ALAN ARKIN
(26 March 1934 - 29 June 2023)
The American actor Alan Arkin, who has died aged 89 of heart problems, was also a director, producer and screenwriter across a period of over sixty years. As an actor he generally played character parts, often in comedies, a genre in which he excelled. He rarely played one of life’s optimists but was well rewarded with the characters he created on stage, in films and on television. He got to know everybody in the business and it seems that nobody had a bad word to say about him. He was one of the good guys.
Alan Wolf Arkin was born in Brooklyn, New York, the son of the painter and writer David Arkin and his teacher wife Beatrice Wortis, from Jewish immigrant families. Moving to Los Angeles in 1945 Alan’s parents got caught up in the Communist witch-hunts of the 1950s. As his father refused to name names, he lost his job as a Hollywood set designer. However, his son took acting lessons from the age of ten and attended Los Angeles State College and Bennington College. Alan joined the Second City comedy group in the 1960s and then graduated to Broadway plays including Enter Laughing by Joseph Stein, for which he won a Tony. Mike Nichols directed him in Murray Schisgal’s comedy Luv in 1964.
Arkin’s first major film was Norman Jewison’s comedy The Russians Are Coming, the Russians Are Coming in 1966 with Carl Reiner and Eva Marie Saint, for which he was nominated for an Academy Award as well as a Bafta, and won a Golden Globe. He continued making good films, including the comedy Woman Times Seven with Shirley MacLaine for Vittorio De Sica and the thriller Wait Until Dark with Audrey Hepburn. Taking over from Peter Sellers in Inspector Clouseau (1968) was not his best move but the actor was redeemed by playing the deaf-mute John Singer in The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, from the novel by Carson McCullers. It gained Oscar nominations for Arkin and co-star Sondra Locke, who were also nominated for Golden Globes.
The next big role was Captain John Yossarian in Mike Nichols’ Catch-22 (1970), based on Joseph Heller’s satirical book about US Army Air Force rules. The cast included Art Garfunkel, Anthony Perkins, Martin Sheen, Jon Voight and Orson Welles, but the film was not a money-spinner. Then Arkin appeared in and directed Little Murders from the black comedy play by Jules Feiffer, who was displeased with the result. In 1971 Arkin had directed Neil Simon’s play The Sunshine Boys and received a Tony award. In 1972 he starred in the film of Simon’s comedy Last of the Red Hot Lovers with Sally Kellerman, but the transfer to film was a flop. Arkin did better with James Caan in the comedy cop drama Freebie and the Bean. Then he made Hearts of the West (aka Hollywood Cowboy) with Jeff Bridges, and The Seven-Per-Cent Solution, with Nicol Williamson as Sherlock Holmes, Robert Duvall as Dr Watson and Arkin as Freud!
Throughout the 1980s Arkin continued filming including John Cassavetes’ Big Trouble, Joe Roth’s Coupe de Ville, Sydney Pollack’s Havana with Robert Redford and Lena Olin and Tim Burton’s Edward Scissorhands, with Johnny Depp and Vincent Price. After that Arkin was one of the salesmen in David Mamet’s screenplay of Glengarry Glen Ross with Al Pacino, Jack Lemmon and Kevin Spacey, and he was in Grosse Pointe Blank with John Cusack, and Joe Roth’s America’s Sweethearts with Julia Roberts and Billy Crystal. In 2006 Arkin won an Oscar for best supporting actor in Little Miss Sunshine, for his grumpy grandfather role, a hilarious performance well-deserving of its recognition. Among other Alan Arkin films from 2000, Argo was one of the best thrillers of its time with Arkin playing a producer setting up a phony film production in Tehran, so that a group of Americans can escape during the Iran hostage crisis. In 2012 it won Oscars for best film, best adapted screenplay and best editing, while Arkin was nominated for best supporting actor.
On television, Arkin appeared in Sesame Street, The Muppet Show, St Elsewhere, The Pentagon Papers and Will and Grace. His last TV role (2018-19) was in The Kominsky Method, as Norman Newlander, agent to Michael Douglas’s Sandy Kominsky, once an actor, now a coach. Arkin carried on in films until he voiced Wild Knuckles in Minions: The Rise of Gru, his last film role in 2022, although The Smack has still to be released.
Alan Arkin was married three times, firstly to the nurse Jeremy Yaffe from 1955 to 1961 by whom he has two sons, the actors Adam and Matthew Arkin. He married the actress Barbara Dana from 1964 to 1994 and they have one son, Anthony. In 1996 he married Suzanne Newlander and took her surname for his role in The Kominsky Method.
MICHAEL DARVELL