Alan Arkin, the Oscar and Tony-winning actor who starred in films ranging from “Catch-22” to “Little Miss Sunshine,” has died at the age of 89. His death was confirmed by his sons Adam, Matthew and Anthony in a statement obtained by TheWrap.
“Our father was a uniquely talented force of nature, both as an artist and a man. A loving husband, father, grand and great grandfather, he was adored and will be deeply missed,” the statement reads.
A cause of death has, as of this time, not been given.
Born in Brooklyn, New York on March 26, 1934, Arkin was the son of a painter and a teacher. He was raised Jewish, albeit with “no emphasis on religion,” and his family moved to Los Angeles when he was 11. His father worked as a set decorator until losing that job due to an eight-month Hollywood strike. Arkin’s parents were accused of being Communists during the 1950s Red Scare when his father refused to answer questions about his political ideology.
Their son, meanwhile, had been acting since he was 10 years old, becoming a scholarship student at, among others, a drama academy run by Stanislavsky student Benjamin Zemach. He attended Los Angeles State College from 1951 to 1953 and also attended Bennington College. His career began on Broadway where he won a Best Featured Actor Tony award for 1963’s “Enter Laughing.”
He soon began appearing in feature films and received his first Oscar nomination for his leading role in Norman Jewison’s 1966 comedy “The Russians Are Coming, the Russians Are Coming.” He replaced Peter Sellers in the third “Pink Panther” movie, “Inspector Clouseau” in 1968. He would earn another Oscar nomination for his turn in “The Heart of the Lonely Hunter,” which also opened in 1968. In 1970 he starred in Mike Nichols’ ill-fated (and later cult favorite) “Catch-22” adaptation.
Amid a nearly six-decade career onscreen, he starred in films like “The In-Laws,” “Glengarry Glenn Ross,” “Little Miss Sunshine” — for which he won a Best Supporting Actor Oscar — and a vocal turn in last summer’s blockbuster animated “Minions: The Rise of Gru.”
He guest-starred as himself on “The Muppet Show” in 1980 and featured in a slew of television movies in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Arkin most recently starred in the Netflix series “The Kominski Method,” for which he received two consecutive Emmy nominations.
He was equally capable of being silly in kid-friendly projects like “Get Smart” or “The Santa Clause 3: The Escape Clause” and bringing pathos and gravitas to the likes of “Thirteen Conversations About One Thing” and “The Private Lives of Peppa Lee.” He appeared in a four-episode run on “Sesame Street” back in 1970 and spent a decade, from 1958 to 1968, recording for a kid folk-music group called The Baby Sitters.
He was the very definition of a flinty but approachable character actor who made every film and television show just a little bit better. Arkin spoke to TheWrap in 2012, while promoting Ben Affleck’s “Argo,” where he noted that the best part about being in the awards season race was “the soap and the shampoo.”
“The best thing that happened is that you get invited to a lot of events in which they give you gift baskets with soap and shampoo. And about a year and a half ago, I said, ‘I’ve gotta find something that’s gonna get me a nomination, because we’re running out of soap and shampoo.’”
