Us actor whose success as the scruffy TV detective Columbo was complemented by a wide range of stage and screen roles
Show-business history records that the American actor Peter Falk, who has died aged 83, made his stage debut the year before he left high school, presciently cast as a detective. Despite the 17-year-old's fleeting success, he had no thoughts of pursuing acting as a career – if only because tough kids from the Bronx considered it an unsuitable job for a man. Just 24 years later, Falk made his first television appearance as the scruffy detective, Columbo, not only becoming the highest paid actor on television – commanding $500,000 an episode during the 1970s – but also the most famous.
Inevitably the lieutenant dedicated to unravelling the villainy of the wealthy and glamorous dominated his career, although – unlike some actors – he escaped the straitjacket, or in his case shabby raincoat, of typecasting. In addition to stage work,...
Show-business history records that the American actor Peter Falk, who has died aged 83, made his stage debut the year before he left high school, presciently cast as a detective. Despite the 17-year-old's fleeting success, he had no thoughts of pursuing acting as a career – if only because tough kids from the Bronx considered it an unsuitable job for a man. Just 24 years later, Falk made his first television appearance as the scruffy detective, Columbo, not only becoming the highest paid actor on television – commanding $500,000 an episode during the 1970s – but also the most famous.
Inevitably the lieutenant dedicated to unravelling the villainy of the wealthy and glamorous dominated his career, although – unlike some actors – he escaped the straitjacket, or in his case shabby raincoat, of typecasting. In addition to stage work,...
- 6/26/2011
- by Brian Baxter
- The Guardian - Film News
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