Peter Michael Falk (born September 16, 1927) is a two-time Academy Award-nominated, six-time Emmy Award-winning American actor, best known for his role as Lt. Columbo in the television series Columbo.

Early years
After deciding to be an actor and studying at the White Barn Theatre in Westport, Connecticut, in 1956 at the age of 29, he left his job with the Budget Bureau and moved to Greenwich Village. He made his professional debut Off Broadway in Molière's Don Juan at the Fourth Street Theatre on January 3, 1956, and the same year his Broadway debut playing an English soldier in Shaw's Saint Joan with Siobhán McKenna. He won an Emmy for "The Price of Tomatoes", a Dick Powell TV drama. Falk has been nominated for a Best Supporting Actor Academy Award twice, for Murder, Inc., and Pocketful of Miracles.

Acting
Falk is best known for the title role in the long-running TV series Columbo, a shabby and ostensibly absent-minded police detective. In reality, Columbo possessed a keen mind and invariably solved his cases by paying close attention to tiny inconsistencies in a suspect's story, hounding them until they confessed; he merely put on a good show of being dim-witted so that the criminals and even his colleagues would be more at ease around him. Columbo's signature technique was to exit the scene of an interview, only to stop in the doorway to ask a suspect "just one more thing" (the title of Falk's recent memoir), which always brought to light the key inconsistency. The role won Falk five Emmy Awards and a Golden Globe.