Born to Jewish parents with Austro-Hungarian and Czech descents, He was Jewish and born and raised in Ossining, New York.

At the age of 3 he lost a right eye to cancer, and when playing in a Little League baseball game at ten didn’t like the call made at the plate and took out his glass eye handing it to the umpire and saying, ‘here you need this more than I do.’

He tried enlisting in the U.S. Marines during World War II but his disability denied him. In 1948 he tried to volunteer for Israel’s War of Independence but the war ended in eight days before he could go on a ship.

He moved to New York City in his 20’s where he began acting at 26 in 1953. Will forever be known as the dishevelled, forgetful Lieutenant Frank Colombo on series of same name from 1971 to 2003.

Began suffering memory loss in 2007 attributable to dementia and Alzheimer’s and died in his early 80’s from Alzheimer’s-related congestive heart failure and pneumonia in 2011. A statue of him in Budapest, Hungary is a reminder of his heritage.

Peter Falk 1927-2011 born & raised in Ossining, New York