LITTLE MR. SUNSET
Actor Alan Arkin has died aged 89. He began his career as a folk singer with the Tarriers (they had a 50s hit with a retooling of “The Banana Boat Song”) and indeed made his film debut as part of the group in a musical showcase for calypso acts. Acting took the driver’s seat and a number of Broadway roles in the early 60s, particularly “Enter Laughing”, made his comedic talent apparent. He made his first major film splash via a Soviet submarine on a New England beach – his performance as the lead Russian in Cold War satire The Russians Are Coming, the Russians Are Coming earned his first Oscar nomination. Though given the film’s involvement of Norman Jewison, Carl Reiner, and Eva Marie Saint, his 89 years now seem somewhat underwhelming!
Arkin proved similarly able in drama, playing a psychopath murderer in Audrey Hepburn thriller Wait Until Dark and a delicate, Oscar-nominated starring role as a deaf-mute in The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter. Perhaps the definitive Arkin role was as anxious Captain Yossarian in antiwar black comedy Catch-22, but the film’s middling box office performance hampered his career. He kept a steady trickle of film (Edward Scissorhands, Glengarry Glen Ross) and TV (Escape from Sobibor) roles before notching a triumphant, Oscar-winning comeback as the tart-tongued crackhead grandfather in Little Miss Sunshine. His final role of prominence was as a jaded film producer in Argo, unless you want to count his final role period in a Minions film. He was a unique for Last Christmas.
Alan Arkin
26 March 1934 – 29 June 2023, aged 89
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