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Peter Falk
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Peter Falk | ||||||||||
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 Peter Falk giving an interview |
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| Birth name | Peter Michael Falk | |||||||||
| Born | September 16, 1927 New York City, New York, U.S. |
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| Official site | http://www.peterfalk.com/ | |||||||||
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Peter Michael Falk (born September 16, 1927) is a two-time Academy Award-nominated, five-time Emmy Award-winning American actor, best known for his role as Lt. Columbo in the television series Columbo.
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Born in New York City, New York), Falk was the son of Madeline, an accountant and buyer, and Michael Falk, who owned a clothing and dry goods store.[1] Falk attended Ossining High School in Westchester County, New York and was president of his senior class. After graduating high school, Falk joined the United States Merchant Marine as a cook, before completing a Bachelor of Arts in political science at the New School for Social Research in 1951. Gaining a Masters degree in public administration at Syracuse University in 1953, Falk applied unsuccessfully for a job with the CIA before becoming a management analyst with the Connecticut State Budget Bureau in Hartford.
After deciding to be an actor and studying at the White Barn Theatre in Westport, Connecticut, in 1956 at the age of 29, he left his job with the Budget Bureau and moved to Greenwich Village. He made his professional debut Off Broadway in Molière's Don Juan at the Fourth Street Theatre on January 3, 1956. That same year he made his Broadway debut playing an English soldier in Shaw's Saint Joan with Siobhán McKenna. He won an Emmy for "The Price of Tomatoes", a Dick Powell TV drama. Falk has been nominated for a Best Supporting Actor Academy Award twice, for Murder, Inc., and Pocketful of Miracles.
Falk is best known for the title role in the long-running TV series Columbo, a shabby and ostensibly absent-minded police detective. In reality, Columbo possesses a keen mind and invariably solves his cases by paying close attention to tiny inconsistencies in a suspect's story, hounding them until they confess; he merely puts on a good show of being dim-witted so that the criminals and even his colleagues will be more at ease around him. Columbo's signature technique is to exit the scene of an interview, only to stop in the doorway to ask a suspect "just one more thing" (the title of Falk's recent memoir), which always brings to light the key inconsistency. The role won Falk four Emmy Awards and a Golden Globe. Four of Columbo's cases gave Falk the chance to work with his longtime friend, Patrick McGoohan, the latter playing the villain of the episodes.
Falk was a close friend of independent film director John Cassavetes and appeared in Cassavetes' films Husbands, A Woman Under the Influence, and a cameo appearance at the end of Opening Night. Cassavetes himself guest-starred in the Columbo episode "Étude in Black" (1972).
Falk is also known for roles in several films, including his performance as a possible ex-CIA agent of dubious sanity in the Arthur Hiller comedy The In-Laws. He also starred in such films as The Great Race, The Princess Bride, Wim Wenders' Wings of Desire (cast as himself) and the 1963 mega-comedy It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World. He also played Guy Gisborne in the 1964 Robin Hood spoof Robin and the 7 Hoods, and starred in a Twilight Zone episode in 1961 called "The Mirror".
In 1998, Falk returned to the New York stage to star in an off-Broadway production of Arthur Miller's Mr. Peters' Connections. Falk also had a brief appearance in the 2007 Nicolas Cage thriller, Next.
Falk's unusual gaze is caused by a glass eye that he has had for most of his life. His right eye was surgically removed at the age of three because of a malignant tumour.
Falk married Alyce Mayo on April 17, 1960. They had two daughters, Catherine (who is a real life private investigator) and Jackie. They divorced in 1976. On December 7, 1977, Falk married actress Shera Danese, herself known to have guest-starred in the Columbo series numerous times.
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| This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding reliable references. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (December 2007) |
- Peter Falk Official Site
- The Ultimate Lieutenant Columbo Site
- Peter Falk at the Internet Movie Database
- Peter Falk at the Internet Broadway Database
Categories: Articles needing additional references from December 2007 | 1927 births | American film actors | American Jews | American sailors | American stage actors | American television actors | Emmy Award winners | Jewish actors | Living people | The New School alumni | New York actors | People from New York City | Syracuse University alumni