MAN OF MYSTERIES
THE BELOVED STAR OVERCAME OBSTACLES WITH UNLIKELY CHARM
When Peter Falk was starting out in showbiz, he had a screen test with Columbia Pictures’ notoriously blunt mogul Harry Cohn. “Cohn said, ‘Why the hell should I hire you — for the same money, I can get an actor with two eyes!’ ” Rick Lertzman, co-author of Beyond Columbo: The Life and Times of Peter Falk, tells Closer. Having lost an eye to cancer at 3, “he always had something to overcome, and that gave him an underdog quality.”
At 5-foot-6, Peter became the quintessential little guy against long odds, most famously as rumpled, raincoat-wearing, cigar-smoking LAPD Lt. Columbo, a role he played from 1971 to 2003. “Everyone always identified with Columbo,” says Lertzman. Adds co-author William Birnes, “He was the working-class guy — the schlub staggering in and getting cigar ashes everywhere, but he would puncture through the pride of these high-class villains.” And just when they thought they were off the hook, Columbo would nail them with a final nagging question: “Just one more thing….”
Despite his blue-collar persona, Peter grew up comfortably in NYC. His RussianPolish immigrant father made a wise early investment in IBM that turned him into a millionaire. Peter earned an accounting degree and became an efficiency expert for the state of Connecticut before going against his dad’s wishes and pursing acting in his late 20s. It paid off when he earned supportingactor Oscar nominations for 1960’s Murder, Inc. and 1961’s Pocketful of Miracles.
Peter broke out of character-actor mode when he won the lead — and global fame — in the Columbo TV movies. “The show is all over the world,” Peter said. “I’ve been to villages in Africa with maybe one TV set, and little kids will run up to me shouting, ‘Columbo!’ ”
WANDERING HEART
He never regretted the role — “there’s something wrong with complaining about being typecast in something you really enjoy doing,” he explained. Yet he didn’t want to be tied down to one part, so Columbo never became a weekly series, allowing him to do edgy, indie films like Husbands with his pal John Cassavetes as well as such classic comedies as The In-Laws and The Princess Bride.
That restless spirit applied to his personal life, too. His first marriage, to Alyce Mayo (with whom he adopted two daughters), ended after 16 years in 1976, when he had an affair with Shera Danese, a statuesque actress 24 years his junior who became his second wife in ’77. “They were called the fighting Falks,” says Lertzman. “They had lots of separations and reconciliations.” Still, they stayed together until Peter, who suffered from Alzheimer’s disease, died at 83 in 2011. His characters live on. Concludes Birnes, “His legacy as an actor will remain for a long, long time.”