Versatile Oscar- winning actor Alan Arkin has died at 89, according to multiple sources.
His sons, Adam, Matthew, and Anthony, released a statement to multiple news organizations: “Our father was a uniquely talented force of nature, both as an artist and a man. A loving husband, father, grand and great grandfather, he was adored and will be deeply missed.”
No cause of death has been given, but his son, Matthew said he died at home in San Marcos, California. He was known to have heart ailments, the New York Times reported.
His work spanned TV, film and Broadway, and while he’s remembered for his comedic acting, he was equally adept at dramatic roles. He won a Tony Award in 1963 for his first starring role in “Enter Laughing.” He was a relative unknown, having only performed touring with a folk music group and with the comedy troupe “Second City” in Chicago, according to the New York Times. After another successful Broadway performance in 1964, he moved on to films.
He was nominated for three Oscars and won one in films that ran in wildly different Hollywood eras from 1964 until 2012. He received an Oscar nomination for his first role, in the 1964 comedy “The Russians are Coming, The Russians are Coming!” He won a Golden Globe award for his role as a submarine commander.
He received two other Oscar nominations and won for “Little Miss Sunshine” in 2006, as a foul-mouthed, drug taking grandfather, which he managed to turn into a darkly hilarious, comedic role, the Los Angeles Times reported.
His two other nominations came for his dramatic turn in “The Heart is a Lonely Hunter” as a deaf man who tried to help disadvantaged people in a divided, Southern town and his role as a cynical movie executive in 2012′s “Argo”
In is 2011 memoir, “An Improvised Life,” he wrote “outside my life as an actor I had almost no life at all.” The book was among several he published, including his1979 autobiography “Halfway Through the Door,” schildren’s books, science fiction and screenplays for short films. He also liked photography and playing jazz, and songwriting, the LA Times said.
In TV roles he was nominated for six Emmys but never won one. His small-screen work work also spanned decades from the early 1980s until Emmy and Golden Globe nominations in 2019 and 2020 for his work in the critically successful Netflix series “The Komisky Method”
He was born on March 26, 1934 in New York City. His father, David Arkin, was a painter and a writer, and his mother Beatrice (Wortis) Arkin, a teacher. The family moved to Los Angeles.
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