Alan Arkin, Oscar and Tony Winner, Dead at 89

Beloved Hollywood actor Alan Arkin, star of movies like Catch-22 and Little Miss Sunshine, has died.  He was 89 years old. Arkin’s decades-long career touched on everything from Oscar-winning classics to crowd-pleasing franchises, starring opposite everyone from Peter Falk and John Cusack to Ethan Hawke and Steve Carell. His screen career started in 1957, although his first really notable role came in the 1966 film The Russians Are Coming, The Russians Are Coming. In between those two points, he did a lot of stage work, earning a Tony Award for his part in Enter Laughing in 1963. Arkin starred in dozens of films and TV series since, and remained active right up until the end of his life, appearing in a major role in Minions: The Rise of Gru last year.

“Our father was a uniquely talented force of nature, both as an artist and a man,” his sons Adam, Matthew, and Anthony told People in a statement. “A loving husband, father, grand and great grandfather, he was adored and will be deeply missed.”

While 1968’s Inspector Clouseau was a critical and commercial disappointment, its existence still means that Arkin was the second actor ever to play the iconic role, taking over from The Pink Panther star Peter Sellers (and then handing the role back over to him for the next installment). Just a couple of years later, Arkin would have a career-defining role in Catch-22.

In 1970 and 1971, just as Catch-22 was making its way into theaters, Arkin recurred in a handful of episodes of Sesame Street, playing a character named Larry, but by 1972 had gone in a very different direction, starring in The Last of the Red Hot Lovers. In the years that followed, he would play Sigmund Freud in The Seven Percent Solution and frazzled father Sheldon Kornpett in The In-Laws, which saw him bouncing off Peter Falk in one of the most beloved comedies of the 1970s.

In the 1980s, Arkin started to dabble in genre work a bit, playing roles in Full Moon High, The Last Unicorn, and The Return of Captain Invincible before stepping into a 3-episode guest arc on St. Elsewhere. Around this time, he also started to take on more stage and TV work, appearing on American Playhouse and in the much-hyped TV movie Escape From Sobibor alongside Rutger Hauer.

Arkin kicked off the 1990s with a string of beloved films that remain relevant to this day, including Edward Scissorhands, The Rocketeer, and Glengarry Glen Ross. Around this time, he started to really lean into being an older-looking, neurotic, Jewish actor, with roles like Glengarry Glen Ross and later Grosse Pointe Blank really leaning into that archetype. He played roles in So I Married an Axe Murderer, North, and The Jerky Boys before ending the decade with Gattaca, The Slums of Beverly Hills, and the aforementioned Grosse Pointe Blank, in which he dug back to his Freudian roots to play a psychiatrist — although this time, one far out of his depth.

By the 2000s, Arkin was one of the most respected characters actors in Hollywood, and he would stand out even in small roles, whether in America’s Sweethearts, Will & Grace, or The Santa Clause 3: The Escape Clause. In 2006, after having previously been nominated for The Russians Are Coming, The Russians Are Coming and The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, Arkin finally won an Academy Award for his eccentric and memorable performance in Little Miss Sunshine.  The role also netted him a BAFTA Award (his second, after The Russians Are Coming, The Russians Are Coming) and a Screen Actors Guild Award (his first, although he got another a few years later for Argo).

Working less by the late 2000s, Arkin nevertheless managed to alternate critical darlings with franchise fare, starring with Little Miss Sunshine‘s Steve Carell again in Get Smart before taking roles in Marley & Me, The Muppets, and Argo. He played J.D. Salinger in Netflix’s BoJack Horseman, and appeared in 2019’s remake of Dumbo and 2020’s Spenser Confidential, all while playing Norman Newlander on The Kominsky Method, a role that he played until 2021.

Our condolences to Mr. Arkin’s family, friends, collaborators, and fans during this difficult time.