The work of Alan Arking in the show business world

Alan Arkin was born in 1934. Essentially a CHARACTER ACTOR who is cast in lead roles, Alan Arkin generally gets the type of thankless parts that an average star would shun for being far too uncommercial. As a result, Alan Arkin's roles have often been meaty and complicated, although not always terribly career boosting.

Show biz break

Born in Brooklyn, New York, Alan Arkin had to go to Chicago to break into show business, gaining attention as a member of the celebrated improvisational revue, Second City. Not long after, he went to Broadway in the stage version of CARL REINER's Enter Laughing, winning a Tony Award for his work.

In his film debut, he joined Carl Reiner on screen in The Russians Are Coming, the Russians Are Coming (1966), playing a confused Soviet submariner. His performance brought him the first of his two Oscar nominations. He was nominated again for his dramatic portrayal of a deaf mute in The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter (1968), and this time he won the Oscar. Dark, short, with expressive eyes, Alan Arkin has been cast in a wide variety of roles that have taken advantage of both his malleable physiognomy and his actor's versatility. For instance, he was chilling as the villain in Wait Until Dark (1967), warm and vulnerable as the Latin father in Popi (1969), wonderfully paranoid as Yossarian in Catch 22 (1970), comically pathetic in The Last of the Red Hot Lovers (1972), loud and bombastic in Freebie and the Bean (1974), comically manic in The In-Laws (1979), and believably graspy and ambitious in Joshua Then and Now (1985).

Alan Arkin - the director

Arkin's directorial talent is less well known than his obvious acting skills. He began directing on Off-Broadway with Eh?, which introduced DUSTIN HOFFMAN. Among other stage productions, he directed Neil Simon's The Sunshine Boys and won an Obie for Jules Feiffer's Little Murders, also directing and starring in the latter when it was turned into a movie in 1971. Other film director credits include Fire Sale (1977), a truly dark black comedy in which he starred as well, and two shorts that he also wrote, T.G.I.F. and People Soup, the latter receiving an Oscar nomination for Best Short Subject.

Alan Arkin was very active on television during the 1980s, starring in NBC-TV's St. Elsewhere, PBS specials A Matter of Principle and The Emperor's New Clothes, Showtime's Fairytale Theatre, and two CBS-TV movies, The Defection of Simas Kudirka and Escape from Sobibor, the latter of which earned Alan Arkin a 1987 Emmy nomination as Outstanding Lead Actor in a Miniseries or Special.

Celebrity colleagues

The 1990s saw many movie roles featuring Alan Arkin. He costarred with Robert Redford in Havana (1990), for example, and appeared in such films as Tim Burton's Edward Scissorhands (1990), Coupe de Ville (1990), the comics-inspired Rocketeer (1991), the futurist Gattaca (1997), Mother Night (1996), and Grosse Point Blank (1997). Perhaps his outstanding performance during the decade was as the timid and hesitant salesman George Aaronow in James Foley's screen adaptation of David Mamet's Glengarry Glen Ross (1992). In this brilliant film, Alan Arkin was part of a “perfect” ensemble cast that included Alec Baldwin, Ed Harris, Kevin Spacey, Al Pacino, and Jack Lemmon. In 2001 Alan Arkin appeared in the underrated America's Sweethearts.

A multitalented individual, Alan Arkin is also an author and a songwriter and has been a musical performer with a folk group, the Tarriers. He plays the guitar and flute, not to mention the nose whistle.

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