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Peter Falk (born September 16, 1927) is an American actor, best known for his role as Lieutenant Columbo in the long-running television series Columbo. He appeared in numerous films and television guest roles, and has been nominated for an Academy Award twice, and won the Emmy Award on five occasions and the Golden Globe award once.

Born Peter Michael Falk in New York City, Falk was the son of Michael Falk, owner of a clothing and dry goods store, and his wife, Madeline, an accountant and buyer. His mother was Russian and his father was Polish, and of Hungarian and Czech descent. He is the grandson of Mike Falk, chief editor of the Budapest newspaper Pester Lloyd. Falk`s parents were of Jewish descent but were not religious.

His right eye was surgically removed at the age of three because of a malignant tumor; he has worn a glass eye for most of his life. Despite the handicap, Falk participated in team sports, mainly baseball and basketball, as a boy. In a 1997 interview in Cigar Aficionado with writer Arthur Marx, Falk said, "I remember once in high school the umpire called me out at third base when I was sure I was safe. I got so mad I took out my glass eye, handed it to him and said, `Try this.` I got such a laugh you wouldn`t believe."

At the age of 12, Falk`s first stage appearance was in The Pirates of Penzance at Camp High Point in upstate New York. Falk attended Ossining High School in Westchester County, New York, where he was a star athlete and president of his senior class. After graduating from high school in 1945, Falk briefly attended Hamilton College in Clinton, New York, and then tried to join the armed services as World War II was drawing to a close. Rejected because of his glass eye, he joined the United States Merchant Marine, and served as a cook and mess boy. "There they don`t care if you`re blind or not," Falk said in 1997. "The only one on a ship who has to see is the captain. And in the case of the Titanic, he couldn`t see very well, either."

After a year and a half in the Merchant Marine, Falk returned to Hamilton College and also attended the University of Wisconsin. He transferred to the New School for Social Research in New York City, which awarded him a bachelor`s degree in literature and political science in 1951. He then travelled in Europe and worked on a railroad in Yugoslavia for six months. He returned to New York, enrolling at Syracuse University, but he recalled in his 2006 memoir Just One More Thing that he was unsure what he wanted to do with his life for years after leaving high school.

Falk obtained a Masters degree in public administration at Syracuse University in 1953. It was a new program designed to train future workers in the federal bureaucracy, a career that Falk said in his memoir that he had "no interest in and no aptitude for.". He applied for a job with the CIA, but was rejected because of his membership in the Marine Cooks and Stewards Union while serving in the Merchant Marine, even though he was required to join and was not active in the union. He then became a management analyst with the Connecticut State Budget Bureau, in Hartford. Falk described his Hartford job as "efficiency expert. "I was such an efficiency expert that the first morning on the job, I couldn`t find the building where I was to report for work," he said in 1997. "Naturally, I was late, which I always was in those days, but ironically it was my tendency never to be on time t

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