Just one more thing... do you want to buy Columbo’s coat?
THIS scruffy coat is expected to fetch £90,000 when it goes on sale – and it won’t take too many clues to work out who used to wear it.
TV detective Columbo – played by actor Peter Falk – was rarely seen without the crumpled, tan-coloured mackintosh during the hit series which spanned 35 years, starting in 1968. Columbo made Falk the highest paid television actor of the time. The dishevelled detective – who always left a scene, only to return and announce he wanted to ask “just one more thing” – appeared chaotic but was always underestimated by his adversaries and never failed to solve a case.
The original coat belonged to Falk in real life. The show’s producers had seen him wearing it off-screen and decided that it was perfect for Lieutenant Frank Columbo. Falk agreed and the jacket went down in television folklore. The long-sleeved raincoat has three large buttons down the front, two side pockets and cuffed sleeves. It is described as “well-worn and has patches, small tears, discolouration and light staining in a number of areas.” The mackintosh is being sold for the first time on behalf of Falk’s estate, following his death in 2011 at the age of 83. The coat – which was worn by the star during Columbo’s two pilot episodes in 1968 and then again during its first run between 1971 to 1978 – was yesterday described by auctioneers Bonhams as “one of the most iconic pieces of TV memorabilia ever offered”. The special lot includes a pair of “scuffed, cracked, and otherwise very well worn” brown leather boots which the cigar-puffing detective also wore on screen.
If the price is too high, a second coat, boots and suit worn by Falk when the show was given a reboot in 1989, are expected to fetch a total of £15,000.
That set of coat and boots is much the same as their 1970s counterparts, and the suit is also “somewhat rumpled”. It has a brown linen jacket with silk lining, a tan dress shirt and a pair of matching cuffed trousers.
The look is completed with a brown-and-tan polka dot tie which has some staining and a small burn hole, probably from a cigar, on the bottom front.
These three items are being sold together as one lot. The sale of memorabilia takes place at Bonhams in New York on November 21.