page_title: Peter Falk
section_title: Early television roles
hierarchical_section_title: Peter Falk / Career / Early television roles
caption_attribution_description: Publicity photo of Peter Falk and Joanna Barnes from the television program The Trials of O'Brien.
context_page_description: Peter Michael Falk was an American actor and comedian, known for his role as Lieutenant Columbo in the long-running television series Columbo, for which he won four Primetime Emmy Awards and a Golden Globe Award. He first starred as Columbo in two 90-minute TV pilots; the first with Gene Barry in 1968 and the second with Lee Grant in 1971. The show then aired as part of The NBC Mystery Movie series from 1971 to 1978, and again on ABC from 1989 to 2003.
  Falk was twice nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor, for Murder, Inc. and Pocketful of Miracles, and won his first Emmy Award in 1962 for The Dick Powell Theatre. He was the first actor to be nominated for an Academy Award and an Emmy Award in the same year, achieving the feat twice. He went on to appear in such films as It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World, The Great Race, Anzio, Murder by Death, The Cheap Detective, The In-Laws, The Princess Bride, Wings of Desire, The Player, and Next, as well as many television guest roles.
context_section_description: Falk first appeared on television in 1957, in the dramatic anthology programs that later became known as the "Golden Age of Television". In 1957, he appeared in one episode of Robert Montgomery Presents. He was also cast in Studio One, Kraft Television Theater, New York Confidential, Naked City, The Untouchables, Have Gun–Will Travel, The Islanders, and Decoy with Beverly Garland cast as the first female police officer in a series lead. On The Twilight Zone he portrayed a Castro-type revolutionary complete with beard who, intoxicated with power, kept seeing his would-be assassins in a newly acquired magic mirror. He starred in two of Alfred Hitchcock's television series, as a gangster terrified of death in a 1961 episode of Alfred Hitchcock Presents and as a homicidal evangelist in 1962's The Alfred Hitchcock Hour.
  In 1961, Falk was nominated for an Emmy Award for his performance in the episode "Cold Turkey" of James Whitmore's short-lived series The Law and Mr. Jones on ABC. On September 29, 1961, Falk and Walter Matthau guest-starred in the premiere episode, "The Million Dollar Dump", of ABC's crime drama Target: The Corruptors, with Stephen McNally and Robert Harland. He won an Emmy for The Price of Tomatoes, a drama carried in 1962 on The Dick Powell Show.
  In 1963, Falk and Tommy Sands appeared as brothers who disagreed on the route for a railroad in "The Gus Morgan Story" on ABC's Wagon Train. Falk played the title role of "Gus", and Sands was his younger brother, Ethan Morgan. Ethan accidentally shoots wagonmaster Chris Hale, played by John McIntire, while the brothers are in the mountains looking at possible route options. Gus makes the decision to leave Hale behind- even choking him, believing he is dead. Ethan has been overcome with oxygen deprivation and needs Gus' assistance to reach safety down the mountain. Unknown to the Morgans, Hale crawls down the mountain through snow, determined to obtain revenge against Gus. In time, though, Hale comes to understand the difficult choice Morgan had to make, and the brothers reconcile their own differences. This episode is remembered for its examination of how far a man will persist amid adversity to preserve his own life and that of his brother.
  Falk's first television series was in the title role of the drama The Trials of O'Brien, in which he played a lawyer. The show ran in 1965 and 1966 and was cancelled after 22 episodes. In 1966, he also co-starred in a television production of "Brigadoon" with Robert Goulet.
  In 1971, Pierre Cossette produced the first Grammy Awards show on television with some help from Falk. Cossette writes in his autobiography, "What meant the most to me, though, is the fact that Peter Falk saved my ass. I love show business, and I love Peter Falk."
caption: Peter Falk and Joanna Barnes from the television program The Trials of O'Brien in 1966.
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