Peter Falk The Princess Bride (1987)
Peter Michael Falk was born in 1927 in New York City. He lost his right eye to retinoblastoma at age three and wore a glass eye for the rest of his life — the squint that became his trademark on screen was the result. He took degrees in literature and public administration before turning to acting in his late twenties, was twice nominated for the Academy Award (Murder, Inc. 1960, Pocketful of Miracles 1961), and by 1968 had begun what would become his defining role: the rumpled, gentle, relentlessly polite homicide detective Lieutenant Columbo, on NBC.
By 1987 he had been Columbo, off and on, for nearly two decades. The character had taught the American public to trust him in a particular way: an old man in an old coat asking apparently scattered questions, who was always already five steps ahead. Rob Reiner used exactly that public trust when he cast Falk as the grandfather.
The grandfather is the binding agent
The frame scenes are short — six interruptions across the film, totaling perhaps eight minutes of screen time — but they are the structural device that lets the film be earnest about true love in a culture that no longer was. The grandfather sits beside the bed and reads in the patient, slightly performative voice of a man who has read the book before.b1 When the grandson protests the kissing scenes, he responds without condescension. When the grandson learns nobody kills Humperdinck, he answers honestly: nobody. He lives.b32
The structural payoff at the end — as you wish delivered grandfather to grandson at the bedroom door — works only because Falk has built the entire frame around exactly the warmth required.b40
"Peter Falk had the most important job in the movie. The whole thing rests on whether you believe him. If the grandfather doesn't work, the film doesn't work. And he was perfect." — Rob Reiner, Vanity Fair (2012)
A personal connection to the source
Falk had a personal connection to William Goldman's 1973 novel: he had read it aloud to his own daughters when they were young. He is one of the few actors who came to the film already a fan of the book.
"I had read the book to my daughters when they were little. So when they offered me this part, I knew exactly what they wanted. I knew the book." — Peter Falk, Vanity Fair (2012)
Career around and after
Falk continued Columbo through 2003 across two networks (NBC 1971–1978, ABC 1989–2003), giving him the longest sustained television role of any major American actor of his generation. His film work included John Cassavetes's Husbands (1970), A Woman Under the Influence (1974), The In-Laws (1979), The Brink's Job (1978), Wim Wenders's Wings of Desire (1987 — released the same year as Princess Bride; Falk plays himself, an angel who chose to become human), Tune in Tomorrow... (1990), Wenders's Faraway, So Close! (1993), and a long late career in television and theater.
He was diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease in 2007 and died in 2011 at age eighty-three. The grandfather was one of the last roles he would discuss in interviews, often after he could no longer remember individual scenes from his other films. He always remembered Princess Bride.