Alan Arkin, a witty character actor who showed his range in comedy and drama while earning four Academy Award nominations and an Oscar in 2007 for “Little Miss Sunshine,” has passed away. He was 89.
Through the actor’s publicist on Friday, his sons Adam, Matthew, and Anthony provided confirmation of their father’s passing. In a statement, they claimed that their father “was a uniquely talented force of nature, both as an artist and a man.”
A member of Chicago’s renowned Second City comedy group, Arkin had early film success with the Cold War parody “The Russians Are Coming, The Russians Are Coming” and reached his professional height in his later years when he won the best supporting actor Oscar for the unexpected 2006 smash “Little Miss Sunshine.” His first Oscar nomination, for “The Russians are Coming,” came more than 40 years after his nomination for his role as a cunning Hollywood producer in the Oscar-winning film “Argo.”
He received two Emmy nods for his part in the Netflix comedy series “The Kominsky Method,” which he played with Michael Douglas in recent years.
Arkin reportedly made light of the fact that character actors don’t have to strip off for their roles in an interview with The Associated Press. Although he wasn’t a sex icon or a big celebrity, he did appear in more than 100 TV shows and films. His hallmarks were likeability, relatability, and total engrossment in his roles, no matter how unusual, whether he was playing a Russian submarine officer in “The Russians are Coming” who finds it difficult to communicate with the similarly uneasy Americans, or standing out as the foul-mouthed, drug-addicted grandfather in “Little Miss Sunshine.”
Director of “The Russians are Coming,” Norman Jewison, reportedly said that Alan “has never had an identifiable screen personality because he just disappears into his characters.” He can even modify his appearance, and his accents are flawless.
Arkin was selected by Carl Reiner to portray the youthful protagonist in the 1963 Broadway comedy “Enter Laughing,” which was based on Reiner’s semi-autobiographical book, while still a member of Second City.
He received positive reviews and Jewison’s attention as he was getting ready to helm a comedy about a Russian submarine that causes chaos when it gets too near to a tiny New England town in 1966. Arkin demonstrated his ability to portray a villain in his next significant movie, although grudgingly. In the movie “Wait Until Dark,” Audrey Hepburn played a blind lady who is being held hostage by a ruthless drug dealer who believes there is a heroin shipment stashed in her flat.
He remembers how hard it was to terrorise Hepburn’s persona in an interview from 1998.
It was “just awful,” he claimed. It was difficult to be cruel to her since she was a beautiful person.
Arkin’s standing in Hollywood was further enhanced by 1968’s “The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter,” in which he portrayed a sensitive guy who was deaf and mute. The same year, he played the clumsy French investigator in “Inspector Clouseau,” but the movie was overshadowed by Peter Sellers’ portrayal of Clouseau in the “Pink Panther” films.
When Mike Nichols, a fellow Second City graduate, gave Arkin the lead part as Rossarian, the victim of wartime red tape in the 1970 film “Catch-22,” based on Joseph Heller’s best-selling book, Arkin’s reputation as a character actor continued to flourish. Over the years, Arkin had appearances in beloved films like “Edward Scissorhands,” where he played Johnny Depp’s neighbour, and in the movie adaptation of David Mamet’s “Glengarry Glen Ross,” where he played a tenacious real estate salesperson. In the 1998 movie “The Slums of Beverly Hills,” he and Reiner portrayed two brothers, one suffering and the other prosperous.
“I used to believe that my work was quite diverse. However, I came to the realisation that during the first twenty years or so, the majority of the characters I portrayed were outsiders, strangers to their surroundings, or foreigners in some other sense,” he told The Associated Press in 2007.
“That started to change as I began to feel more at ease with myself. A few days ago, I received one of the kindest comments I’ve ever received. They expressed the opinion that my characters were often the moral core and heart of a movie. Even though I didn’t really grasp it, I enjoyed it and it made me happy.
Other recent credits include the TV series “The Kominsky Method” and the 2017 remake of “Going in Style,” which starred fellow Oscar winners Michael Caine and Morgan Freeman.
Along with Little Murders, a dark comedy by Jules Feiffer from 1971, Arkin also helmed “The Sunshine Boys,” a play by Neil Simon from 1972 about quarrelling former vaudeville colleagues. In addition to playing a night court judge in Sidney Lumet’s drama series “100 Centre Street” on A&E, Arkin also made appearances in the ill-fated shows “Fay” and “Harry” on television. He has produced a number of children’s novels.
“We were dirt poor, so I couldn’t afford to go to the movies very often,” he told the AP in 1998. But because seeing films was the most important thing in my life, I went whenever I could.
He pursued acting studies at Bennington College in Vermont after receiving a scholarship from the once all-girls institution, California State University, Los Angeles, and Los Angeles City College.
He wed Jeremy Yaffe, a classmate, and the couple produced two sons, Adam and Matthew.
Following his divorce from Yaffe in 1961, Arkin wed the actress-writer Barbara Dana, with whom he had a son named Anthony. All three boys pursued acting careers; Adam appeared on the television programme “Chicago Hope.”
In 1998, Arkin said, “It was certainly nothing that I pushed them into.” “As long as it allowed them to grow, I couldn’t care less what they did,” he said.
As an organiser and performer for The Tarriers, a group that temporarily rode the folk musical revival wave of the late 1950s, Arkin launched his career in entertainment. Later, he began performing on stage, usually in tragic parts and off-Broadway.
He collaborated at Second City with people like Nichols, Elaine May, Jerry Stiller, Anne Meara, and others to produce intelligent, quick-witted spontaneous parodies on current fads and follies.
Before joining Second City, he said, “I never knew that I could be funny.”
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