Erik Visits an American Grave, Part 1,823

This is the grave of Peter Falk.

Born in 1927 in The Bronx, Falk grew up in a fairly typical Jewish family of that time. His dad owned a dry goods store. Falk grew up with a weird look. He had eye cancer at the age of 3 and had his right eye removed. He wore a glass eye but squinted a lot. Now, you would think, well, OK, this isn’t going to have a massive impact on someone’s life or ability to make a living, but they probably aren’t’ going to go into the movies. I’d think that too. But as everyone here knows, Falk chose that harder path.

The family moved up to Ossining like any number of good white New Yorkers getting out of the city by the 40s. He managed to play baseball in school (once dropping his glass eye into an ump’s hand when he was called out to show just how bad a call that was!!!) and was in high school theater productions. He went to Hamilton College after trying but failing to join the military, based on his eye of course. He still however dropped out of Hamilton and got the Merchant Marine to take him, working as a cook. He ended up back at Hamilton, then went to the University of Wisconsin for a bit, and finally ended up at the New School, where he received a degree in 1951.

But this was a kid looking for adventure. He nearly fought in the first war between Israel and Egypt, barely caring which side, but wanting some action. It ended before he could work that out. But after his college, he worked on railroads in Yugoslavia. He then went to Syracuse University and got a Masters in Public Administration, but admitting that he had no idea what he wanted to do with his life except that anything to do with that degree was out of luck. So he tried to join the CIA. But he was rejected because while at sea, he had been a member of the far left Marine Cooks and Stewards Union and this the Cold War and redbaiting workers was still at its height; this despite the fact that Falk did it work on the boat, not because he cared about the politics.

So Falk stumbled into actually using his degree and got a job as an analyst with the Connecticut State Budget Bureau. But he hated it and so for fun, because doing community theater. He did well and got recommendations and people told him to go to New York. So in 1956, he did. He started getting off-Broadway roles pretty quickly, actually was on Broadway by the end of the year in a small part, and became a pretty key person in the New York theater scene by the end of the 50s.

Falk wanted to do movies, but his eye got in the way. He had a screen test for Columbia, but Harry Cohn totally dismissed a guy with a squint because of a blind eye. But he got a few small roles and then a bigger one in 1960s’ Murder Inc., where he got the best reviews in what was generally considered a mediocre picture. In fact, he was nominated for Best Supporting Actor and that would put the real charge into his career. Frank Capra immediately cast Falk in what would be the director’s last film, 1961’s Pocketful of Miracles. He later wrote how much he loved both Falk’s performance and how undiva he was, unlike Glenn Ford, who he wanted to murder.

Still, Falk was not going to be a featured actor much. He did a ton of small movie parts and a ton of TV. He was the star of a Twilight Zone episode where he played a Castro like revolutionary who begins to see his murderer in the mirror (subtle script writing there!) and he won an Emmy for his guest starring appearance in an episode of The Law and Mr. Jones.

This all leads us to the two things Falk is most remembered for today. The first, of course, is Columbo. In fact, that’s probably one of the all time iconic TV roles. The show was on consistently in movie of the week spots from 1971 to 1978 on NBC and then it migrated to ABC as the occasional TV movie. He played the role all the way to 2003. His hardboiled but friendly detective ways and his iconic look with the squint and the overcoat made him an icon if not a star exactly. The show was also interesting in that it lacked suspense–they always showed the killing happening first and who did it. Then you’d watch Columbo put the pieces together.

The second big piece of Falk’s career is his work with John Cassavettes. He starred in Husbands, A Woman Under the Influence, and, in a smaller role, Opening Night. Not being much of a Cassavettes fan, I’ve only seen all of these more than once, and it is hard to be anything but “hey, it’s Columbo!” at first. Falk also showed up in Wings of Desire, more or less playing the Columbo character which was more or less playing himself anyway. It’s one of the weirdest casting choices I’ve ever seen, as he plays that role as an angel who gave up his immortality and lived on Earth because being an angel is boring. And he’s Columbo doing that. OK. But it works, somehow.

Really though, Falk was everywhere. Why wouldn’t you cast him in The Great Muppet Caper? Kind of perfect. The Princess Bride? Also perfect. He played Shelley Levine in productions of Mamet’s Glengarry Glen Ross in Boston and LA. Would love to see that. He occasionally worked in theatre back in New York as well. Later in life, he did some holiday movies that were bad, but they were work and he was fine in them. He published his autobiography in 2006. Falk died in 2011. He was 83 years old. The last couple of years were dominated by a rapidly advancing dementia, which yuck.

Peter Falk is buried in Westwood Memorial Park, Los Angeles, California. Shera is his widow, the actress Shera Danese. Unfortunately, Danese had stopped his daughters from seeing him in those last years when he was ill and didn’t even tell them when he died. This led to California passing what became known as the Peter Falk Law in 2015 that gave family members rights when their family members had remarried.

If you would like this series to visit other actors from 70s TV, you can donate to cover the required expenses here. McLean Stevenson is in Hollywood and Sherman Hemsley is in El Paso. Previous posts in this series are archived here and here.