Peter Falk had a glass eye that led to Columbo's signature squint. Columbo's famous one-eyed squint wasn't an acting choice, but rather a condition of Falk's glass eye he had from childhood cancer.
As a child, the actor's right eye had been surgically removed due to a malignant tumour and was replaced with a glass eye. That handicap became, perhaps, one of Falk's major assets in his “Columbo” role, as the physical trademark enhanced the detective's image as a dishevelled and eccentric crime sleuth.
Death. On the evening of June 23, 2011, Falk died at his longtime home on Roxbury Drive in Beverly Hills at the age of 83. His death was caused primarily by pneumonia, with complications of Alzheimer's being a secondary and underlying cause. His daughters said they would remember his "wisdom and humor".
Best known for his starring role as Number 6 in the surreal science fiction allegory series, The Prisoner (1967). He was considered for Hardy Krüger's role in Hatari! (1962). Became close friends with Peter Falk after working with him on "Columbo".
It was established in two episodes that Columbo speaks fluent Italian. With his New York accent and olive complexion he played a convincing Italian-American. In reality, Peter Falk was of Polish-Jewish, Czech-Jewish, and Hungarian-Jewish ancestry and was not an Italian speaker.
Danese met Peter Falk on the set of the movie Mikey and Nicky and became his second wife on December 7, 1977. They were married for 33 years until Falk's death on June 23, 2011, at age 83 from complications of Alzheimer's disease and pneumonia. She is mentioned on his headstone: "I'm not here. I'm home with Shera".
In December 2008, it was reported that Falk had been diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease. On the evening of June 23, 2011, Falk died at his longtime home on Roxbury Drive in Beverly Hills at the age of 83. His death was primarily caused by pneumonia, with complications of Alzheimer's disease.
With multiple different camera angles in play, we're clearly shown that Peter Falk did his own stunts – and it's a helluva performance in which he appears to have risked genuine physical harm.
When Catherine was just 5, Falk divorced his first wife and remarried a year later to his second wife, Shera, who was 22 years his junior. As often happens in blended families, Catherine did not get along with her step-mother, and eventually, Peter Falk and his daughter Catherine also became estranged.
Every Columbo fan is aware that Peter Falk had only one eye after having his right eye surgically removed when he was just three years old due to a rare form of cancer, retinoblastoma.
Columbo has explained that he smokes cigars although his wife wishes he would smoke a pipe, which Columbo refuses to try "because there's too much stuff to carry around." In "Any Old Port in a Storm", he refuses a light, saying his wife made him quit smoking; and, when asked why he then buys such expensive cigars, ...
Kate Columbo (later renamed Kate Callahan after an off-screen divorce) is the wife of Lieutenant Columbo, the title character from the television series Columbo. Kate is a news reporter who solves crimes while raising her daughter.
Peter Michael Falk (born September 16, 1927, height 5' 6" (1,68 m)) is a retired American actor, best known for his role as Lieutenant Columbo in the television series Columbo.
Levinson and Link's first choices to play Columbo on a longer-term basis were 12 Angry Men's Lee J Cobb and Bing Crosby, who liked the script but declined the role on the basis that it would require too much time away from his beloved golf course.
He could outsmart people whose levels of formal education and training were far superior to his own. And he could find clues in places where they shouldn't have been recognizable as being clues. He was a genius.
It was introduced in the episode "Any Old Port in a Storm" in 1973 and the detective can be heard humming or whistling it often in subsequent films. Falk said it was a melody he personally enjoyed and one day it became a part of his character.
