R.I.P. Peter Falk

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Reza
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Re: R.I.P. Peter Falk

Post by Reza »

London Observer


Peter Falk remembered by Gena Rowlands

He was America's most famous TV detective
Columbo but he was also so much more, recalls Gena Rowlands

I first met Peter Falk in 1969 on the set of a
film called Gli Intoccabili, which, for some
reason, was released in America as Machine Gun
McCain. It was what I call a "kind of good movie"
and it was a lot of fun to make. We hit it off
and became good friends, Peter, John
[<http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/johncass ... Cassavetes,
Rowland's husband] and I. That was the beginning
of a long, close and very creative friendship. A very special friendship.

Then John wrote for Peter, Ben Gazzara and
himself. That led to A Woman Under the Influence, which came out in
1974. Peter was my husband and I was the woman
having a breakdown. His character was under a lot
of pressure, too, and he played that out so well.
He was a mixed-up guy but a loving husband. The
scene where she comes back from the mental
institution is just so touching, but, once again,
he miscalculates and has this family gathering,
which just scares and rattles her. It was exactly
the wrong thing to do but there was love in it.
It was a deep and complex role and he inhabited it.

On set, he was a natural and a hard worker. He
gave his all when he was acting, but I think it
was hard for him at the start to adapt to John's
way of working. John didn't give a lot of
specific direction. He was open, you could move
freely as an actor. You had these microphones on
your body. It was about spontaneity, being in the
moment. I remember, right at the start, Peter
said to me: "I don't know what he's talking
about." I said: "Just go with it." It was tough
for him, for all of us, but incredibly liberating.

He came to appreciate the whole experience of how
we worked. It was a rare and special kind of
freedom and you had to respond. People think we
were against the studio system but it was more a
case of we just wanted to make our own movies our
own way. We were of one accord and it was a wonderful thing.

Peter had this remarkable spirit. When the
studios all passed on A Woman Under the
Influence, he helped raise the money to make the
film. Just incredible loyalty. He was that sort
of guy. When you consider that he lost an eye to
cancer when he was three years old, it gives you
some idea of his spirit. He had to go and take up
something really hard such as acting. As an
actor, he was attentive. He listened. He didn't
just pretend to listen like many actors do. It's
actually hard to listen on set, what with all the
necessary distractions: the lights, the crew, the
attention. He had a truly great talent for that.
That's one of the reasons I took to him.

And he had this incredible range. He went off and
did Columbo and became the most popular detective
on American television; then there was The Great
Race, which is just a hugely enjoyable chase
film; then Wings of Desire with Wim Wenders, where you see this
whole new side of him. Extraordinary, really. He
was a free spirit creatively. He had so many
parts he made his own and it all spun together
somehow into this wonderful career.

We kept in touch and I'm still very close to his
wife, Shera, but he was out of touch for the last
year or so because of his illness. You don't lose
someone like that and not have it blast a big
hole in your life. But, you know, I like to think
of the good times, the great times, when we were
all part of something new and free and wonderful.
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Re: R.I.P. Peter Falk

Post by criddic3 »

a script was in place for a two-hour "Columbo" special, but Falk's illness made the project impossible
I've long wondered about that, hoping he would do a new one. He was acting up to 2007, in a small part for Next, so they could conceivably have made one between 2003 and 2007.
"Because here’s the thing about life: There’s no accounting for what fate will deal you. Some days when you need a hand. There are other days when we’re called to lend a hand." -- President Joe Biden, 01/20/2021
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Re: R.I.P. Peter Falk

Post by Reza »

LA Times

Appreciation: Peter Falk, 1927-2011

June 24, 2011 | 2:32 pm

Peter Falk, who died Friday at age 83, was an actor of great and
invisible skill who played many parts over a
five-decade career. He was a late bloomer but
quickly embraced on the stage and screens big and
little by 1962, he had been Oscar-nominated
twice, for gangsters respectively chilling and
comical in "Murder, Inc." and "A Pocketful of
Miracles," and won an Obie playing Eugene O'Neill
opposite Jason Robards.

Later, he acted troublesome characters for
director John Cassevetes in "Husbands" and "A
Woman Under the Influence," was brilliantly funny
as a reckless CIA agent in "The In-Laws," and
narrated, grandfather-to-grandson, "The Princess Bride."

But of all his roles, the one he played the
longest will be the one longest remembered: Lt.
Columbo of "Columbo," of all American television
detectives certainly the greatest, and the
greatest in a time of great television
detectives, including James Garner's Jim Rockford
and Telly Savalas' Theo Kojak.

From beginning to end, the show cleaved to its
formula: There is no mystery in "Columbo." We
know whodunnit from the beginning, and we presume
that he does too. All the pleasure comes from the
slow springing of the trap, the unraveling of the
game the victim he imagines he is playing, and
Columbo's final minor variation on the phrase,
"There's just one other thing," delivered with a
hunched half-turn upon his arrested exit.

"Columbo," which became a series in 1971 after a
Falk-starring 1968 TV movie, was of course, a
team effort it was a particularly well-written
series, whose feature-length running time allowed
for extraordinarily long scenes between the
detective and the week's guest killer but
television is in the end predominately an art of
personality, and episode after episode Falk was
the product the show sold and the artist who sold
the show. (He had in fact, been preceded in the
role, in one-off dramas, and a stage play, by other actors.)

Columbo's rumpled, broken-down aspect did not
betoken world-weariness; the show, indeed, was a
comedy, a comedy of human frailty in which the
murderers were usually people of means, substance
and power. It was never Columbo's job to punish
the unfortunate, and even in victory, he was
never superior or censorious, merely satisfied
and somehow amused. That humor we took to be the actor's own.

Falk was on the face of it an unlikely hero: Old
World ethnic (his people were Eastern European
Jews), short of stature, with a glass eye and an
impudently thick head of dark hair that finally
went to gray Falk's last "Columbo" appeared in
2003, when the actor was 76, and he continued to
act until he began to suffer symptoms of dementia
in 2007. But all these things worked ultimately
to his advantage, made Falk seem not so much
"relatable" as familial: a sort of beloved,
room-brightening uncle. It also accounts in part
for the universality of his appeal � through
"Columbo," he was famous everywhere.

There was something solid about Falk, and it's no
surprise to learn that he spent time in the
Merchant Marine you have already imagined as
much or that he worked on the railroad in
Yugoslavia. (More surprising is the master's
degree in public administration.) Indeed, it
wasn't until he was almost 30 that he got serious
about acting, and the fact that he had lived a
varied life before he got serious about acting
means that there is a fullness to his work
unavailable to actors whose experience of the world amounts mainly to acting.

When director Wim Wenders cast him in his 1987
film "Wings of Desire" (and its 1993 sequel
"Faraway, So Close"), as the actor Peter Falk as
an angel come to Earth, who sacrificed
immortality for a mortal life of sensation, it
felt almost breathtakingly right: "When your
hands are cold, you rub 'em together," he tells
angel Bruno Ganz, whose presence he senses. "That feels good."

That love of life was the essence of his acting.
It was as if Wenders had discovered the actual truth about the actual man.
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Re: R.I.P. Peter Falk

Post by Hustler »

OscarGuy wrote:Very sad news. Thankfully he was not of present mind while his family fought around him.
Horrible news! Miserable people. Fortumately he will still be rememberd by us with the respect he deserves.
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Re: R.I.P. Peter Falk

Post by Reza »

'Columbo' star Peter Falk dies at 83




Veteran actor own five Emmys, four for popular detective role

By <http://www.variety.com/biography/1160>Richard Natale
Peter Falk, the Emmy- and Tony-winning stage, screen and TV actor,
best known to world audiences as the always-underestimated police
detective in the long-running telepic series "Columbo," died Thursday
at his home in Beverly Hills. He was 83.

It was announced that he was suffering from Alzheimer's disease in
December 2007.

Falk won five Emmys, four for portraying Columbo, and was twice Oscar
nommed for supporting roles.

Actor-director John Cassavetes referred to him as the man "everybody
falls in love with." Falk had several starring roles in films
directed by Cassavetes, found success onstage, even winning a Tony in
the early '70s for Neil Simon's "The Prisoner of Second Avenue," and
drew two Oscar nominations early in his career. But television proved
to be the medium that most effectively brought across his compact,
rumpled, impish quality.

By the mid-1970s, when "Columbo" was at its height, Falk was earning
$500,000 for each of the two-hour telepics. Ironically, he fought for
years with Universal Television to let him out of his "Columbo"
contract, only to return time and again to the character.

"Columbo" was a worldwide television phenomenon, and it brought him
to the attention of Wim Wenders, who starred Falk in what was
probably the best film of his later career, "Wings of Desire" (he
also appeared in the sequel, "Faraway, So Close").

Falk did not decide on an acting career until he was almost 30. Born
in Manhattan, he was rasied in Ossining, N.Y. After serving in the
merchant marine for 18 months as a cook in the days following WWII,
he studied at Hamilton College, finished his B.A. in political
science at the New School for Social Research in 1951 and his M.A. in
public administration at Syracuse U.

After being rejected by the CIA, he worked for the state of
Connecticut and began acting in community theater. Encouraged by his
acting teacher, he quit his job and moved to New York to study under
Jack Landau and Sanford Meisner, making his Off Broadway debut in
1956 in Moliere's "Don Juan" and hitting Broadway in "St. Joan" when
it transferred from Off Broadway in 1957.

Next came the role of the bartender in the hit revival of Eugene
O'Neill's "The Iceman Cometh" and roles in "Diary of a Scoundrel,"
"The Lady's Not for Burning," "Purple Dust," "Bonds of Interest" and
"Comic Strip."

He was discouraged from seeking employment in the movies due to his
glass eye, the result of the removal of his real eye at the age of 3
due to a malignant tumor. Columbia's Harry Cohn, after expressing
interest in the young actor, turned him away when he heard of the
artificial eye, which caused Falk to squint somewhat - a disadvantage
that was to become an envied acting trademark.

Nonetheless, he did land work in some vehicles as 1958's "Wind Across
the Everglades," "The Bloody Brood," "Pretty Boy Floyd" and "Secret
of the Purple Reef." Though the film "Murder, Inc." was not
particularly well received in 1960, Falk's vicious gangster portrayal
earned him kudos and his first Oscar nomination. The following year
he upstaged the likes of Bette Davis in Frank Capra's "Pocketful of
Miracles," showing a flair for comedy that brought a second Oscar nomination.

While he worked steadily in movies over the next decade ("Pressure
Point," "The Balcony," "It's a Mad, Mad World," "Robin and the Seven
Hoods," "The Great Race"), he was usually better than the vehicle.

Where he shone brightest was on dramatic television - such programs
as "Studio One," "Robert Montgomery Presents" and "Omnibus" as well
as "The Untouchables," "Alfred Hitchcock Presents," "Twilight Zone"
and "Naked City."

Emmy noms came his way for "Cold Turkey" episode of "The Law and Mr.
Jones," and he copped the award for "The Dick Powell Theatre"
presentation "The Price of Tomatoes" in 1962. He also appeared in
special presentations such as "Brigadoon" (1966) and "A Hatful of Rain" (1971).

Falk returned to Broadway as Stalin in Paddy Chayefsky's ill-fated
"The Passion of Josef D." And then he agreed to star in his first TV
series, the well-reviewed but short-lived "The Trials of O'Brien"
during the 1965-66 season.

He first took on the role of the rumpled, raincoat-wearing Lt.
Columbo in 1967 in the TV movie "Prescription Murder." By the early
'70s, "Columbo" was part of NBC's Mystery Movie rotation of 90-minute
crime programs, and Falk eventually took on directing some of the
segs. He recruited friends like Cassavetes and Ben Gazzara for
"Columbo" segs, which were a key training ground for up-and-coming
writers and directors on the Universal lot, including Steven
Spielberg, Stephen J. Cannell, Steven Bochco and David Chase.

In 1972 he copped a Tony for Neil Simon's "The Prisoner of Second
Avenue," though he largely avoided the stage thereafter.

Falk's relationship with Cassavetes began when he co-starred with the
noted independent actor-director in a routine gangster film, "Machine
Gun McCain." He joined Cassavetes and Gazzara in the landmark
"Husbands" in 1970 and pulled down better reviews than either of his
co-stars. He would later star in for Cassavetes (and partially
financed) "A Woman Under the Influence," co-starring Gena Rowlands.
He then had a cameo in "Opening Night" and appeared in Cassavetes
last film "Big Trouble" in 1986. The two also co-starred in Elaine
May's "Mickey and Nicky."

After bickering with Universal over the constraints of "Columbo," he
abandoned the series in 1978 and moved back to movies. There were
Simon crime comedies like "Murder by Death" and "The Cheap
Detective," comedy "The In-Laws" in 1979 with Alan Arkin and, later,
Rob Reiner's "The Princess Bride" (1987).

Other, less notable screen credits included "The Brink's Job," "All
the Marbles," "Vibes," "Happy New Year," "Tune in Tomorrow,"
"Cookie," "In the Spirit" and 1995's "Roommates."

He returned to "Columbo" in 1989 and donned the brown raincoat
several more times, the last in 2003 in "Columbo: Columbo Likes the
Night Life."

Falk continued to take on small roles, most recently co-starring with
Nicolas Cage in the thriller "Next."

He is survived by his wife of 34 years, actress Shera Falk, and two
daughters from a previous marriage.
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Re: R.I.P. Peter Falk

Post by Big Magilla »

NEW YORK (AP) — The best way to celebrate Peter Falk's life is to savor how Columbo, his signature character, fortified our lives.

Thanks to Falk's affectionately genuine portrayal, Lt. Columbo established himself for all time as a champion of any viewer who ever felt less than graceful, elegant or well-spoken.

Falk died Thursday at age 83 in his Beverly Hills, Calif., home, according to a statement released Friday by family friend Larry Larson. But Columbo lives on as the shining ideal of anyone with a smudge on his tie, whose car isn't the sportiest, who often seems clueless, who gets dissed by fancy people.

As a police detective, Columbo's interview technique was famously disjointed, with his inevitable awkward afterthought ("Ahhh, there's just one more thing...") that tried the patience of his suspect as he was halfway out the door.

Columbo was underestimated, patronized or simply overlooked by nearly everyone he met — especially the culprit.

And yet Columbo, drawing on inner pluck for which only he (and an actor as skilled as Falk) could have accounted, always prevailed. Contrary to all evidence (that is, until he nailed the bad guy), Columbo always knew what he was doing.

Even more inspiring for viewers, he was unconcerned with how other people saw him. He seemed to be perfectly happy with himself, his life, his pet basset, Dog, his wheezing Peugeot, and his never-seen wife. A squat man chewing cigars in a rumpled raincoat, he stands tall among TV's most self-assured heroes.

What viewer won't take solace forever from the lessons Columbo taught us by his enduring example?

Columbo — he never had a first name — presented a refreshing contrast to other TV detectives. "He looks like a flood victim," Falk once said. "You feel sorry for him. He appears to be seeing nothing, but he's seeing everything. Underneath his dishevelment, a good mind is at work."

On another occasion, he described Columbo as "an ass-backwards Sherlock Holmes."

"As a person, he was like Columbo. He was exactly the same way: a great sense of humor, constantly forgetting things," said Charles Engel, an NBCUniversal executive who worked with Falk on "Columbo" and was his neighbor and longtime friend.

He remembered Falk as a "brilliant" actor and "an amazingly wonderful, crazy guy," and said a script was in place for a two-hour "Columbo" special, but Falk's illness made the project impossible. In a court document filed in December 2008, Falk's daughter Catherine Falk said her father was suffering from Alzheimer's disease.

Somehow fittingly, Falk — the perfect choice to play Columbo — failed to be the first choice. Instead, the role was offered to easygoing crooner Bing Crosby. Fortunately, he passed.

With Falk in place, "Columbo" began its run in 1971 as part of the NBC Sunday Mystery Movie series, appearing every third week. The show became by far the most popular of the three mysteries, the others being "McCloud" and "McMillan and Wife."

Falk was reportedly paid $250,000 a movie and could have made much more if he had accepted an offer to convert "Columbo" into a weekly series. He declined, reasoning that carrying a weekly detective series would be too great a burden.

NBC canceled the three series in 1977. In 1989 ABC offered "Columbo" in a two-hour format usually appearing once or twice a season. The movies continued into the 21st century. "Columbo" appeared in 26 foreign countries and was a particular favorite in France and Iran.

Columbo's trademark: an ancient raincoat Falk had once bought for himself. After 25 years on television, the coat became so tattered it had to be replaced.

Falk was already an experienced Broadway actor and two-time Oscar nominee when he began playing Columbo. And, long before then, he had demonstrated a bit of Columbo-worthy spunk: at 3, he had one eye removed because of cancer.

Then, when he was starting as an actor in New York, an agent told him, "Of course, you won't be able to work in movies or TV because of your eye." And after failing a screen test at Columbia Pictures, he was told by studio boss Harry Cohn that "for the same price I can get an actor with two eyes."

But Falk prevailed, even before "Columbo," picking up back-to-back Oscar nominations as best supporting actor for the 1960 mob drama "Murder, Inc." and Frank Capra's last film, the 1961 comedy-drama "Pocketful of Miracles."

Paying tribute, actor-comedian Michael McKean said, "Peter Falk's assault on conventional stardom went like this: You're not conventionally handsome, you're missing an eye and you have a speech impediment. Should you become a movie star? Peter's correct answer: Absolutely.

"I got to hang with him a few times and later worked a day with him on a forgettable TV movie," McKean went on, calling Falk "a sweet, sharp and funny man with a great soul. Wim Wenders called it correctly in 'Wings of Desire': He was an angel if there ever was one on Earth."

"There is literally nobody you could compare him to. He was a completely unique actor," said Rob Reiner, who directed Falk in "The Princess Bride."

"His personality was really what drew people to him. ... He had this great sense of humor and this great natural quality nobody could come close to," Reiner said. Falk's work with Alan Arkin in "The In-Laws" represents "one of the most brilliant comedy pairings we've seen on screen."

Peter Michael Falk was born in 1927, in New York City and grew up in Ossining, N.Y., where his parents ran a clothing store.

After serving as a cook in the merchant marine and receiving a master

He also acted in amateur theater and was encouraged to become a professional by actress-teacher Eva Le Gallienne.

An appearance in "The Iceman Cometh" off-Broadway led to other parts, among them Josef Stalin in Paddy Chayefsky's 1964 "The Passion of Josef D." In 1971, Falk scored a hit in Neil Simon's "The Prisoner of Second Avenue," Tony-nominated for best play.

Falk made his film debut in 1958 with "Wind Across the Everglades" and established himself as a talented character actor with his performance as the vicious killer Abe Reles in "Murder, Inc."

Among his other movies: "It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World," ''Robin and the Seven Hoods," ''The Great Race," ''Luv," ''Castle Keep," ''The Cheap Detective" and "The Brinks Job."

Falk also appeared in a number of art-house favorites, including "Wings of Desire" (in which he played himself as a former angel), and the semi-improvisational films "Husbands" and "A Woman Under the Influence," directed by his friend John Cassavetes.

"Today we lost someone who is very special and dear to my heart. Not only a wonderful actor but a very great friend," said Gena Rowlands, who co-starred with Falk in the latter film, and was married to the late Cassavetes.

Falk became prominent in television movies, beginning with his first Emmy for "The Price of Tomatoes" in 1961. His four other Emmys were for "Columbo."

He was married to pianist Alyce Mayo in 1960; they had two daughters, Jackie and Catherine, and divorced in 1976. The following year he married actress Shera Danese. They filed for divorce twice and reconciled each time.

When not working, Falk spent time in the garage of his Beverly Hills home. He had converted it into a studio where he created charcoal drawings. He took up art in New York when he was in the Simon play and one day happened into the Art Students League.

He recalled: "I opened a door and there she was, a nude model, shoulders back, a light from above, buck-ass naked. The female body is awesome. Believe me, I signed up right away."

Falk is survived by his wife Shera and his two daughters.

___

Associated Press Television Writers Lynn Elber and David Bauder, Entertainment Writer Anthony McCartney and former writer Bob Thomas in Los Angeles contributed to this report.

(This version CORRECTS spelling of basset, style for NBCUniversal)
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Re: R.I.P. Peter Falk

Post by OscarGuy »

Very sad news. Thankfully he was not of present mind while his family fought around him. Hopefully he's now at peace. While I'll always like Columbo, his greatest role, the film I'll most remember him in was Murder by Death.
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R.I.P. Peter Falk

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