A biography for Peter Falkhasn’t been written yet.
“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'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 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.”
“I've never worried about the grand concepts.”
“I was a street-guy villain. I was a street-corner villain. I was an illiterate villain. All rough edges.”
“Even the first year of 'Columbo,' 'Columbo' was Jesus Christ, No. 1, you know.”
“What wouldn't have happened to me if I hadn't ended up in Hartford, Connecticut.”
“Before we ever had a script or anything, I was attracted to the idea of playing a character that housed within himself two opposing traits.”
“The celebrity craze is a little much. But it's good for me, so you don't bite the hand that feeds you.”
“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.”
“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.”
“Columbo was never comfortable if somebody considered him unique or smart.”
“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.'”
“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.”
“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'm not an ace at small talk.”
“To be totally sincere, I'd surely be a better actor today if I hadn't played Columbo all these years.”
“I'm just looking to get through the day.”
“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.”
“Sure, I miss some things about the stage. The thing I like is the immediacy. But then I complain, 'I gotta do the same part for six months.'”