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Peter Michael Falk as
Lt. Frank Columbo, LAPD
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"He was truly one of the all-time great TV cops. There will never be another one like him.” ~ Los Angeles Police Department spokesman: June 26th, 2011
The news of actor Peter Falk’s death was hardly surprising to me; it had been reported months earlier he was rapidly succumbing to that most dreadful of maladies, Alzheimer’s Dementia. Nevertheless, seeing the news in print gave me a gnawing feeling in my gut, the type I get whenever someone close to me passes on. As I get older that feeling is coming with a distressful, increasing regularity.
Though I never met the man, in a way he was close to me. Scanning his filmography (I love the Internet) it’s hard to find a movie he was in I haven’t seen. Likewise, more than a few of his TV appearances are familiar to me. Such is the one big plus of the boob tube. I watched him age on the small screen, even as I aged.
Falk was a multi-faceted actor. Drama and comedy did he both, but his forte appeared to be gangster roles. Whether it was playing the ambitious mobster Guy Gisborne in the “Rat Pack” musical Robin and the 7 Hoods to his starring role as bank robber Tony Pino in the film The Brink’s Job (1978), he consistently won praise from critics and filmgoers alike. It was in his first major film appearance (as the sociopathic mob assassin Abe Reles) in the movie Murder, Inc (1960) he demonstrated his aptitude in the genre. For this unforgettable role he was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. One of the two nominations he would receive in his lifetime (the other as lovable gangster Joy Boy in the comedy Pocketful of Miracles (1961)).
Peter Falk would not allow himself to be typecast as a gangster, though, lovable or otherwise. Included in his résumé is a memorable role as a cop-hating cab driver in the slapstick comedy It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (1963) as well as a standout performance as quasi-insane husband/father Nick Longhetti in the psychodrama A Woman Under the Influence (1974). He also gave a particularly warm portrayal of the Grandfather/Narrator in the cult classic A Princess Bride (1987).
The role of his life, however, the one that would forever secure for him a page in the annals of entertainment history, was his portrayal of the legendary TV LAPD homicide detective Lt. Columbo in the eponymous television film series. Though he did not originate the role, he was the first to bring it to the small screen as a regularly recurring one, and it was he who would forever be associated with the part.
The role was a departure for him, and American mass media, in a number of ways. For Falk it was not his first time starring in a tv series (he had previously starred in the short-lived The Trials of O’Brien) but it was his first successful one. While he never won a coveted Oscar in his entire movie career, the part of Lt. Columbo would garner for him a total of 4 Emmys!
For American mass media, it would represent one of the earliest (and perhaps, most famous) instances in which a character of Southern Italian heritage (Columbo is a Sicilian surname) was shown both in a positive light and completely free of the ethnic stereotypes usually heaped upon members of our ethnos. Though Peter Falk was not Italian (he was an Ashkenazi Jew with roots across Eastern Europe), his short stature (5’6”) and brunet complexion plus his excellent acting skills made him more than acceptable for the part.
No attempt was made to hide Lt. Columbo’s Southern Italian heritage, either. My favorite example of this occurred in the episode entitled Any Old Port in a Storm (1973) starring famed English actor Donald Pleasence as fratricidal murderer Adrian Carsini. When first meeting Carsini and learning of his Northern Italian heritage, Columbo quipped, “I hear they make them blond up there!” In another episode he made mention of the fact his boyhood hero was Joe DiMaggio, another Sicilian.
Lt. Columbo was a character worthy of the pen of an Agatha Christie or Arthur Conan Doyle. This fact was not lost on Peter Falk, who once jokingly referred to Columbo as an “ass-backwards Sherlock Holmes.” His disheveled, shabby appearance plus his seemingly slow-witted demeanor in fact masked the mind of a brilliant criminologist! The conceit of the character, of course, is that Joe Sixpack (personified by Columbo) gets to lock horns with the rich, famous and powerful, eventually bringing them to justice. Would that life imitated art.
Lt. Columbo’s strategy was simply to use his apparent inferiority to disarm his adversaries, lulling them into a false sense of security while he moved in for the kill. He used no gun. He was definitely not a ladies’ man! He drove no sports car; in fact, his car was a jalopy! Yet from the time the murder was first committed you knew it was only a matter of time before Columbo got his man (or woman). The only question was how.
In several episodes Lt. Columbo’s high intelligence was explicitly mentioned. The best example of this was in the episode entitled The Bye-Bye Sky High IQ Murder Case (1977). In this episode a murderous embezzler who was a genius in his own right (played by actor Theodore Bikel), learns too late the deceptively dullard detective was in fact his intellectual equal.
Peter Falk admitted he brought more than a little of himself into the part, which he understandably came to love dearly. Lt. Columbo’s trademark old raincoat was in fact Falk’s personal property! Like Columbo, Falk (by his own admission) was a slob. Going by what’s been written and said about him since his death, like Columbo, he was apparently a lovable one, too. Like Columbo, though, there was a lot more to actor Peter Falk than met the eye. Unlike most Hollywood actors, who usually stop with a secondary school education, Falk had a Masters Degree in Public Administration from Syracuse University. He also worked for a time as an efficiency expert for the Budget Bureau of the state of Connecticut.
Perhaps his greatest personal triumph was his overcoming a physical handicap. At the age of three he had his right eye removed due to a retinoblastoma. He wore a glass eye for the remainder of his life. He never let it stand in his way. When he first started acting his agent told him, “Of course, you won’t be able to work in movies or TV because of your eye.” The rest, as they say, is history.
Law enforcement agencies across the country heaped praise upon Columbo, which they felt was more realistic than the flashier weekly dramas that showed everybody and their mothers solving murders (except, of course, for the police). The show was also popular internationally, being shown in a total of 26 countries. It was especially popular in France, Bulgaria and (believe it or not) Iran!
A Columbo series of books adapted from the TV series were also published, as were a series of novels written by William Harrington.
How sad then such a great actor came to such a horrible end. In 2007 he was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s Dementia. On June 23rd of this year he died at the age of 83. Before this, though, the disease had robbed him of the accumulated memories of a lifetime.
Peter Michael Falk, for the many years of viewing pleasure you gave me, I say “Thank you.” For your legendary portrayal of a positive Southern Italian TV character who achieved icon status, I say “Bless you.” I, for one, will miss you.
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