I just read that Peter Falk has just succumbed to Alzheimer disease... He was 83 years old... I vaguely remember hearing that Peter Falk was Jewish and after looking into it I found that he said he was Jewish.
Peter Falk is best known for his character Columbo on the TV show Columbo which ran from the 1960s to the 2000s...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Falk
Although Falk appeared in numerous other television roles in the 1960s and 1970s, he is best known as the star of the TV series Columbo, "everyone's favorite rumpled television detective", writes historian David Fantle. His character was a shabby and ostensibly absent-minded police detective lieutenant, who had first appeared in the 1968 film Prescription: Murder. Falk described his role to Fantle:
Columbo has a genuine mistiness about him. It seems to hang in the air . . . [and] he's capable of being distracted. . . . Columbo is an donkey-backwards Sherlock Holmes. Holmes had a long neck, Columbo has no neck; Holmes smoked a pipe, Columbo chews up six cigars a day."[5]:216
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.[24]
Falk tries to analyze the character and notes the correlation between his own personality and Columbo's:
I'm a Virgo Jew, and that means I have an obsessive thoroughness. It's not enough to get most of the details, it's necessary to get them all. I've been accused of perfectionism. When Lew Wasserman (head of Universal Studios) said that Falk is a perfectionist, I don't know whether it was out of affection or because he felt I was a monumental pain in the donkey."[5]:216
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!'"[5] 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.[25]
The debut episode in 1971 was directed by 25-year-old Steven Spielberg in one of his earliest directing roles. Falk recalled the episode to Spielberg biographer Joseph McBride:
Let's face it, we had some good fortune at the beginning. Our debut episode, in 1971, was directed by this young kid named Steven Spielberg. I told the producers, Link and Levinson, This guy is too good for "Columbo". . . . Steven was shooting me with a long lens from across the street. That wasn't common twenty years ago. The comfort level it gave me as an actor, besides its great look artistically—well, it told you that this wasn't any ordinary director."[26]
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, 90 or 120 minutes 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.[19]
http://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/2011/06/24/columbo-star-peter-falk-dead-at-83/'Columbo' Star Peter Falk Dead at 83
Published June 24, 2011 | FoxNews.com
Legendary television actor Peter Falk, who was best known for his role as a squinty, rumpled detective in the hit series "Columbo," has died at the age of 83.
Falk died Thursday night at his Beverly Hills home, according to a statement released by family friend Larry Larson.
A cause of death has not been released.
In 2008, his daughter Catherine Falk, said he had been suffering from Alzheimer’s disease and dementia.
Falk won four Emmys for his starring role in "Columbo," a show on which he appeared in 69 episodes.
"Columbo" began its history in 1971 as part of the NBC Sunday Mystery Movie series, appearing every third week. "Columbo" became by far the most popular of the three mysteries, the others being "McCloud" and "McMillan and Wife."
Columbo -- he never had a first name -- presented a 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."
He also received Academy Award nominations for 1960's "Murder Inc." and 1961's "Pocketful of Miracles."
Falk was born Sept. 16, 1927, in New York City and grew up in Ossining, N.Y., where his parents ran a clothing store. At 3, he had one eye removed because of cancer. "When something like that happens early," he said in a 1963 Associated Press interview, "you learn to live with it. It became the joke of the neighborhood. If the umpire ruled me out on a bad call, I'd take the fake eye out and hand it to him."
Topic: RIP Peter Falk (Read 703 times)