Columbo

"I remember once in high school the umpire called me out at third base when I was sure I was safe. I got so mad I took out my glass eye, handed it to him and said, 'Try this.' I got such a laugh you wouldn't believe." ~ Peter Falk

Columbo is an American television series starring Peter Falk as Columbo, a homicide detective with the Los Angeles Police Department. The character and show, created by Richard Levinson and William Link, popularized the inverted detective story format, which begins by showing the commission of the crime and its perpetrator; the plot therefore usually has no "whodunit" element, and instead revolves around how a perpetrator known to the audience will finally be caught and exposed (sometimes referred to as a "howcatchem").

Columbo is a shrewd but inelegant blue-collar homicide detective whose trademarks include his rumpled beige raincoat, unassuming demeanor, and frequent cigar smoking. His suspects are often affluent members of high society who try to carefully cover their tracks. Initially dismissive of Columbo's circumstantial speech and apparent ineptitude, they become increasingly unsettled as his pestering behavior leads him to tease out incriminating evidence. His relentless approach often leads to self-incrimination or an outright confession by the suspect.

Episodes of Columbo are between 70 and 98 minutes long, and have been broadcast in 44 countries. The 1971 episode "Murder by the Book", directed by Steven Spielberg, was ranked No. 16 on TV Guide's 100 Greatest Episodes of All Time[4] and in 1999, the magazine ranked Lt. Columbo No. 7 on its 50 Greatest TV Characters of All Time list. In 2012, the program was chosen as the third-best cop or legal show on Best in TV: The Greatest TV Shows of Our Time. In 2013, TV Guide included it in its list of The 60 Greatest Dramas of All Time and ranked it at #33 on its list of the 60 Best Series. Also in 2013, the Writers Guild of America ranked it No. 57 in the list of 101 Best Written TV Series.

[...] The character of Columbo was created by the writing team of Richard Levinson and William Link, who said that Columbo was partially inspired by Fyodor Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment character Porfiry Petrovich as well as G. K. Chesterton's humble cleric-detective Father Brown. Other sources claim Columbo's character is also influenced by Inspector Fichet from the French suspense-thriller film Les Diaboliques (1955).

The character first appeared in a 1960 episode of the television-anthology series The Chevy Mystery Show, titled "Enough Rope". This was adapted by Levinson and Link from their short story "May I Come In", which had been published as "Dear Corpus Delicti" in an issue of Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine. The short story did not include Columbo as a character. The first actor to portray Columbo, character actor Bert Freed, was a stocky character actor with a thatch of grey hair.

Freed's Columbo wore a rumpled suit and smoked a cigar, but he otherwise had few of the other now-familiar Columbo mannerisms. However, the character is still recognizably Columbo, and uses some of the same methods of misdirecting and distracting his suspects. During the course of the show, the increasingly frightened murderer brings pressure from the district attorney's office to have Columbo taken off the case, but the detective fights back with his own contacts.

Although Freed received third billing, he wound up with almost as much screen time as the killer and appeared immediately after the first commercial. This delayed entry of the character into the narrative of the screen play became a defining characteristic of the structure of the Columbo series. This teleplay is available for viewing in the archives of the Paley Center for Media in New York City and Los Angeles.

Levinson and Link then adapted the TV drama into the stage play Prescription: Murder. This was first performed at the Curran Theatre in San Francisco on January 2, 1962, with Oscar-winning character actor Thomas Mitchell in the role of Columbo. Mitchell was 70 years old at the time. The stage production starred Joseph Cotten as the murderer and Agnes Moorehead as the victim. Mitchell died of cancer while the play was touring in out-of-town tryouts; Columbo was his last role.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Columbo

When you first saw him, Lieutenant Columbo looked like a bum that just came off the street. He had a bumbling demeanor, was overly polite and seemed to chomp on the same short cigar on a daily basis. However, beneath all that comical exterior was probably the most dogged investigator in the Los Angeles Police Department. Columbo was often called on to investigate high profile murders that involved the rich and famous. The culprits were often amused by him, and just as they thought they were going to get away with murder, Columbo would find a way to trap them or find enough evidence to make them confess. Written by Brian Washington

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Columbo's wardrobe was personally provided by Peter Falk; they were his own clothes, including the high-topped shoes and the shabby suit, Falk had bought the famous raincoat (which made its first appearance in Prescription: Murder (1968)) when caught in a rainstorm in New York City in 1967. It cost him fifteen dollars. He also added the cigar as a personal touch. Falk was a life-long cigarette smoker.

The original character concept for Columbo was as a smooth talking, stylish, cultured personality. Bing Crosby was the first choice for the part but he declined. When Peter Falk auditioned he brought an entirely different and humorous dimension to the role with his aimless chattering, scattered mannerisms, and disheveled appearance. Although the producers were uncertain about taking the role in that direction, they decided to take a chance on Falk's unique interpretation of the character. Although they were uncertain if audiences would accept a police detective looking like a bum, the show's premiere was an instant hit.

Peter Falk wasn't too far removed from the character he played. In real life, he tended to be rumpled and disheveled and was forever misplacing things (he was famous for losing his car keys and having to be driven home from the studio by someone else). He was also intelligent, having earned a Master's degree in Public Administration from Syracuse University, which led to him working for the State of Connecticut's Budget Bureau as an efficiency expert until the acting bug bit him. He was also used to being underestimated due to his appearance. He'd lost his right eye to cancer at age three, and many of his drama teachers in college warned him of his limited chances in the movies due to his cockeyed stare. Indeed, after a screentest at Columbia Pictures, Harry Cohn dismissed him by saying, "For the same price, I can get an actor with two eyes."

Peter Falk would often ad-lib his character's idiosyncrasies (fumbling through his pockets for a piece of evidence and discovering a grocery list, asking to borrow a pencil, becoming distracted by something irrelevant in the room at a dramatic point in a conversation with a suspect, et cetera), inserting these into his performance as a way to keep his fellow actors off-balance. He felt it helped to make their confused and impatient reactions to Columbo's antics more genuine.

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