Going to Hartford turned out to be the luckiest thing that ever happened to me.
— Peter Falk
I was a street-guy villain. I was a street-corner villain. I was an illiterate villain. All rough edges.
I got a regret: That I started acting so late. I was 27, and guys who start at 18 or so, there's this kinda continuity of friendships they form in the profession by startin' young, I've never had that.
I just keep working.
To be totally sincere, I'd surely be a better actor today if I hadn't played Columbo all these years.
When I was young, I was looking for people to look up to - role models I could respect.
When I was a kid growing up, you maybe secretly wanted to be an actor, but you never said.
Even the first year of 'Columbo,' 'Columbo' was Jesus Christ, No. 1, you know.
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.
I remember being amazed that actors had a union. I thought only coal miners had unions, or guys that worked in automobile plants. That's an indication of how naive I was.
The entertainment industry is loaded with extraordinarily talented people. But the true, genuine originals, they're rare.
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.
You talk about what a director, he was smart. He said, Turn the camera on!
If your mind is at work, we're in danger of reproducing another cliche. If we can keep our minds out of it and our thoughts out of it, maybe we'll come up with something original.
I came to Hollywood and nobody knew me. I was on a coupla TV shows.
I had no idea when I graduated from high school and then from graduate school what I wanted to do with my life. I had no idea that I was ever going to be an actor.
Sometimes I was in school plays, but only when the kid they'd originally picked got sick and they asked me to substitute.
I do figure every angle of a guy I'm acting - but not consciously 'til afterward.
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.
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.
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 watch practically no TV - ah, what the hell do I watch? Oh, I was for a long time addicted to CNN.
The female body is awesome.
In 1958, I was shooting a movie in Florida, and I decided to go to Havana, Cuba, to see what it was like.
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 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.
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.
Usually, I get hired because I'm tall.
I never understood a word John Cassavetes said. And I think he did that deliberately.
I'm just looking to get through the day.
If it wasn't for the Mark Twain Masquers, I don't know where my life would have gone.
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.
I've never worried about the grand concepts.
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 wanted to become an actor, but I didn't want to admit it.
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 still get fan mail for Columbo.
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.
Columbo was never comfortable if somebody considered him unique or smart.
The first time I ever spoke to John Cassavetes was at a Lakers game. I got up to go for a hot dog, and he was coming in the opposite direction. I don't know who said hello first, but we started talking, and it turned out that he went to high school with my first wife, Alice.
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.
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.
The only mountain that I would still like to climb: I'd like to break 85.
I did do my own stunts.
