Alan Arkin, Oscar-winning ‘Little Miss Sunshine’ actor, dead at 89
The actor also starred in Argo, Glengarry Glen Ross, Catch-22, and The Kominsky Method during career that spanned over 60 years
By Daniel Kreps
Alan Arkin, the Oscar-winning actor who starred in films like Little Miss Sunshine, Argo, and Glengarry Glen Rose during a career that spanned over 60 years, has died at the age of 89.
Arkin’s sons Adam, Matthew, and Anthony confirmed their father’s death in a statement to People. “Our father was a uniquely talented force of nature, both as an artist and a man,” his sons wrote. “A loving husband, father, grand and great grandfather, he was adored and will be deeply missed.” No cause of death was provided.
A four-time Academy Award nominee — including twice in the Best Actor category — Arkin finally won a Best Supporting Actor Oscar in 2006 for his role as a sympathetic yet heroin-addicted grandfather in the 2006 off kilter comedy Little Miss Sunshine. He would again be nominated in that category for playing a film producer in the Best Picture-winning Argo in 2013.
A dependable comic actor who just as easily could slip into a serious role when required, Arkin was born March 26, 1934 in Brooklyn, New York; as good an actor as Arkin would become, he could never shake his birthplace’s thick, unmistakable accent. Prior to becoming a full-time screen actor, Arkin first made his impact on the stage, in both comedy troupes and on Broadway: In 1963, Arkin won the Tony Award for Best Actor in a Play for his role in Enter Laughing.
Arkin’s breakthrough came in 1967 when he starred as the menacing con man who tormented a blind Audrey Hepburn in the thriller Wait Until Dark, a big-screen adaptation of Frederik Knott’s Broadway play; in the film, Arkin played the role of Roat, originally portrayed by Robert Duvall on the stage.
The following year, Arkin would earn a Best Actor Academy Award nomination for portraying deaf-mute John Fisher in the acclaimed adaptation of The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter.
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