My idea of Heaven is to wake up, have a good breakfast, and spend the rest of the day drawing.
Peter Falk
The entertainment industry is loaded with extraordinarily talented people. But the true, genuine originals, they're rare.
I'm not an ace at small talk.
It became the joke of the neighbourhood. If the umpire ruled me out on a bad call, I'd take the fake eye out and hand it to him.
When I was growing up in Ossining, N.Y., playing pool with the guys, the thought that any one of us might become an actor was as far-fetched as being knighted by the queen of England.
God didn't design anyone to be recognized by 2 billion people.
When I go see a basketball game, I'm always in the front row. I always have a table at a restaurant; I never have trouble getting a taxi.
I hate to talk about typecasting, because being typecast as Columbo ain't cancer.
I had two ambitions: One was to be in The Actors Studio, and the other was to walk into a bar where actors hung out, and everyone would know that I was a professional actor and I would be accepted.
They wouldn't take me in the navy because of my glass eye. So I joined the merchant navy, who allowed monocular crew if you worked in the kitchens. You're not wanted on deck or in the engine room with one eye, but you're good to fire up the ovens and cook hundreds of chops.
The truth is, no one is like Columbo.
Children ran up to me shouting, 'Columbo!' At first, it gave me great pleasure, but later, I said to myself that those children should have had their own heroes instead of admiring a cop from Los Angeles.
My father's whole life was work. He had a retail store in Ossining, New York, and I mean, he was down there at 6:15 every morning. The store didn't open until 9, but he hadda be down there. That's all he knew.
Initially, they wanted Columbo to wear a driving coat. I said: 'Are you kidding? He's not an English aristocrat.'
In order to be totally spontaneous, you can't be too obsessed with accuracy, but if you're inaccurate in a drawing, it will look fake, and when you act, it will sound fake. You have to find miraculously some proper balance between the two, but there's no formula.
I'm makin' a lotta dough, everyone knows who you are, and who the hell cares whether you're typecast or not? Also, there's something wrong with complaining about being typecast in something you really enjoy doing.
I thought actors were artists and that artists had to be European.
The female body is awesome.
I've never worried about the grand concepts.
The only mountain that I would still like to climb: I'd like to break 85.
It helps an actor an awful lot when he looks like the part. There's nothing more disconcerting, that makes you more anxious or more insecure, than when you don't look like who you're supposed to be.
Actors know one thing: If you're left just with words, you're in trouble.
What's the name of that famous museum in Paris? The Louvre? I went through that place in 20 minutes.
I still get fan mail for Columbo.
Good actors are always looking for props. They're looking for behavior. It makes it a lot easier. You're not solely dependent of what's coming out of your mouth. You're also less self-conscious, less aware of the camera.
When I was a kid, the idea of gettin' paid to paint your face... listen, I grew up in Ossining, New York, a nice little town by the Hudson, and nothin' ever interested me except being your usual high school big shot, which I was an' loved it, played all the sports and goofed around, always out on the street with the guys, everything was funny t'me.
My wife loves to get all dressed up and go out, and I'm this gloomy Virgo. It works because of the mutual recognition that we are two democratic narcissists. She does what she has to do, and I do what I have to do. We respect that.
You talk about what a director, he was smart. He said, Turn the camera on!
The whole thing was an actor's dream - getting a character that tickles you so much you can't wait to act as him.
I've been asked a few thousand times how much of Columbo is Falk and vice versa.
I've worked with some terrific actors. The list of guys that came on the 'Columbo' show, I mean they were world-class actors from all over the world - Oskar Werner, Laurence Harvey, Donald Pleasence, you know... foreigners.
I used to have this idea that you can spend years in the movies and TV and then, at the drop of a hat, say 'Oh, I'll go back and do the theater.'
Sometimes I was in school plays, but only when the kid they'd originally picked got sick and they asked me to substitute.
I watch practically no TV - ah, what the hell do I watch? Oh, I was for a long time addicted to CNN.
Hartford had the Mark Twain Masquers, which was fantastic. They had been in business I don't know how many years. They knew how to build sets and sell tickets and put on a play. My day started at night. When I left the office, that's when my day began.
I don't like getting up in the morning, getting in a car, driving on a freeway, and stopping at a gate where two guards are standing there, then walk into a studio that looks like a bunch of airplane hangars.
You thought the stage, you thought Broadway: that was the pot at the end of the rainbow. The idea of being in Hollywood was like going to the Moon or Mars.
I was a street-guy villain. I was a street-corner villain. I was an illiterate villain. All rough edges.
There were no artists in Ossining, which was the home of Sing Sing prison. Most of the parents of the guys I knew were guards there.
Usually, I get hired because I'm tall.
I'm old fashioned. I really think you should know how to draw before you start painting. I use charcoal and graphite; I put a skylight in. In my house, I turned the garage into an art studio. So I'm awash in art studios.
If I'm a guy reading a newspaper, and I hear this actor who I know gets great seats at basketball games, and he's complaining about being typecast, I think, 'Hey man, count your blessings.'
I did do my own stunts.
If it wasn't for the Mark Twain Masquers, I don't know where my life would have gone.
I don't dwell on it. But I guess everybody hopes that they go in their sleep and that it won't be long and painful.
In the theater, you didn't have any marks. Your instincts in rehearsal told you what the blocking was. On film, they reversed it. They decided ahead of time what your instincts were, before you even arrived.
I do figure every angle of a guy I'm acting - but not consciously 'til afterward.
I think people identify with Columbo because he is an average man.
It depends how lenient you are with your definition of artist. If you're going to include those who tap dance at the high school recital, then maybe I am.
I didn't become an actor until I was an old man of 28 or 29. I declared to the world that I was an actor. Nobody heard me, but I did declare it.
