Peter Falk, who played television’s rumpled detective Columbo for 30 years in an acting career that included 50 movies and spanned half a century, has died. He was 83. He died on Friday at home in Beverly Hills, California. He had dementia, possibly related to Alzheimer’s disease, since at least 2009.
Falk, a former stage actor, worried he was typecast as a mobster in movies when in 1968 ”along came a police lieutenant named Columbo and my life would never be the same,” he wrote in his memoir, Just One More Thing. The title was his ”forgetful” detective’s favourite line. Just as Falk used his own wardrobe to create believable gangsters – he won Oscar nominations in his first two roles – the old raincoat he dug out from a closet proved a perfect fit for his detective’s character.
He conceived Columbo as ”a regular Joe” who was ”the most brilliant detective on the globe,” he wrote. ”A guy with a mind like Einstein who sounded like the box boy at Food Giant.” New York-born Falk said his West Coast detective’s persona mirrored his own. He also dressed like a slob, spoke like a street kid and was absent-minded, said Falk, though in his case he was pre-occupied with his scripts and roles. He won five Emmy Awards for his television work, including three as Columbo.
