| Alan Arkin | |
|---|---|
 Arkin in 1975 |
|
| Born | Alan Wolf Arkin March 26, 1934 Brooklyn, New York, US |
| Occupation | Actor, director, musician, singer |
| Years active | 1957–present |
| Spouse(s) | Jeremy Yaffe (1955–1961; divorced; 2 children) Barbara Dana (1964–199?; divorced; 1 child) Suzanne Newlander (1996–) |
Alan Wolf Arkin (born March 26, 1934) is an American actor, director, musician and singer. He is known for starring in such films as Wait Until Dark, The Russians Are Coming, the Russians Are Coming, The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, Catch-22, The In-Laws, Edward Scissorhands, Glengarry Glen Ross, Thirteen Conversations About One Thing, Little Miss Sunshine, and Argo, the last two of which he was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. He is the father of actors Adam Arkin, Anthony Arkin, and Matthew Arkin.
Early life
Arkin was born in Brooklyn, New York City, son of David I. Arkin, a painter and writer, and his wife Beatrice Wortis, a teacher.[1] He was raised in a Jewish family with "no emphasis on religion". His grandparents were immigrants from Ukraine, Russia, and Germany.[2][3] His parents moved to Los Angeles when Alan was 11,[2] but an eight-month Hollywood strike cost his father his job as a set designer. During the 1950s Red Scare, Arkin's parents were accused of being Communists,
and his father was fired when he refused to answer questions about his
political ideology. David Arkin challenged the dismissal, but he was
only vindicated after his death.[4]
Career
Early work
Arkin, who had been taking acting lessons since age 10, became a
scholarship student at various drama academies, including one run by the
Stanislavsky student Benjamin Zemach, who taught Arkin a psychological approach to acting.[5] Arkin attended Los Angeles City College from 1951 to 1953. He also attended Bennington College. With two friends, he formed the folk music group The Tarriers, in which Arkin sang and played guitar. The band members co-composed the group's 1956 hit "The Banana Boat Song", a reworking, with some new lyrics, of a traditional, Jamaican calypso folk song of the same name, combined with another titled "Hill and Gully Rider".[6] It reached #4 on the Billboard magazine chart the same year as Harry Belafonte's better-known hit version.[7] The group appeared in the 1957 Calypso-exploitation film Calypso Heat Wave, singing "Banana Boat Song" and "Choucoune".
From 1958 to 1968, Arkin performed and recorded with the children's folk group, The Baby Sitters.[8] He also performed the role of Dr. Pangloss in a concert staging of Leonard Bernstein's operetta Candide, alongside Madeline Kahn's Cunegonde. Arkin was an early member of The Second City comedy troupe in the 1960s.[9] Arkin and his second wife, Barbara Dana, appeared together on the 1970–71 season of Sesame Street
as a comical couple named Larry and Phyllis who resolve their conflicts
when they remember how to pronounce the word "cooperate." In 1985, he
sang two selections by Jones & Schmidt on Ben Bagley's album Contemporary Broadway Revisited.
Acting
Arkin is one of only six[10] actors to receive an Academy Award nomination for Best Actor for his first screen appearance (for The Russians Are Coming, the Russians Are Coming in 1966). Two years later, he was again nominated, for The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter.
In 1968, he appeared in the title role of Inspector Clouseau, after Peter Sellers disassociated himself from the role, but the film was not well received by Sellers' fans.
His best known films include his Oscar-nominated Wait Until Dark, as the erudite killer stalking Audrey Hepburn; The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter; Catch-22; The Seven-Per-Cent Solution; Little Murders; The In-Laws; Glengarry Glen Ross; and Little Miss Sunshine, for which he won a Best Supporting Actor Oscar; and Argo. His portrayal of Dr. Oatman, a scared and emotionally conflicted psychiatrist treating John Cusack's hit man character Martin Q. Blank in Grosse Point Blank was also well received.
His role in Little Miss Sunshine, as the foul-mouthed Grandfather Edwin with a taste for heroin, won him the BAFTA Film Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role and the Academy Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role.
On receiving his Academy Award on February 25, 2007, Arkin said, "More
than anything, I'm deeply moved by the open-hearted appreciation our
small film has received, which in these fragmented times speaks so
openly of the possibility of innocence, growth and connection".[11] At 72 years old, Arkin was the sixth oldest winner of the Best Supporting Actor Oscar.
In 2006–07, Arkin was cast in supporting roles in Rendition as a US senator and The Santa Clause 3: The Escape Clause as Bud Newman (Carol's Dad), starring with Tim Allen, Martin Short, Elizabeth Mitchell, Judge Reinhold and Wendy Crewson.
On Broadway, Arkin starred in Enter Laughing, for which he won a Tony Award, and Luv. He also directed The Sunshine Boys, among others.
Directing
Arkin's directorial debut, in 1969, was a 12-minute children's film, People Soup, starring his sons Adam Arkin and Matthew Arkin. Based on a story he had published in the Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction in the 1950s, People Soup
is a fantasy about two boys who experiment with various kitchen
ingredients until they concoct a magical soup which transforms them into
different animals and objects.
Arkin's most acclaimed directorial effort is Little Murders, released in 1971. Written by cartoonist Jules Feiffer, Little Murders is a black comedy film starring Elliott Gould and Marcia Rodd
about a girl, Patsy (Rodd), who brings home her boyfriend, Alfred
(Gould), to meet her severely dysfunctional family amidst a series of
random shootings, garbage strikes and electrical outages ravaging the
neighborhood. The film opened to a lukewarm review by Roger Greenspan,[12] and a more positive one by Vincent Canby[13] in the New York Times. Roger Ebert's
review in the Chicago Sun Times was more enthusiastic, saying, "One of
the reasons it works, and is indeed a definitive reflection of America's
darker moods, is that it breaks audiences down into isolated
individuals, vulnerable and uncertain."[14]
Arkin also directed Fire Sale (1977), Samuel Beckett Is Coming Soon (1993) and Arigo (2000).
Writing
Arkin is the author of many books, including the children's stories Tony's Hard Work Day (illustrated by James Stevenson, 1972), The Lemming Condition (illustrated by Joan Sandin, 1976), Halfway Through the Door: An Actor's Journey Toward Self (1979) and The Clearing (1986 continuation of Lemming). In March 2011, he released his memoir, An Improvised Life.[15]
Personal life
Arkin has been married three times. He and Jeremy Yaffe, to whom he was married from 1955 to 1961, have two sons: Adam Arkin, born August 19, 1956, and Matthew Arkin, born March 21, 1959. In 1967, Arkin had son Anthony (Tony) Dana Arkin with actress-screenwriter Barbara Dana (born 1940), to whom he was married from June 16, 1964 to the mid-1990s. In 1996, Arkin married a psychotherapist, Suzanne Newlander.[4] As of 2007, they live in New Mexico.
Filmography
Film
Television
| Year | Title | Role | Other notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1964 | East Side/West Side | Ted Miller | "The Beatnik and the Politician" |
| 1966 | ABC Stage 67 | Barney Kempinski | "The Love Song of Barney Kempinski" Nominated – Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Single Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role in a Drama |
| 1970–71 | Sesame Street | Larry | unknown episodes |
| 1979 | Carol Burnett & Company | Himself | Episode 1, Season 2 |
| 1980 | The Muppet Show | Himself | Episode 20, Season 4 |
| 1983 | St. Elsewhere | Jerry Singleton | 3 episodes: "Ties That Bind", "Lust En Veritas", "Newheart" |
| 1985 | Faerie Tale Theatre | Bo | "The Emperor's New Clothes" |
| 1987 | Harry | Harry Porschak | March 4–25, ABC TV series |
| 1997 | Chicago Hope | Zoltan Karpathein | "The Son Also Rises" Nominated – Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actor – Drama Series |
| 2001–02 | 100 Centre Street | Joe Rifkind | A&E TV series |
| 2005 | Will & Grace | Marty Adler | "It's a Dad, Dad, Dad, Dad World" |
| 2006–07 | Boston Legal | Prosecutor | Two episodes in Season 3 |
