Pictures now forms part of the Columbia TriStar Motion Picture Group, owned by Sony Pictures Entertainment, a subsidiary of the Japanese conglomerate Sony. It is one of the leading film companies...
and was told by studio boss Harry Cohn
Harry Cohn
Harry Cohn was the American president and production director of Columbia Pictures.-Career:Cohn was born to a working-class German-Jewish family in New York City. In later years, he appears to have disparaged his heritage...
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
Marjorie Morningstar (film)
Marjorie Morningstar is a 1958 melodrama film based on the 1955 novel of the same name. The film, released by Warner Bros. and directed by Irving Rapper tells a fictional coming of age story about a young Jewish girl in New York City in the 1950s...
, despite a promising interview for the second lead. His first film performances were in small roles in Wind Across the Everglades (1958), The Bloody Brood
The Bloody Brood
-Plot:A man begins to investigate on his own the death of his brother, who died from eating a hamburger laced with ground glass. With the police case stalled because of ineptness, the man's own investigation leads him toward a beatnik hang-out frequented by Nico , a shady character who supplies...
(1959) and Pretty Boy Floyd (1960).
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
Abe Reles
Abe "Kid Twist" Reles was a New York mobster who was widely considered the most feared hit man for Murder, Inc., the enforcement contractor for the National Crime Syndicate. Reles later turned government witness and sent several members of Murder, Inc...
, in a film based on the real-life murder gang of that name
Murder, Inc.
Murder, Inc. was the name given by the press to organized crime groups in the 1920s through the 1940s that resulted in hundreds of murders on behalf of the American Mafia and Jewish Mafia groups who together formed the early organized crime groups in New York and...
, that had terrorized New York in the 1930s. The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
film critic Bosley Crowther
Bosley Crowther
Bosley Crowther was a journalist and author who was film critic for The New York Times for 27 years. His reviews and articles helped shape the careers of actors, directors and screenwriters, though his reviews, at times, were unnecessarily mean...
, while dismissing the movie as "an average gangster film", singled out Falk's "amusingly vicious performance."
Crowther wrote:
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
Off-Broadway
Off-Broadway theater is a term for a professional venue in New York City with a seating capacity between 100 and 499, and for a specific production of a play, musical or revue that appears in such a venue, and which adheres to related trade union and other contracts...
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. Falk, who played Reles again in the 1960 TV series The Witness, was nominated for a Best Supporting Actor
Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor
Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role is one of the Academy Awards of Merit presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to recognize an actor who has delivered an outstanding performance while working within the film industry. Since its inception, however, the...
Academy Award
Academy Awards
An Academy Award, also known as an Oscar, is an accolade bestowed by the American Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to recognize excellence of professionals in the film industry, including directors, actors, and writers...
for his performance in the film.
In 1961, multiple Academy Award-winning director Frank Capra
Frank Capra
Frank Russell Capra was a Sicilian-born American film director. He emigrated to the U.S. when he was six, and eventually became a creative force behind major award-winning films during the 1930s and 1940s...
cast Falk in the comedy Pocketful of Miracles
Pocketful of Miracles
Pocketful of Miracles is a 1961 American comedy film that stars Bette Davis and Glenn Ford, directed by Frank Capra. The screenplay by Hal Kanter and Harry Tugend is based on the screenplay Lady for a Day by Robert Riskin, which was adapted from the Damon Runyon short story "Madame La Gimp".The...
. 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." Falk was nominated for an Oscar for his role. In his autobiography Capra writes about Falk:
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!"
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
It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World
It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World is a 1963 American comedy film produced and directed by Stanley Kramer about the madcap pursuit of $350,000 in stolen cash by a diverse and colorful group of strangers...
, even though he appears only in the last fifth of the movie. Other roles included a comical crook in the 1964 Rat Pack
Rat Pack
The Rat Pack was a group of actors originally centered on Humphrey Bogart. In the mid-1960s it was the name used by the press and the general public to refer to a later variation of the group, after Bogart's death, that called itself "the summit" or "the clan," featuring Frank Sinatra, Dean...
film, Robin and the 7 Hoods
Robin and the 7 Hoods
Robin and the 7 Hoods is a 1964 American musical film that transplants the Robin Hood legend to a 1930s Chicago gangster setting. Directed by Gordon Douglas and produced by Frank Sinatra, with a screenplay by David R. Schwartz, the movie stars members of the Rat Pack as well as Bing Crosby, Peter...
, and the 1965 spoof The Great Race
The Great Race
The Great Race is a 1965 slapstick comedy film starring Jack Lemmon, Tony Curtis, and Natalie Wood, directed by Blake Edwards, written by Blake Edwards and Arthur A. Ross, and with music by Henry Mancini and cinematography by Russell Harlan. The supporting cast includes Peter Falk, Keenan Wynn,...
, with Jack Lemmon
Jack Lemmon
John Uhler "Jack" Lemmon III was an American actor and musician. He starred in more than 60 films including Some Like It Hot, The Apartment, Mister Roberts , Days of Wine and Roses, The Great Race, Irma la Douce, The Odd Couple, Save the Tiger John Uhler "Jack" Lemmon III (February 8, 1925June...
and Tony Curtis
Tony Curtis
Tony Curtis was an American film actor whose career spanned six decades, but had his greatest popularity during the 1950s and early 1960s. He acted in over 100 films in roles covering a wide range of genres, from light comedy to serious drama...
.
Early television roles
Falk first appeared on television in 1957, in the dramatic anthology programs that later became known as the "Golden Age of TelevisionGolden Age of Television
The Golden Age of Television in the United States began sometime in the late 1940s and extended to the late 1950s or early 1960s.-Evolutions of drama on television:...
." He appeared in one episode of Robert Montgomery Presents
Robert Montgomery Presents
Robert Montgomery Presents is an American dramatic television series which was produced by NBC from January 30, 1950 until June 24, 1957. The live show had several sponsors during its seven-year run, and the title was altered to feature the sponsor, usually Lucky Strike cigarettes, for example,...
in 1957, and also appeared in Studio One, Kraft Television Theater, New York Confidential, Naked City
Naked City (TV series)
Naked City is a police drama series which aired from 1958 to 1963 on the ABC television network. It was inspired by the 1948 motion picture of the same name, and mimics its dramatic "semi-documentary" format....
, Have Gun–Will Travel and Decoy
Decoy (TV series)
Decoy is a groundbreaking American crime drama television series which was created for syndication and initially broadcast from October 14, 1957 to July 7, 1958, lasting for thirty nine 30-minute black-and-white episodes...
. On The Twilight Zone
The Twilight Zone
The Twilight Zone is an American television anthology series created by Rod Serling. Each episode is a mixture of self-contained drama, psychological thriller, fantasy, science fiction, suspense, or horror, often concluding with a macabre or unexpected twist...
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 for his performance in the episode "Cold Turkey" of James Whitmore
James Whitmore
James Allen Whitmore, Jr. was an American film and stage actor.-Early life:Born in White Plains, New York, to Florence Belle and James Allen Whitmore, Sr., a park commission official, Whitmore attended Amherst Central High School in Snyder, New York, before graduating from The Choate School in...
's short-lived series The Law and Mr. Jones
The Law and Mr. Jones
The Law and Mr. Jones is a 45-episode half-hour television crime drama starring James Whitmore. The series aired on ABC in two nonconsecutive seasons from October 7, 1960, to September 22, 1961, and again from April 19 to July 5, 1962...
on ABC
American Broadcasting Company
The American Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network. Created in 1943 from the former NBC Blue radio network, ABC is owned by The Walt Disney Company and is part of Disney-ABC Television Group. Its first broadcast on television was in 1948...
. On September 29, 1961, Falk and Walter Matthau
Walter Matthau
Walter Matthau was an American actor best known for his role as Oscar Madison in The Odd Couple and his frequent collaborations with Odd Couple star Jack Lemmon, as well as his role as Coach Buttermaker in the 1976 comedy The Bad News Bears...
guest-starred in the premiere episode, "The Million Dollar Dump," of ABC's crime drama Target: The Corruptors!
Target: The Corruptors!
Target: The Corruptors! is a 35-episode crime drama starring Stephen McNally as newspaper reporter Paul Marino, which aired on ABC from September 29, 1961 to June 8, 1962. The character Jack Flood, Marino's undercover agent, was portrayed by Robert Harland...
, with Stephen McNally
Stephen McNally
Stephen McNally was an American actor remembered mostly for his appearances in many westerns and action films. He was an attorney in the late 1930s before pursuing a career in acting.-Career:...
. He won an Emmy for The Price of Tomatoes, a Dick Powell
Dick Powell
Richard Ewing "Dick" Powell was an American singer, actor, producer, director and studio boss.Despite the same last name he was not related to William Powell, Eleanor Powell or Jane Powell.-Biography:...
TV drama in 1962.
Falk's first television series was in the title role of the drama The Trials of O'Brien
The Trials of O'Brien
The Trials of O'Brien was a 1965 television series starring Peter Falk as a seedy Shakespeare-quoting lawyer and featuring Elaine Stritch as his secretary and Joanna Barnes as his ex-wife. Falk often said that he actually liked this financially unsuccessful series much better than his later...
, in which he played a lawyer. The show ran in 1965 and 1966 and was cancelled after 22 episodes.
In 1971, Pierre Cossette
Pierre Cossette
Pierre Maurice Joseph Cossette was a television executive producer and Broadway producer who brought the Grammy Awards to television. Cossette produced the first television broadcast of the Grammy Awards in 1971....
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."
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: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
Crime and Punishment
Crime and Punishment is a novel by the Russian author Fyodor Dostoyevsky. It was first published in the literary journal The Russian Messenger in twelve monthly installments during 1866. It was later published in a single volume. This is the second of Dostoyevsky's full-length novels following his...
.
Falk tries to analyze the character and notes the correlation between his own personality and Columbo's:
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!'" Singer Johnny Cash
Johnny Cash
John R. "Johnny" Cash was an American singer-songwriter, actor, and author, who has been called one of the most influential musicians of the 20th century...
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."
The debut episode in 1971 was directed by 25-year-old Steven Spielberg
Steven Spielberg
Steven Allan Spielberg KBE is an American film director, screenwriter, producer, video game designer, and studio entrepreneur. In a career of more than four decades, Spielberg's films have covered many themes and genres. Spielberg's early science-fiction and adventure films were seen as an...
in one of his earliest directing roles. Falk recalled the episode to Spielberg biographer Joseph McBride:
The character of Columbo had previously been played by Bert Freed
Bert Freed
Bert Freed was a prolific American character actor, voice over actor, and the first actor to portray "Detective Columbo" on television.-Life and career:...
in a single TV episode and by Thomas Mitchell
Thomas Mitchell (actor)
Thomas Mitchell was an American actor, playwright and screenwriter. Among his most famous roles in a long career are those of Gerald O'Hara, the father of Scarlett O'Hara in Gone with the Wind, the drunken Doc Boone in John Ford's Stagecoach, and Uncle Billy in It's a Wonderful Life...
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
Wheel series
A wheel series is a term applied in the broadcast television industry to a television program in which two or more regular series are rotated with the same time slot...
NBC Mystery Movie
NBC Mystery Movie
The NBC Mystery Movie is the general name of an American television series, produced by Universal Studios, that was broadcast by NBC from 1971-77...
. 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. Falk won four Emmys for his role in Columbo.
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
Falk was a close friend of independent film director John CassavetesJohn Cassavetes
John Nicholas Cassavetes was an American actor, screenwriter and filmmaker. He acted in many Hollywood films, notably Rosemary's Baby and The Dirty Dozen...
and appeared in Cassavetes' films Husbands
Husbands (film)
Husbands is a 1970 film written and directed by John Cassavetes. This ensemble film, which describes three middle class men in the throes of a midlife crisis, stars Ben Gazzara, Peter Falk and Cassavetes....
, A Woman Under the Influence
A Woman Under the Influence
A Woman Under the Influence is a 1974 American drama film written and directed by John Cassavetes. It focuses on a woman whose psychotic behavior leads her husband to commit her for psychiatric treatment and the effect this has on their family. It received two Academy Award nominations for Best...
, and, in a cameo
Cameo appearance
A cameo role or cameo appearance is a brief appearance of a known person in a work of the performing arts, such as plays, films, video games and television...
, 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."
In 1978, he appeared on the comedy TV show The Dean Martin Celebrity Roast
The Dean Martin Celebrity Roast
The Dean Martin Celebrity Roast is a NBC television special show hosted by entertainer Dean Martin from 1974 to 1984. For a series of 54 specials and shows, Martin would periodically “roast” a celebrity. These roasts were patterned after the roasts held at the New York Friars' Club in New York City...
, where Frank Sinatra
Frank Sinatra
Francis Albert "Frank" Sinatra was an American singer and actor.Beginning his musical career in the swing era with Harry James and Tommy Dorsey, Sinatra became an unprecedentedly successful solo artist in the early to mid-1940s, after being signed to Columbia Records in 1943. Being the idol of the...
was the evening's victim.
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
Arthur Hiller
Arthur Hiller, OC is a Canadian film director. His filmography includes 33 major studio releases, including the 1970 film Love Story...
said during an interview that the "film started out because Alan Arkin
Alan Arkin
Alan Wolf Arkin 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...
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." Movie critic Roger Ebert
Roger Ebert
Roger Joseph Ebert is an American film critic and screenwriter. He is the first film critic to win a Pulitzer Prize for Criticism.Ebert is known for his film review column and for the television programs Sneak Previews, At the Movies with Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert, and Siskel and Ebert and The...
compared the film with a later remake:
He also appeared in The Princess Bride
The Princess Bride (film)
The Princess Bride is a 1987 American film based on the 1973 novel of the same name by William Goldman, combining comedy, adventure, romance, and fantasy. The film was directed by Rob Reiner from a screenplay by Goldman...
, Murder By Death
Murder by Death
Murder by Death is a 1976 comedy film with a cast featuring Eileen Brennan, Truman Capote, James Coco, Peter Falk, Alec Guinness, Elsa Lanchester, David Niven, Peter Sellers, Maggie Smith, Nancy Walker, and Estelle Winwood, written by Neil Simon and directed by Robert Moore.The plot is a spoof of...
, The Cheap Detective
The Cheap Detective
The Cheap Detective is a 1978 American satirical comedy film written by Neil Simon and directed by Robert Moore as a follow-up to their successful Murder by Death ....
, Vibes, Made
Made (2001 film)
Made is a 2001 film written and directed by Jon Favreau. It stars Favreau, Vince Vaughn, Peter Falk, and Sean Combs.-Plot:Bobby has ties to the local mafia boss, Max, but works as an honest mason for Max's construction projects. He fights in amateur boxing matches on the side, but his career is...
, and (as himself) in Wim Wenders
Wim Wenders
Ernst Wilhelm "Wim" Wenders is a German film director, playwright, author, photographer and producer.-Early life:Wenders was born in Düsseldorf. He graduated from high school in Oberhausen in the Ruhr area. He then studied medicine and philosophy in Freiburg and Düsseldorf...
' 1987 film Wings of Desire
Wings of Desire
Wings of Desire is a 1987 Franco-German romantic fantasy film directed by Wim Wenders. The film is about invisible, immortal angels who populate Berlin and listen to the thoughts of the human inhabitants and comfort those who are in distress...
and its 1993 sequel, Faraway, So Close!
Faraway, So Close!
Faraway, So Close! is a 1993 film by German director Wim Wenders. The screenplay is by Wenders, Richard Reitinger and Ulrich Zieger. The film is a sequel to Wenders' 1987 film Wings of Desire. Actors Otto Sander and Bruno Ganz reprise their roles as angels visiting earth. The film also stars...
. In 1998, Falk returned to the New York stage to star in an Off-Broadway
Off-Broadway
Off-Broadway theater is a term for a professional venue in New York City with a seating capacity between 100 and 499, and for a specific production of a play, musical or revue that appears in such a venue, and which adheres to related trade union and other contracts...
production of Arthur Miller
Arthur Miller
Arthur Asher Miller was an American playwright and essayist. He was a prominent figure in American theatre, writing dramas that include plays such as All My Sons , Death of a Salesman , The Crucible , and A View from the Bridge .Miller was often in the public eye,...
's Mr. Peters' Connections
Mr. Peters' Connections
Mr. Peters' Connections is a play by Arthur Miller. The title character is a former Pan Am pilot who worked for the airline in its glory days. He recalls flying into a thousand sunsets and bedding eighteen Rockettes in a month, eventually marrying one of them...
. His previous stage work included shady real estate salesman Shelley "the Machine" Levine in a Boston/Los Angeles production of David Mamet
David Mamet
David Alan Mamet is an American playwright, essayist, screenwriter and film director.Best known as a playwright, Mamet won a Pulitzer Prize and received a Tony nomination for Glengarry Glen Ross . He also received a Tony nomination for Speed-the-Plow . As a screenwriter, he received Oscar...
's prizewinning Glengarry Glen Ross
Glengarry Glen Ross
Glengarry Glen Ross is a 1984 play written by David Mamet. The play shows parts of two days in the lives of four desperate Chicago real estate agents who are prepared to engage in any number of unethical, illegal acts—from lies and flattery to bribery, threats, intimidation and burglary—to sell...
.
Falk also starred in such holiday television movies as A Town Without Christmas (2001), Finding John Christmas
Finding John Christmas
Finding John Christmas is a 2003 television movie that first aired on CBS. The film is a sequel to the 2001 television movie A Town Without Christmas.-Plot:...
(2003) and When Angels Come to Town (2004). In 2005, he starred in The Thing About My Folks
The Thing About My Folks
The Thing About My Folks is a 2005 American drama film directed by Raymond De Felitta. The screenplay by Paul Reiser focuses on the effect a terminal illness has on the marriage of an aging couple and their adult children.-Plot:...
. Although movie critic Roger Ebert
Roger Ebert
Roger Joseph Ebert is an American film critic and screenwriter. He is the first film critic to win a Pulitzer Prize for Criticism.Ebert is known for his film review column and for the television programs Sneak Previews, At the Movies with Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert, and Siskel and Ebert and The...
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." In 2007, Falk appeared with Nicolas Cage
Nicolas Cage
Nicolas Cage is an American actor, producer and director, having appeared in over 60 films including Raising Arizona , The Rock , Face/Off , Gone in 60 Seconds , Adaptation , National Treasure , Ghost Rider , Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans , and...
in the thriller Next.
Personal life
Falk married Alyce Mayo, whom he had met when they were both students at Syracuse UniversitySyracuse University
Syracuse University is a private research university located in Syracuse, New York, United States. Its roots can be traced back to Genesee Wesleyan Seminary, founded by the Methodist Episcopal Church in 1832, which also later founded Genesee College...
, on April 17, 1960. They adopted two daughters, Catherine (who is a private investigator
Private investigator
A private investigator , private detective or inquiry agent, is a person who can be hired by individuals or groups to undertake investigatory law services. Private detectives/investigators often work for attorneys in civil cases. Many work for insurance companies to investigate suspicious claims...
) and Jackie. They divorced in 1976. On December 7, 1977, Falk married actress Shera Danese, 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
Butler Institute of American Art
The Butler Institute of American Art, located on Wick Avenue in Youngstown, Ohio, United States, was the first museum dedicated exclusively to American art. Established by local industrialist and philanthropist Joseph G. Butler, Jr., the museum has been operating pro bono since 1919...
. He took classes at the Art Students League of New York
Art Students League of New York
The Art Students League of New York is an art school located on West 57th Street in New York City. The League has historically been known for its broad appeal to both amateurs and professional artists, and has maintained for over 130 years a tradition of offering reasonably priced classes on a...
for many years. 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.
His memoir
Memoir
A memoir , is a literary genre, forming a subclass of autobiography – although the terms 'memoir' and 'autobiography' are almost interchangeable. Memoir is autobiographical writing, but not all autobiographical writing follows the criteria for memoir set out below...
, 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."
Failing health and death
Rumors of Falk's dementia plagued the actor in the final years of his life; exacerbated when in late April 2008, the 80 year old Falk was photographed by Paparazzi looking disheveled and acting animated in the streets of Beverly Hills. Though the actor claimed his temperamental behavior was due to his frustration over being unable to remember where he'd parked his car, nonetheless the images of his erratic appearance and behavior were splashed all over the media throughout the world. Falk was seldom seen in public after the incident.At a two-day conservatorship
Conservatorship
Conservatorship is a legal concept in the United States of America, where an entity or organization is subjected to the legal control of an external entity or organization, known as a conservator. Conservatorship is established either by court order or via a statutory or regulatory authority...
trial in Los Angeles in June 2009, one of Falk's personal physicians, Dr. Stephen Read, reported Falk rapidly slipped into dementia
Dementia
Dementia is a serious loss of cognitive ability in a previously unimpaired person, beyond what might be expected from normal aging...
after a series of dental operations in 2007. 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.
Falk died at his longtime Roxbury Dr. Beverly Hills home on the evening of June 23, 2011 at the age of 83. The cause of death was later revealed as cardiorespiratory arrest, with pneumonia
Pneumonia
Pneumonia is an inflammatory condition of the lung—especially affecting the microscopic air sacs —associated with fever, chest symptoms, and a lack of air space on a chest X-ray. Pneumonia is typically caused by an infection but there are a number of other causes...
and Alzheimer's disease
Alzheimer's disease
Alzheimer's disease also known in medical literature as Alzheimer disease is the most common form of dementia. There is no cure for the disease, which worsens as it progresses, and eventually leads to death...
as underlying causes. Falk was survived by his wife and two daughters. His daughters said they would remember his "wisdom and humor". Falk is buried at Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery
Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery
The Pierce Brothers Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery is a cemetery in the Westwood Village area of Los Angeles, California. It is located at 1218 Glendon Avenue in Westwood....
in Los Angeles, California
Los Angeles, California
Los Angeles , with a population at the 2010 United States Census of 3,792,621, is the most populous city in California, USA and the second most populous in the United States, after New York City. It has an area of , and is located in Southern California...
.
Falk's death was greeted with tributes from many film celebrities. Steven Spielberg
Steven Spielberg
Steven Allan Spielberg KBE is an American film director, screenwriter, producer, video game designer, and studio entrepreneur. In a career of more than four decades, Spielberg's films have covered many themes and genres. Spielberg's early science-fiction and adventure films were seen as an...
said, "I learned more about acting from him at that early stage of my career than I had from anyone else." Stephen Fry
Stephen Fry
Stephen John Fry is an English actor, screenwriter, author, playwright, journalist, poet, comedian, television presenter and film director, and a director of Norwich City Football Club. He first came to attention in the 1981 Cambridge Footlights Revue presentation "The Cellar Tapes", which also...
tweeted that Columbo was "TV’s greatest ever detective." Rob Reiner
Rob Reiner
Robert "Rob" Reiner is an American actor, director, producer, writer, and political activist.As an actor, Reiner first came to national prominence as Archie and Edith Bunker's son-in-law, Michael "Meathead" Stivic, on All in the Family. That role earned him two Emmy Awards during the 1970s...
said, "He was a completely unique actor," and went on to say that Falk's work with Alan Arkin
Alan Arkin
Alan Wolf Arkin 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...
in The In-Laws was "one of the most brilliant comedy pairings we've seen on screen."
The Los Angeles Police Department
Los Angeles Police Department
The Los Angeles Police Department is the police department of the city of Los Angeles, California. With just under 10,000 officers and more than 3,000 civilian staff, covering an area of with a population of more than 4.1 million people, it is the third largest local law enforcement agency in...
also issued a statement of condolence to Falk's family, stating they were "proud" to be associated with Columbo as well as stating that he was "one of the all-time great TV cops."
Filmography
| Film | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Year | Film | Role | Notes |
| 1959 | The Bloody Brood The Bloody Brood -Plot:A man begins to investigate on his own the death of his brother, who died from eating a hamburger laced with ground glass. With the police case stalled because of ineptness, the man's own investigation leads him toward a beatnik hang-out frequented by Nico , a shady character who supplies... |
Nico | |
| 1960 | Murder Inc. | Abe Reles | Nominated for Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role is one of the Academy Awards of Merit presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to recognize an actor who has delivered an outstanding performance while working within the film industry. Since its inception, however, the... |
| The Secret of the Purple Reef The Secret of the Purple Reef The Secret of The Purple Reef is a 1960 - 20th Century Fox film based on a novel by Dorothy Cottrell entitled The Silent Reefs. It starred soon-to-be-famous actors, Richard Chamberlain and Peter Falk.-Cast:... |
Tom Weber | ||
| 1961 | Pocketful of Miracles Pocketful of Miracles Pocketful of Miracles is a 1961 American comedy film that stars Bette Davis and Glenn Ford, directed by Frank Capra. The screenplay by Hal Kanter and Harry Tugend is based on the screenplay Lady for a Day by Robert Riskin, which was adapted from the Damon Runyon short story "Madame La Gimp".The... |
Joy Boy | Nominated again for Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role is one of the Academy Awards of Merit presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to recognize an actor who has delivered an outstanding performance while working within the film industry. Since its inception, however, the... |
| 1962 | Pressure Point Pressure Point (film) Pressure Point is a 1962 drama film about a black prison psychiatrist who is called upon to treat a Nazi sympathizer during World War II. It stars Sidney Poitier and Bobby Darin. The film was based on the short story "Destiny's Tot" by Robert Lindner.... |
Young Psychiatrist | |
| 1963 | The Balcony The Balcony (film) The Balcony is a 1963 cinematic adaptation of Jean Genet's play The Balcony, directed by Joseph Strick. It starred Shelley Winters, Peter Falk, Lee Grant and Leonard Nimoy. George J. Folsey was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Cinematography. Ben Maddow was nominated for a Writers Guild of... |
Police Chief | |
| It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World is a 1963 American comedy film produced and directed by Stanley Kramer about the madcap pursuit of $350,000 in stolen cash by a diverse and colorful group of strangers... |
Cab Driver | ||
| 1964 | Robin and the 7 Hoods Robin and the 7 Hoods Robin and the 7 Hoods is a 1964 American musical film that transplants the Robin Hood legend to a 1930s Chicago gangster setting. Directed by Gordon Douglas and produced by Frank Sinatra, with a screenplay by David R. Schwartz, the movie stars members of the Rat Pack as well as Bing Crosby, Peter... |
Guy Gisborne | |
| Attack and Retreat (Italiani brava gente Italiani brava gente Italiani brava gente is a 1965 Italian historical film drama directed by Giuseppe De Santis. The movie follows Italian soldiers fighting on the Eastern Front in World War II.-Cast:*Arthur Kennedy ... Ferro Maria Ferri... ) |
Medic | Italian production | |
| 1965 | The Great Race The Great Race The Great Race is a 1965 slapstick comedy film starring Jack Lemmon, Tony Curtis, and Natalie Wood, directed by Blake Edwards, written by Blake Edwards and Arthur A. Ross, and with music by Henry Mancini and cinematography by Russell Harlan. The supporting cast includes Peter Falk, Keenan Wynn,... |
Max | |
| 1966 | Penelope Penelope (1966 film) Penelope is a 1966 comedy film directed by Arthur Hiller and starring Natalie Wood, Ian Bannen, Peter Falk, Jonathan Winters, and Dick Shawn.-Plot:Penelope Elcott is the wife of wealthy banker of James Elcott... |
Lieutenant Horatio Bixbee | |
| Too Many Thieves Too Many Thieves Too Many Thieves is a 1966 American crime film directed by Abner Biberman and starring Peter Falk, Britt Ekland and Joanna Barnes. A gang of criminals steal a priceless Macedonian artefact from a museum.-Cast:* Peter Falk - Danny* Britt Ekland - Claudia... |
Danny | ||
| 1967 | Luv Luv (film) Luv is a 1967 romantic slapstick comedy starring Jack Lemmon, Peter Falk, Elaine May and Nina Wayne. The original Broadway production of Luv by Murray Schisgal opened at the Booth Theater in New York on 11 November 1964. It ran for 901 performances and was nominated for the 1965 Tony Award for... |
Milt Manville | |
| 1968 | Anzio Anzio (film) Anzio, also known as Lo Sbarco di Anzio or The Battle for Anzio, is a 1968 war film about Operation Shingle, the 1944 Allied seaborne assault on the Italian port of Anzio in World War II... |
Corporal Jack Rabinoff | Alternative titles: The Battle of Anzio, Lo Sbarco di Anzio (Italian) |
| 1969 | Machine Gun McCain Machine Gun McCain Machine Gun McCain is a 1969 Italian crime film directed by Giuliano Montaldo based on the 1961 novel Candyleg by Ovid Demaris. It was entered into the 1969 Cannes Film Festival.-Cast:* John Cassavetes - Hank McCain* Britt Ekland - Irene Tucker... |
Charlie Adamo | Alternative titles: For a Price, Gli intoccabili (Italian) |
| Castle Keep Castle Keep Castle Keep is a 'firmly pro- and anti-war' 1969 American war film directed by Sydney Pollack, starring Burt Lancaster, Patrick O'Neal, Jean-Pierre Aumont, Bruce Dern, and Peter Falk... |
Sergeant Rossi | ||
| 1970 | Husbands Husbands (film) Husbands is a 1970 film written and directed by John Cassavetes. This ensemble film, which describes three middle class men in the throes of a midlife crisis, stars Ben Gazzara, Peter Falk and Cassavetes.... |
Archie Black | Directed by John Cassavetes John Cassavetes John Nicholas Cassavetes was an American actor, screenwriter and filmmaker. He acted in many Hollywood films, notably Rosemary's Baby and The Dirty Dozen... |
| Operation Snafu Rosolino Paternò, soldato... Rosolino Paternò, soldato... is a 1970 Italian comedy film.- Cast :*Nino Manfredi as Rosolino Paternò* Jason Robards as Sam Armstrong* Martin Landau as Joe Mellone... |
Peter Pawney | ||
| 1974 | A Woman Under the Influence A Woman Under the Influence A Woman Under the Influence is a 1974 American drama film written and directed by John Cassavetes. It focuses on a woman whose psychotic behavior leads her husband to commit her for psychiatric treatment and the effect this has on their family. It received two Academy Award nominations for Best... |
Nick Longhetti | Directed by John Cassavetes John Cassavetes John Nicholas Cassavetes was an American actor, screenwriter and filmmaker. He acted in many Hollywood films, notably Rosemary's Baby and The Dirty Dozen... |
| 1976 | Murder by Death Murder by Death Murder by Death is a 1976 comedy film with a cast featuring Eileen Brennan, Truman Capote, James Coco, Peter Falk, Alec Guinness, Elsa Lanchester, David Niven, Peter Sellers, Maggie Smith, Nancy Walker, and Estelle Winwood, written by Neil Simon and directed by Robert Moore.The plot is a spoof of... |
Sam Diamond | |
| Mikey and Nicky Mikey and Nicky Mikey and Nicky is a 1976 film written and directed by Elaine May. Using three cameras that she sometimes left running for hours, May captured spontaneous interaction between Peter Falk and John Cassavetes... |
Mikey | ||
| Griffin and Phoenix: A Love Story | Geoffrey Griffin | ||
| 1977 | Opening Night | Cameo appearance Cameo appearance A cameo role or cameo appearance is a brief appearance of a known person in a work of the performing arts, such as plays, films, video games and television... |
Directed by John Cassavetes John Cassavetes John Nicholas Cassavetes was an American actor, screenwriter and filmmaker. He acted in many Hollywood films, notably Rosemary's Baby and The Dirty Dozen... |
| 1978 | The Brink's Job The Brink's Job The Brink's Job is a 1978 film directed by William Friedkin and starring Peter Falk, Peter Boyle, Allen Garfield, Warren Oates, Gena Rowlands, and Paul Sorvino. It is based on the Brink's robbery in Boston, where almost 3 million dollars were stolen.... |
Tony Pino | |
| The Cheap Detective The Cheap Detective The Cheap Detective is a 1978 American satirical comedy film written by Neil Simon and directed by Robert Moore as a follow-up to their successful Murder by Death .... |
Lou Peckinpaugh | Alternative title: Neil Simon's The Cheap Detective | |
| Scared Straight! Scared Straight! Scared Straight! is a 1978 documentary directed by Arnold Shapiro. Narrated by Peter Falk, the subject of the documentary is a group of juvenile delinquents and their three-hour session with actual convicts... |
Himself – Host | Documentary; directed by Arnold Shapiro Arnold Shapiro Arnold Shapiro is an Academy Award and 16-time Emmy Award-winning television producer and writer.His best known work is the 1978 Oscar and Emmy-winning documentary, Scared Straight! His other productions include the CBS reality series, Rescue 911, hosted by William Shatner and the CBS reality... |
|
| 1979 | The In-Laws | Vincent J. Ricardo | |
| 1981 | ...All the Marbles | Harry Sears | Alternative title: The California Dolls |
| The Great Muppet Caper The Great Muppet Caper The Great Muppet Caper is a 1981 mystery comedy film directed by Jim Henson. It is the second of a series of live-action musical feature films, starring Jim Henson's Muppets. This film was produced by Henson Associates, ITC Entertainment and Universal Pictures, and premiered on 26 July 1981. The... |
Tramp | (uncredited) | |
| 1986 | Big Trouble Big Trouble (1986 film) Big Trouble is 1986 a American comedy film. It was director John Cassavetes's last film. He took over from screenwriter Andrew Bergman .-Cast:* Peter Falk as Steve Rickey* Alan Arkin as Leonard Hoffman... |
Steve Rickey | Directed by John Cassavetes John Cassavetes John Nicholas Cassavetes was an American actor, screenwriter and filmmaker. He acted in many Hollywood films, notably Rosemary's Baby and The Dirty Dozen... |
| 1987 | The Princess Bride The Princess Bride (film) The Princess Bride is a 1987 American film based on the 1973 novel of the same name by William Goldman, combining comedy, adventure, romance, and fantasy. The film was directed by Rob Reiner from a screenplay by Goldman... |
Grandfather/Narrator | |
| Happy New Year Happy New Year (1987 film) Happy New Year is a 1987 film directed by John G. Avildsen. The screenplay was written by Warren Lane, based on the French film La bonne année. The director of the French film, Claude Lelouch, has a cameo as a man on a train.... |
Nick | Directed by John G. Avildsen John G. Avildsen John Guilbert Avildsen is an American film director.-Life and career:Avildsen was born in Oak Park, Illinois, the son of Ivy and Clarence John Avildsen... |
|
| Wings of Desire Wings of Desire Wings of Desire is a 1987 Franco-German romantic fantasy film directed by Wim Wenders. The film is about invisible, immortal angels who populate Berlin and listen to the thoughts of the human inhabitants and comfort those who are in distress... |
Himself | Directed by Wim Wenders Wim Wenders Ernst Wilhelm "Wim" Wenders is a German film director, playwright, author, photographer and producer.-Early life:Wenders was born in Düsseldorf. He graduated from high school in Oberhausen in the Ruhr area. He then studied medicine and philosophy in Freiburg and Düsseldorf... |
|
| 1988 | Vibes | Harry Buscafusco | Alternative title: Vibes: The Secret of the Golden Pyramids |
| 1989 | Cookie Cookie (film) -Plot:Cookie Voltecki is the illegitimate daughter of mobster Dino Capisco , who has just finished thirteen years in prison. Since being released from jail, all that Dino wants is to settle some old scores, and make up for lost time with his daughter.Cookie's mother, Lenore Voltecki , has been... |
Dominick "Dino" Capisco | |
| 1990 | Tune in Tomorrow Tune in Tomorrow Tune In Tomorrow is a 1990 film comedy directed by John Amiel.It is based on the Mario Vargas Llosa novel Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter, and was released under that name in many countries... |
Pedro Carmichael | Alternative title: Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter |
| 1993 | Faraway, So Close! Faraway, So Close! Faraway, So Close! is a 1993 film by German director Wim Wenders. The screenplay is by Wenders, Richard Reitinger and Ulrich Zieger. The film is a sequel to Wenders' 1987 film Wings of Desire. Actors Otto Sander and Bruno Ganz reprise their roles as angels visiting earth. The film also stars... |
Himself | Directed by Wim Wenders Wim Wenders Ernst Wilhelm "Wim" Wenders is a German film director, playwright, author, photographer and producer.-Early life:Wenders was born in Düsseldorf. He graduated from high school in Oberhausen in the Ruhr area. He then studied medicine and philosophy in Freiburg and Düsseldorf... |
| 1995 | Roommates | Rocky Holzcek | |
| 1998 | Money Kings | Vinnie Glynn | |
| 2001 | Made Made (2001 film) Made is a 2001 film written and directed by Jon Favreau. It stars Favreau, Vince Vaughn, Peter Falk, and Sean Combs.-Plot:Bobby has ties to the local mafia boss, Max, but works as an honest mason for Max's construction projects. He fights in amateur boxing matches on the side, but his career is... |
Max | |
| Corky Romano Corky Romano Corky Romano is a 2001 film starring former Saturday Night Live cast member Chris Kattan. Also starring are Fred Ward, Vinessa Shaw, Roger Fan, and Dave Sheridan. The movie was directed by Rob Pritts and was written by David Garrett and Jason Ward. It was filmed at Touchstone Pictures studios... |
Francis A. "Pops" Romano | Alternative title: Corky Romano: 'Special' Agent | |
| 2002 | Undisputed | Mendy Ripstein | |
| 2004 | Shark Tale Shark Tale Shark Tale is a 2004 American computer-animated comedy film produced by DreamWorks Animation. In the story, a young fish named Oscar falsely claims to have killed the son of a shark mob boss to win favour with the mob boss' enemies and advance his own community standing... |
Don Feinberg | Voice |
| 2005 | The Thing About My Folks The Thing About My Folks The Thing About My Folks is a 2005 American drama film directed by Raymond De Felitta. The screenplay by Paul Reiser focuses on the effect a terminal illness has on the marriage of an aging couple and their adult children.-Plot:... |
Sam Kleinman | |
| 2005 | Checking Out Checking Out (2005 film) Checking Out is a 2005 feature film directed by Jeff Hare and written by Richard Marcus and Allen Swift.-Reviews:The film received generally average reviews upon its release. Based on 7 professional reviews, Checking Out gained a "rotten" seal on review aggregate Rotten Tomatoes, with an approval... |
Morris Applebaum | |
| 2007 | Next | Irv | |
| 2009 | American Cowslip American cowslip American Cowslip is the title of an independent feature film by director Mark David. It revolves around heroin addict, Ethan Inglebrink, whose life is centered around his garden and his group of eccentric friends. American Cowslip will be David's third film, following his debut, Sweet Thing , and... |
Father Randolph | |
| Television | |||
| Year | Show | Role | Notes |
| 1958 | Kraft Suspense Theatre Kraft Suspense Theatre Kraft Suspense Theatre, an anthology series, was telecast from 1963 to 1965 on NBC. Sponsored by Kraft Foods, it was seen three weeks out of every four and was pre-empted for Perry Como's Kraft Music Hall specials once monthly... |
Izzy | 1 episode |
| 1959 | Decoy Decoy (TV series) Decoy is a groundbreaking American crime drama television series which was created for syndication and initially broadcast from October 14, 1957 to July 7, 1958, lasting for thirty nine 30-minute black-and-white episodes... |
Fred Dana | 1 episode |
| 1960 | Have Gun–Will Travel | Waller | 1 episode |
| The Untouchables The Untouchables (1959 TV series) The Untouchables is an American crime drama that ran from 1959 to 1963 on ABC. Based on the memoir of the same name by Eliot Ness and Oscar Fraley, it fictionalized the experiences of Eliot Ness, a real-life Prohibition agent, as he fought crime in Chicago during the 1930s with the help of a... |
Duke Mullen | 1 episode, "The Underworld Bank" | |
| 1961 | The Twilight Zone The Twilight Zone The Twilight Zone is an American television anthology series created by Rod Serling. Each episode is a mixture of self-contained drama, psychological thriller, fantasy, science fiction, suspense, or horror, often concluding with a macabre or unexpected twist... |
Ramos Clemente | 1 episode "The Mirror The Mirror (The Twilight Zone) "The Mirror" is an episode of the American television anthology series The Twilight Zone.-Synopsis:A Fidel Castro lookalike, Ramos Clemente , celebrates the victory of the "people's revolution", led by him and his four life-long confidantes... " |
| The Barbara Stanwyck Show The Barbara Stanwyck Show The Barbara Stanwyck Show is an American anthology drama television series which ran on NBC from September 1960 to September 1961. Barbara Stanwyck served as hostess, and starred in all but four of the half-hour productions. The four she did not star in were actually pilot episodes of potential... |
Joe | 1 episode, "The Assassin" | |
| 1962 | The Alfred Hitchcock Hour | greedy preacher | Episode 13: Bonfire |
| 1962 | The New Breed The New Breed (TV series) The New Breed is an American crime drama series that aired on ABC from October 3, 1961 to June 5, 1962, with thirty-six episodes.-Synopsis:... |
Lopez | 1 episode |
| 1963 | Wagon Train Wagon Train Wagon Train is an American Western series that ran on NBC from 1957–62 and then on ABC from 1962–65... |
Gus Morgan | 1 episode |
| 1964 | Ben Casey Ben Casey Ben Casey is an American medical drama series which ran on ABC from 1961 to 1966. The show was known for its opening titles, which consisted of a hand drawing the symbols "♂, ♀, *, †, ∞" on a chalkboard, as cast member Sam Jaffe intoned, "Man, woman, birth, death, infinity." Neurosurgeon Joseph... |
Dr. Jimmy Reynolds | 2 episodes |
| 1965–1966 | The Trials of O'Brien The Trials of O'Brien The Trials of O'Brien was a 1965 television series starring Peter Falk as a seedy Shakespeare-quoting lawyer and featuring Elaine Stritch as his secretary and Joanna Barnes as his ex-wife. Falk often said that he actually liked this financially unsuccessful series much better than his later... |
Daniel O'Brien | 22 episodes |
| 1968 | A Hatful of Rain A Hatful of Rain A Hatful of Rain is a 1957 dramatic film. The movie was a rarity for its time in its frank depiction of the effect of drug addiction.It is a medically and sociologically accurate account of the effects of morphine on an addict and his family .... |
Polo Pope | 1 episode |
| 1968–2003 | Columbo | Lieutenant Columbo | 69 episodes |
| 1971 | The Name of the Game The Name of the Game (TV series) The Name of the Game is an American television series starring Tony Franciosa, Gene Barry, and Robert Stack that ran from 1968 to 1971 on NBC, totaling 76 episodes of 90 minutes. It was a pioneering wheel series, setting the stage for the likes of The Bold Ones and the NBC Mystery Movie in the 1970s... |
Lewis Corbett | 1 episode |
| 1978 | The Dean Martin Celebrity Roast The Dean Martin Celebrity Roast The Dean Martin Celebrity Roast is a NBC television special show hosted by entertainer Dean Martin from 1974 to 1984. For a series of 54 specials and shows, Martin would periodically “roast” a celebrity. These roasts were patterned after the roasts held at the New York Friars' Club in New York City... (comedy) |
Guest appearance | with Frank Sinatra Frank Sinatra Francis Albert "Frank" Sinatra was an American singer and actor.Beginning his musical career in the swing era with Harry James and Tommy Dorsey, Sinatra became an unprecedentedly successful solo artist in the early to mid-1940s, after being signed to Columbia Records in 1943. Being the idol of the... — Watch |
| 1995 | The Sunshine Boys | Willie Clark | Television movie |
| 2001 | The Lost World The Lost World (2001 film) The Lost World is a 2001 adaptation of the novel by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, directed by Stuart Orme and adapted by Adrian Hodges. It was filmed at various locations on the West Coast of New Zealand. The film was produced by the BBC and broadcast on BBC1 in the United Kingdom and A&E in the United... |
Reverend Theo Kerr | Television movie |
| 2001 | A Town Without Christmas | Max | Television Movie |
| 2003 | Finding John Christmas Finding John Christmas Finding John Christmas is a 2003 television movie that first aired on CBS. The film is a sequel to the 2001 television movie A Town Without Christmas.-Plot:... |
Max | Television movie |
| 2004 | When Angels Come To Town | Max | Television Movie |