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Peter Michael Falk was born in New York City on September 16, 1927, and raised in Ossining, New York, where his parents, Michael and Madeline (Hauster) Falk, ran a small clothing store. He earned a Masters degree in public administration at Syracuse University in 1953. But it wasn't until 1956, at the age of 29, that he left his job with the Budget Bureau, moved to Greenwich Village in New York and there declared himself an actor.

In New York, he made his professional debut Off Broadway in Molieres Don Juan" at the Fourth Street Theatre on January 3, 1956, and the following season he was in the Circle of the Squares highly successful revival of The Iceman Cometh" with Jason Robards. After three years of theater work, Falk left New York and moved to Hollywood where he landed his first movie, Murder Incorporated, and was nominated for an Oscar. He was nominated that same year for an Emmy playing a drug addict in The Law and Mr. Jones. Frank Capra"s A Pocketful of Miracles with Bette Davis and Glenn Ford was Falk"s second feature in 1961 and with it his second Oscar nomination. Also that year he got a second Emmy nomination in the Dick Powell Playhouses presentation of The Price of Tomatoes" -- and this time took home the prize.

After rejecting several other television series offers, Falk undertook The Trials of OBrien," a weekly one hour comedy whodunit. But it was the inimitable character of Lt. Columbo which secured Falk's fame and won him a total of four Emmy's. Columbo quickly climbed to the top five in the Nielsen Ratings.