PETER FALK

Almost a decade before he was Columbo, Falk was a young movie actor living in New York, where I also lived and worked. I'd seen him in several films and liked his work a lot (catch him in the Sinatra-and-Rat Pack film, "Robin & the Seven Hoods" and any of the John Cassevetes-directed movies in which he appeared). One day at the Tribune in '63, I spotted Falk wandering around the city room and asked if I could help. He was looking for Judith Crist, the paper's movie critic. I looked him straight in the eye (his one real one) and gave him directions. Off he lumbered, sans raincoat.