Actor Alan Arkin dies at the age of 89
LOS ANGELES –
Alan Arkin, the wry actor who demonstrated his versatility in comedy and drama as he received four Academy Award nominations and won an Oscar in 2007 for “Little Miss Sunshine,” has passed away. He turned 89.
His sons Adam, Matthew and Anthony confirmed their father’s death Friday through the actor’s publicist. “Our father was a uniquely talented force of nature, both as an artist and as a human being,” they said in a statement.
A member of Chicago’s famed comedy troupe Second City, Arkin was an instant success in movies with the Cold War spoof “The Russians Are Coming, The Russians Are Coming” and peaked late in life with his Best Supporting Actor win for the surprising 2006 hit “Little Miss Sunshine.” More than 40 years passed between his first Oscar nomination, for “The Russians are Coming,” and his nomination for playing a conniving Hollywood producer in the Oscar-winning “Argo.”
In recent years, he starred opposite Michael Douglas in the Netflix comedy series ‘The Kominsky Method’, a role that earned him two Emmy nominations.
Arkin once joked to The Associated Press that the beauty of being an actor was that he didn’t have to take his clothes off for a role. Not a sex symbol or superstar, he was rarely out of work and appeared in over 100 TV and feature films. His trademarks were sympathy, relatability, and complete immersion in his roles, however unusual, whether he’s playing a Russian submarine officer in “The Russians are Coming” who struggles to communicate with the equally nervous Americans, or stands out as the foul-mouthed, drug-addicted grandfather in “Little Miss Sunshine.”
“Alan has never had a recognizable screen persona, because he just disappears into his characters,” director Norman Jewison of “The Russians are Coming” once noted. “His accents are impeccable, and he’s even capable of altering his appearance. … He’s always been underrated, in part because he’s never been in the service of his own success.”
While still with Second City, Arkin was chosen by Carl Reiner to play the young lead in the 1963 Broadway play “Enter Laughing”, based on Reiner’s semi-autobiographical novel.
He received critical acclaim and the attention of Jewison, who was preparing to direct a 1966 comedy about a Russian submarine that causes panic when it gets too close to a small New England town. In Arkin’s next big movie, he proved he could play a villain, no matter how unwilling. Arkin starred in “Wait Until Dark” as a brutal drug dealer who holds a blind woman (Audrey Hepburn) captive in her own apartment, believing a drug shipment is hidden there.
He recalled in a 1998 interview how difficult it was to terrorize Hepburn’s character.
“Just awful,” he said. “She was an exquisite lady, so being mean to her was hard.”
1968’s “The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter,” in which he played a sensitive man who couldn’t hear or speak, again elevated Arkin’s status in Hollywood. He played the bumbling French detective in “Inspector Clouseau” that same year, but the film would be overlooked in favor of Peter Sellers’ Clouseau in the “Pink Panther” films.
Arkin’s career as a character actor continued to flourish when Mike Nichols, a fellow Second City alumnus, cast him in the lead role as Rossarian, the victim of wartime red tape in 1970’s “Catch-22,” based on Joseph Heller’s multimillion-selling novel. . Over the years, Arkin appeared in such favorites as “Edward Scissorhands,” in which he played Johnny Depp’s neighbor; and in David Mamets film version “Glengarry Glen Ross” as a persistent real estate salesman. He and Reiner played brothers, one successful (Reiner), one struggling (Arkin), in the 1998 movie “The Slums of Beverly Hills.”
“I used to think my material had a lot of variety. But I realized that for the first 20 years or so, most of the characters I played were outsiders, strangers to their environment, foreigners in one way or another,” he said. The Associated Press in 2007.
“As I started to feel more and more comfortable with myself, that started to shift. I got one of the nicest compliments I’ve ever received from anyone a few days ago. They said they thought my characters were the most heart, the moral center of a movie. I didn’t really understand it, but I liked it; it made me happy.”
Other recent credits include “Going in Style,” a 2017 remake starring fellow Oscar winners Michael Caine and Morgan Freeman, and the TV series “The Kominsky Method.”
Arkin also directed the film version of Jules Feiffer’s 1971 dark comedy “Little Murders” and Neil Simon’s 1972 play about feuding old vaudeville partners, “The Sunshine Boys”. On television, Arkin appeared on the short-lived series “Fay” and “Harry” and played a night judge on Sidney Lumet’s drama series “100 Center Street” on A&E. He also wrote several books for children.
Born in the Brooklyn borough of New York City, he and his family, including two younger brothers, moved to Los Angeles when he was 11. His parents found jobs as teachers, but were fired during the Red Scare after World War II because they were communists.
“We were penniless, so I couldn’t afford to go to the movies often,” he told the AP in 1998. “But I went whenever I could and focused on movies because they were more important than anything else. in my life. “
He studied acting at Los Angeles City College; California State University, Los Angeles; and Bennington College in Vermont, where he earned a scholarship to the former girls’ school.
He married a fellow student, Jeremy Yaffe, and they had two sons, Adam and Matthew.
After he and Yaffe divorced in 1961, Arkin married actress-writer Barbara Dana, and they had a son, Anthony. All three sons became actors: Adam starred in the TV series “Chicago Hope.”
“It certainly wasn’t anything I pushed them into,” said Arkin in 1998. “I absolutely didn’t care what they did, as long as they could grow”
Arkin began his entertainment career as an organizer and singer with The Tarriers, a group that briefly participated in the folk music revival in the late 1950s. He later turned to stage acting, off-Broadway and always in dramatic roles.
At Second City, he collaborated with Nichols, Elaine May, Jerry Stiller, Anne Meara and others in creating intellectual, lightning fast improvised riffs, the fads and silliness of the day.
“I didn’t know I could be funny until I joined Second City,” he said.
