Memorial Page for Peter Falk (née Peter Michael Falk)

Peter Falk (born 16 September 1927 in New York City; died 23 June 2011 in Beverly Hills) was an American actor. He became world-famous as the shuffling, seemingly absent-minded detective in the television series Columbo – a role he shaped for more than three decades and which became one of the best-known characters in television history.

A glass eye and the path to acting

Falk was born to Jewish immigrant parents, his father from Poland and his mother from Russia; the family ran a clothing store. At age three he was found to have a tumour in his right eye; the eye and tumour had to be surgically removed, and Falk wore a glass eye from then on, giving his gaze the characteristically uneven width that later became his trademark. After school he worked for eighteen months as a cook in the merchant marine before earning a bachelor's degree in literature and political science and a master's in public administration. On 3 January 1956 he stood on a New York stage for the first time, in an off-Broadway production.

Early film roles and Oscar nominations

In 1958 Falk landed his first small film role. In 1960 he played the brutal hitman Abe Reles in Murder, Inc. and received his first Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor; a second followed in 1961 with Frank Capra's Pocketful of Miracles. On 17 April 1960 he had married fashion designer and pianist Alyce Mayo; the couple adopted two daughters.

Columbo

In 1968 Falk played Lieutenant Columbo for the first time, in the television film Prescription: Murder. After a further pilot in 1970, the series began on NBC in September 1971. The character lived through a set of unmistakable details: Falk's own raincoat, bought back in 1958, a battered Peugeot 403, a basset hound named "Dog," a slight speech impediment and the ever-returning question, "Just one more thing." Between 1971 and 1978, 43 episodes were made, and in 1972 Falk directed one episode himself. In 1989 he returned to the role for 24 further television films, the last made in 2002 – over 35 years, Columbo solved a total of 69 cases. For the role, Falk won four Emmy Awards (1972, 1975, 1976 and 1990) and a Golden Globe.

An actor beyond the role

Falk worked deliberately to avoid being defined solely by Columbo, and worked repeatedly with director John Cassavetes, including on Husbands and A Woman Under the Influence. In 1987 he played a semi-fictionalised version of himself in Wim Wenders' Wings of Desire – during filming in Berlin, he later recalled, he was regularly addressed as "Inspector Columbo." In 1977 Falk separated from Alyce Mayo; on 7 December that year he married actress Shera Danese, whom he had met on the set of a Columbo episode and with whom he lived until his death.

Final years

In 2007 it became known that Falk was suffering from Alzheimer's disease; in June 2009 a Los Angeles court appointed his wife as his legal guardian. Peter Falk died on 23 June 2011, aged 83, at his home in Beverly Hills from the effects of pneumonia, worsened by his advanced dementia. He was buried at Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery in Los Angeles; in July 2013 he was posthumously awarded a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.