Peter Falk, the gravel-voiced US actor who played Hollywood's rumpled detective Lieutenant Columbo, has died at 83, family members told US media Friday. Falk, whose portrayal of the dishevelled, trenchcoat-wearing homicide detective made him a household name around the world and earned him several Emmy awards, died Thursday at his home in Beverly Hills, they said.
"Falk died peacefully at his Beverly Hills home in the evening of June 23, 2011," said a family statement cited by US media. The cause of death was not given. The actor had suffered from Alzheimer's in recent years, and his wife Shera was appointed to look after his affairs in 2009. In the hit TV show he played a seemingly slow-witted Los Angeles detective who invariably succeeded in nabbing the criminal just minutes before the closing credits.
The veteran actor also had considerable success on stage and on the big screen, scoring a couple of Oscar nominations among the more than 40 Hollywood movies in which he appeared. Born in New York City on September 16, 1927, Falk wrote in his autobiography about a life-changing diagnosis he received when he was just three years old.
"The doctor told my mother that I had cancer of the eye and it had to be removed, and yesterday was not too soon," he wrote in his 2006 book "Just One More Thing." After surgeons removed his right eye, Falk was fitted with a glass eye, which did not stop him from becoming a star athlete and being elected class president at school.
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