Time Out for a Birthday...

What a week! Time out for something more cheerful than rioting Muslims who hate America.

So let's talk about imaginary murder and mayhem instead - as in classical detective stories. Because today is Columbo's birthday. Peter Falk, the New York actor from Ossining, NY who played the detective in the rumpled trenchcoat with the (often unlit) cigar clenched in his teeth would have been 85 today. As a mystery fan, I admired the low key detective who's absent-minded manner fooled so many criminals into thinking they were up against a numbskull.

So, in honor of Peter Falk, I plan to watch a Columbo episode tonight and lift a glass of something in toast to a great actor who is sorely missed by this fan. The Columbo stories were clean with no explicit sex and little, if any, on-screen violence. They were simply old fashioned fun whodunits!

I miss Peter Falk and pray he's exploring the highways of heaven in that beat up old jalopy taking his namesake along for a ride. Rest in peace, Pete.

P.S. Funny thing - Agatha Christie's birthday was yesterday. She created some of my other favorite detectives, i.e., Hercule Poirot, beautifully portrayed by another splendid actor, David Souchet, and  the consummate Miss Jane Marple played by Joan Hickson. Hickson was Agatha Christie's personal choice to play her delightful spinster from St. Mary Mead. Now there was an author who knew her characters and how they should be played. Rest in peace Dame Agatha.

Good Night to My Favorite Detective

I've been watching old Columbo episodes in honor of one of my favorite actors, Peter Falk, who died on June 23rd at age 83. His show was not a whodunit in the classic sense since the murderer did his dirty deed at the opening of the show in plain sight of the viewer. But watching the apparently bumbling detective run his quarry to ground was always fascinating. I remember one particularly interesting episode where a blackmailing food critic poisons a chef who's going to expose him. In the process of the investigation Columbo cooks up a special dish in the restaurant kitchen for himself and the murderer.

Good night, Columbo, I'll miss you!

For a lovely eulogy to this icon of the detective world go here.