Peter Falk Has Died, 83

[applcin]

http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/43526826/ns/today-entertainment/?GT1-43001

[All My Shadows]

RIP.

[Soapsuds]

I had recently purchased some of his Columbo DVDs. It was a great show. Sad that he is gone.

[DRW50]

Sad. I read a year or two ago that he and his family were in some conflict and he had dementia...or was that someone else?

Columbo and Cassavetes - quite a legacy.

[dragonflies]

I'm watching the Princess Bride tonight in honor of him

RIP

[quartermainefan]

I think he had suffered from alzheimers for many years. I remember an incident years ago he was wandering the streets, it was very sad. He was a talented guy. I loved him in The Cheap Detective and Murder By Death.

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[edgeofnight]

I, perhaps, have a closer connection to Peter Falk than any of you. Not only have I met him, personally, but he was raised in my hometown. In fact he used to pull my aunt's pigtails in grade school. His adoptive parents owned a clothing store on Main Street. He graduated from Ossining (NY) High School in 1945. I wrote the following in 1997, but have updated it, accordingly.

Originally written on the occasion of Peter Falk's 70th birthday in 1997 (updated) I was Ossining Village Historian at the time.

Dorothy Gale, in The Wizard of Oz, learns that ‘There is no place like home.’ The Village and Town of Ossining have been fortunate enough to be the home of a varied assortment of individuals who have made their mark in the world, outside the boundaries of our coterminous community, most notably:

Peter Falk.

Leading the ensemble of luminaries who have called Ossining ‘their home,’ is, of course, the multiple Emmy Award winning actor Peter Falk, who is a 1945 graduate of Ossining High School .

The dogged determination of NBC-TV's detective Columbo matches that of his real-life counterpart. Born in New York City on September 16, 1927, Falk was the son of Michael and Madeline Falk, who operated a clothing store on Main Street for many years.

The removal of a malignant tumor resulted in the loss of an eye for the Young Falk at the age of three. Growing up, Falk was always self-conscious about his glass eye. By his own accounts, Peter Falk was a juvenile delinquent in his teen years. He had acted in various plays in the Hudson River Valley area, making his stage debut at age 12, in The Pirates of Penzance, at Camp High Point. Following his graduation from high school, Falk worked as a cook for the Merchant Marine, and pursued undergraduate studies at Hamilton College. He graduated from the New School for Social Research in 1951 with a degree in political science and went on to earn a Master's degree in public administration at Syracuse University. It was during his stint as an efficiency expert at the Connecticut State Budget Bureau when the acting bug finally bit him. The fledgling thespian immersed himself in his new craft by studying under Eva La Gallience and Sanford Meisner at the White Barn Theatre in Westport, Ct.

Making his professional debut on Off-Broadway at the age of 29, Falk was advised by his theatrical agents not to expect much more in the way of important stage and film roles on account of his glass eye. But Peter was determined to prove them wrong. He went on to critical acclaim in such plays as "The Iceman Cometh", "Diary of a Scoundrel", and “The Lady's not for Burning" among others.

Hollywood beckoned the young actor but studio mogul Harry Cohn rejected him because of his eye. Undaunted by yet another rejection, Falk went on to appear in a series of minor roles in such pictures as "Wind Across the Everglades" and "The Bloody Brood". His ability to play a street-smart gangster type in the latter picture earned him roles in "Pretty Boy Floyd" and "The Secret of the Purple Reef".

Falk's performance as hit man Abe Reles in "Murder, Inc.", released in 1960 by Twentieth Century Fox, firmly established his acting credentials when he received an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor.

He went on to repeat his success, the following year, with a second straight Oscar nomination for his performance on Frank Capra's last motion picture "A Pocketful of Miracles". Falk performed in the picture with such celluloid heavyweights as Bette Davis and Glenn Ford.

The mid-1960's saw Falk in a variety of roles on both the big and small screens. He was nominated for an Emmy Award for his portrayal of a drug addict in an episode of the series "The Law and Mr. Jones" in 1961. The following year, he brought home the gold statuette for Outstanding Actor in a single leading role for his performance in an episode of 'The Dick Powell Show' entitled "The Price of Tomatoes".

In an effort to broaden his horizons, Falk appeared on Broadway as the Soviet Communist leader Joseph Stalin in Paddy Chayefsky's "The Passion of Josef D." Although he won favorable reviews for his portrayal, the play closed after only two weeks of performances.

Television beckoned the actor with the lure of his own series with "The Trials of O'Brien". Again, he and the show won high praise from the viewing audience and the critics, but the show was cancelled after its first season.

In the early 1970's, Peter Falk was to, at last, grab the brass ring and achieve superstar success in the television series "Columbo". Today, after more than a quarter century since its premiere, it is ironic to learn that Peter Falk was not the producers' first choice to play the fictional Los Angeles police lieutenant. Their first choice was Bing Crosby, who turned the project down. Although he was selected as an afterthought, Falk made the role his own, and he and the show soared in the Nielsen ratings. At the conclusion of the series' first season, Falk was awarded the first of four Emmy Awards for his portrayal of the rumpled detective with the disheveled raincoat. The series ran for six years on NBC and is still shown in periodic made-for-television movies. Reruns of the original series are shown on local and cable television stations.

Not one to rest on his laurels, Peter Falk has continued to perform on stage and in motion pictures. He appeared in the riotous motion picture comedy farce "It's A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World" and in the title role of Neil Simon's play "The Prisoner of Second Avenue" One of Falk's final roles was a tour-de-force for the accomplished actor when he played a crusty old man who raises his orphaned grandson in the 1995 film "Roommates". The movie spans some thirty years in the lives of the stubborn and opinionated grandfather and his grandson, and ends with the former's death at the ripe old age of 107.

Peter Falk never forgot his Ossining roots. He surprised his classmates by showing up for their 50th high school reunion in 1995.

In 2005, Peter Falk paid a very special visit to his hometown of Ossining. Surrounded by his classmates of the Ossining High School class of 1945, Peter Falk unveiled the re-naming of the street he had grown up on -- now 'Peter Falk Place.' Appropriately enough, rather than having a red velvet cloth cover up the street sign before the unveiling, the street sign was covered up by a dirty, old trench coat, the very symbol of the television character of Columbo that he created.

Sadly, in recent years, Peter Falk suffered from Alzheimer's Disease.

Ossining lost one of its own on Thursday, June 23, 2011. Peter Falk was 83.

[DRW50]

That's a great obit, very personal and it makes you feel like you know him. Thank you for writing this.

[dragonflies]

My heart breaks that he suffered from dementia, my grandmother had that

[DRW50]

The part about the anesthesia is what bothers me most. I hope eventually there will be more steps taken to try to pretend dementia caused or exacerbated by anesthesia.