Salon on Peter Falk: "The growly, one-eyed actor was much more than Lt. Columbo"

Friday, Jun 24, 2011 18:01 ET
Film Salon
Peter Falk 1927-2011
From Cassavetes to "Wings of Desire," the growly, one-eyed actor was much more than Lt. Columbo
By Andrew O'Hehir

http://www.salon.com/life/rip/index.html?story=/ent/movies/film_salon/2011/06/24/peter_falk



I met Peter Falk only once, more than 20 years and dozens of performances ago, when he was barely 60 but struck the juvenile version of me as an immensely battered ship's figurehead, a wise and soulful spirit who had weathered the wild storms of artistic greatness and the flat tides of showbiz mediocrity. It was not long after he had played a version of himself as a former angel (called in the credits "Der Filmstar") in Wim Wenders' gorgeous "Wings of Desire," and at almost the same time had shaped a different generation's sensibility as the grandfather/narrator of "The Princess Bride."

He talked about how much he missed his friend and collaborator, indie-film pioneer John Cassavetes, who had recently died. But when I asked Falk whether he'd rather be remembered for his performances in Cassavetes' "Husbands" or "A Woman Under the Influence" than as the professionally befuddled Lt. Columbo of TV fame, he gave me a tolerant smile. I've long since lost any transcript of this interview, but as I recall it now, he said that Columbo had been very good to him, and he was very grateful. If the public wanted him to play that guy for the rest of his life, he was fine with it.

Falk, who died on Thursday at age 83 in Beverly Hills, Calif., after apparently suffering from dementia for several years, didn't literally play Columbo for the rest of his life, but pretty darn close. (The last "Columbo" movie aired in 2003.) Appearing as the rumpled detective in 69 inverted-structure TV episodes and movies over a 35-year period -- the "Columbo" formula has been described as a "howcatchem" rather than a whodunit -- the sandpaper-voiced, one-eyed New York native permanently imprinted himself on pop-culture history and thoroughly overshadowed the rest of his career. You can argue that that's too bad, if you must, but mostly it's amazing. Falk's TV role as a deceptively disheveled L.A. cop lasted much longer than Heath Ledger's or Kurt Cobain's (or Mozart's) lives.

It's certainly true that Columbo wasn't Falk's most emotionally challenging or dramatically audacious role, but like most actors of his generation he was delighted to keep working, and had no illusions that he could control the quality of the finished product. This was a guy who spent years during the middle of his career playing bit parts in now-forgotten TV series -- "87th Precinct," "Wagon Train," "The Dick Powell Theatre" -- and only gradually worked his way back into movies. Getting cast in the first Columbo TV movie ("Prescription: Murder" in 1968) when he was already over 40 was a huge break, and one Falk apparently never forgot.