Peter Falk, the American actor most famous for his role as scruffy TV detective Columbo, has died aged 83. The actor died peacefully at home in Beverly Hills on June 23 night.
He had been suffering from dementia for a number of years. Peter Falk won four Emmys for his cigar-chomping role as the deceptively bumbling Columbo, and was nominated for Oscars in 1960 and 1961 for Murder Inc and Pocketful of Miracles.
In the 1987 cult classic The Princess Bride, he played a kindly old man regaling his sick grandson with a fairytale combination of swordplay, giants, a beautiful princess and fearsome rodents of unusual size.
But for most fans, even his best-supporting actor nominations were eclipsed by his incarnation as the sleuth in the shabby mac with no known first name and the killer catch-phrase: “One more thing...”
Columbo first appeared on American TV screens in 1968, and NBC commissioned a series in which the detective appeared every third week from 1971 until it was cancelled in 1977.
The part of its policeman hero had originally been written for Bing Crosby, but Falk made the part his own and continued to make special episodes well into his 70s.
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