Peter Falk Net Worth

Peter Falk's Quotes

• [upon losing to Peter Ustinov for the 1961 Oscars] When I hit the seat, I turned to the press agent and said "You're fired!" I didn't want him charging me for another day.
• [on Columbo's appeal] What are you hanging around for? Just one thing. You want to know how he gets caught.
• Being chased by Columbo is like being nibbled to death by a duck.
• [on Patrick McGoohan] The most underrated, under-appreciated talent on the face of the globe. I have never played a scene with another actor who commanded my attention the way Pat did.
• I signed up to go to Israel to fight in the war with Egypt. I wasn't passionate about Israel. I wasn't passionate about Egypt. I just wanted more excitement. Joining the Israeli Army was illegal for American citizens, but I found out you could sign up at the Hotel Roosevelt in Manhattan. I did get assigned a ship and a departure date. However, the war was over in the blink of an eye - eight days to be exact. The ship never sailed.

Interesting Facts about Peter Falk

1. One of his greatest passions was drawing and sketching; has studio on grounds of Beverly Hills estate.
2. His right eye was surgically removed at the age of three, because of cancer.
3. Attended and graduated from Ossining High School in Ossining, New York.
4. President of his high school class.
5. Worked as an efficiency expert for the Budget Bureau of the state of Connecticut before becoming an actor. Studied acting with Eva Le Gallienne and Sanford Meisner.
6. Was a certified public accountant.
7. Falk put the damper on a rumor that his trademark Columbo raincoat had been placed in the Smithsonian Institution: said that it was in his upstairs closet.
8. In his first foray into acting, he took the role of detective in a high school play when the original student-actor fell sick. He left college to serve as a cook in the Merchant Marines. He later received a political science degree from the New School in New York, then graduated from Syracuse University. He applied at the CIA, but was turned down. He took a state budget department job in Hartford, Connecticut. Five years after he started taking acting lessons, he earned his first Oscar nomination.
9. Harry Cohn, head of Columbia Pictures and renowned for his boorishness and vulgarity, rejected Falk, declaring, "For the same money, I can get an actor with two eyes!".
10. Peter's paternal grandparents, Louis and Ida Falk, were Russian Jewish immigrants. Peter's maternal grandfather, Peter Hochhauser, was a Hungarian Jew, and Peter's maternal grandmother, Rosa Heller, was a Czech Jewish immigrant (from what was then Bohemia).
11. Once when he was playing in a Little League game, the umpire called him out. Falk thought that he was safe. He pulled his glass eye out of its socket and handed it to the umpire, telling him, "Here, I think you might need this.".
12. His daughter Catherine Falk is a private detective in real life.
13. Lt. Columbo's first name is explicitly and even doggedly never revealed in the series (i.e., "What's your first name?" "Lieutenant."). However, with modern freeze-frame capabilities, when Columbo flashes his badge in the episode Columbo: Dead Weight (1971), the name Frank can clearly be seen on his ID.
14. Columbo's wife, of whom he often speaks, is never seen in the series. Interestingly, most of the facts that are supposedly known about Lt. Columbo's private life are up in the air and sometimes contradictory. This may be due to his character being somewhat forgetful or may be due to him leading a suspect with a "likely story" hoping they will trip up and reveal a clue. His car, a 1959 Peugeot 403 Cabriolet, is in most every episode and is treated almost as a character.
15. Had two daughters with his wife Alyce Mayo: Catherine Falk and Jackie Falk.
16. Biography in: "Who's Who in Comedy" by Ronald L. Smith, pg. 153-154. New York: Facts on File, 1992. ISBN 0816023387.
17. Began acting when he was 26, but did not officially declare himself an actor and move to New York until he was 28.
18. During the June 5, 2000, episode of The Late Late Show with Craig Kilborn (1999), Craig Kilborn's third question to Falk during "Five Questions" was this: "Use the words 'Falk' and 'you' in a sentence". Falk chuckled a bit, touched his nose, and replied simply: "Falk... you!".
19. Has his lookalike puppet in the French comedy show Les Guignols de l'info (1988).
20. He and his good friend John Cassavetes made six movies together: Husbands (1970), Machine Gun McCain (1969), Mikey and Nicky (1976), Opening Night (1977), Big Trouble (1986), and A Woman Under the Influence (1974), and one television movie, Columbo: Étude in Black (1972).