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.
What was the age difference between Peter Falk and his wife?
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.
Columbo star Peter Falk has left the bulk of his multi million dollar estate to his beloved wife of 33 years, Shera. The star, who passed away at his home in Beverly Hills on Thursday night, set up a trust fund years before he was formally diagnosed with Alzheimers disease, according to Radar.
She had sued her father to force him to pay her tuition and expenses while attending Syracuse University. Her attorney used postcards and telegrams Falk sent to his daughter when she was a child to illustrate a closer relationship than the actor's wife was willing to admit.
No one played Columbo's wife on the Columbo TV series. Not only was the character never seen but no photographs of her, or indeed any member of Columbo's family was ever seen.
A life-long cigarette smoker, Falk added the cigar as a personal touch. The original plan was for a new episode to air every week, which would have meant shooting an episode every five days. As a motion picture star, Peter Falk refused to commit to such an busy schedule.
Children. Columbo had children, but no details were ever disclosed about them. As with his wife, their actual existence within the show have been questioned, but as with his wife there is evidence that they were real.
Falk, who won four Emmys for playing the coffee-stained crime-solver, was himself an example of the don't-judge-a-book adage. Short in stature with an unruly mop of brown hair, he had a speech impediment and a glass eye, a result of cancer when he was a child.
This episode contains one of the rare occasions when Columbo loses (or appears to lose) his temper; when Mayfield derisively laughs at Columbo, he slams a coffee pot down onto Mayfield's desk and warns him that if Hiedemann dies, the police will have his body autopsied to check what sutures were used in his operation.
Few actors were as linked to one role for so long as Falk, whose cockeyed glare from a glass right eye and slightly disheveled appearance hid a compelling dramatic intelligence he brought to the part.
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.
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.
Why now? Despite being off screens since May 1978, when The Conspirators drew the curtain on Columbo's first decade, the show was never officially cancelled. Negotiations between Falk and the studio simply petered out. Columbo was quietly discontinued, but the will was still there to keep him alive in some capacity.
4. Bing Crosby was considered for the role of Columbo. The famous crooner was thought to be a perfect fit for the role of Columbo in the early conception of the series by its creators. Crosby ended up turning down the role, not wanting to be tied down to a network television schedule.
