"Peter Falk and Columbo"

Who doesn’t love Peter Falk?! You may be more familiar with his character “Columbo” from the TV show of the same name. As my family can attest, I’m addicted to that rumpled, absent-minded detective. I’ve seen each episode at least three times (if not more!). You can imagine my delight when I saw a new book by Peter Falk being shelved. The title and cover immediately caught my eye---“Just One More Thing: Stories from My Life”---a terrific head shot of Peter Falk in full regalia as Lt. Columbo.

Peter Falk takes us on an acting journey that begins not in Hollywood but in Hartford, where he worked as an efficiency expert for the state of Connecticut. The first day on the job he couldn’t find the office---it was in the State Capitol---he ended up in the post office! His time there was no more successful than an earlier attempt to find work as a spy with the CIA: after high school he had joined the Merchant Marines and gone to sea as a cook, but unfortunately the union he was required to join was later labeled as Communist-dominated. That didn’t sit well with the CIA---spy career over.

At loose ends, he turned to an old college interest: acting. He came to prominence as an actor in 1956 in the highly successful Off-Broadway revival of the Iceman Cometh with Jason Robards. Although he worked continuously for the next three years, bouncing from one Off-Broadway theater to the next, a theatrical agent advised him not to expect much work in motion pictures because of his glass eye. However, a talent scout for Columbia pictures saw star quality in Falk, describing him as a second John Garfield. Unfortunately, Harry Cohn, the head of Columbia Pictures, dismissed this opinion: “For the same price, I can get an actor with two eyes.” Surgeons had removed Falk’s right eye, along with a malignant tumor, when he was three years old.

But in 1958, Hollywood, in the guise of Twentieth Century Fox, came to New York to make a movie---Murder, Inc. They brought the stars with them but hired local New York actors to play the mobsters. Falk landed a juicy role for which he received rave reviews and, incredibly, for his first movie he was nominated for an Academy Award. For his second movie, Pocketful of Miracles, starring Bette Davis, he was, believe it or not, nominated again. He wore the same overcoat in both movies. It was his personal coat. He likes to say that he and the coat were undefeated. Two for two. Talking about Falk’s personal coats… Columbo’s raincoat came out of his bedroom closet. He bought it years before he became an actor. He’s been quoted as saying, “I wanted to wear something people would remember. Bottom line, it’s the world’s most famous raincoat.”

Falk went on to become a favorite among moviegoers, yet it was through television that he reached his widest audience as Lt. Columbo, winning four Emmys for the role. “Just One More Thing” is pure Falk---breezy, funny, poignant and revealing.