Best Known As: The foul-mouthed grandpa in Little Miss Sunshine
Veteran stage and screen star Alan Arkin is known to modern moviegoers mainly for his supporting roles in comedies, including Edward Scissorhands (1990) and Little Miss Sunshine (2006). Arkin began his career as a folk singer, then worked with the Second City improvisational troupe in Chicago and, later, on Broadway. He won a Tony for his first big stage role -- the lead in the Broadway version of Carl Reiner's Enter Laughing (1963) -- and he received an Oscar nomination for his first big movie role -- as a Soviet sailor in the film farce The Russians Are Coming! The Russians Are Coming! (1966). He then turned in memorable dramatic performances on screen, terrorizing Audrey Hepburn in the 1967 thriller Wait Until Dark and earning another Oscar nomination as the lead in the 1968 film version of the Carson McCullers novel The Heart is a Lonely Hunter. He led the all-star cast of the Hollywood failure Catch-22 (1970, based on the bestseller by Joseph Heller), but during the 1970s he was a popular leading and supporting player in comedies, including Freebie and the Bean (1974, with James Caan), Hearts of the West (1975, with Jeff Bridges) and The In-Laws (1979). After several mediocre movies during the 1980s, Arkin started off the '90s with a memorable performance as the unruffled dad who helps Johnny Depp in Edward Scissorhands (directed by Tim Burton). Frequently cast in broad comedic roles, Arkin also appeared in the dramatic ensemble piece Glengarry Glen Ross (1992, with Alec Baldwin) and the film version of Kurt Vonnegut's Mother Night (1996, starring Nick Nolte). Over the years Arkin has directed several plays on Broadway and a handful of feature films, and he has published several children's books, including The Lemming Condition, Some Fine Grampa! and Tony's Hard Work Day. His recent films include Grosse Pointe Blank (1997, starring John Cusack), Jakob the Liar (1999, starring Robin Williams) and Thirteen Conversations About One Thing (2001, with Matthew McConaughey). Arkin received his third Oscar nomination in 2007, and this time won the Academy Award as best supporting actor, for his performance as the drug-addicted, sharp-tongued grandfather in Little Miss Sunshine (2006, with Abigail Breslin).
Arkin is married to actress and writer Barbara Dana... He has three sons who are actors: Adam, Anthony and Matthew... Arkin co-wrote the 1950s single "The Banana Boat Song," popularized by Harry Belafonte.
Arkin, Alan (b. 1934), actor and director. He was born in Brooklyn and educated at Los Angeles City College and Bennington College before working as a stand‐up comic in clubs and with improv groups. As a member of the touring Second City troupe from Chicago, Arkin caught the eye of producers who put him in Off‐Broadway comedy revues, some of which he scripted. He made a striking Broadway debut as the hapless would‐be actor David Kolowitz in Enter Laughing (1963) and the next year was again praised for his portrayal of the unfortunate would‐be suicide victim Harry Berlin in Luv. The odd, low‐key comic actor turned to directing in the 1960s, staging Eh? (1966), Little Murders (1969), The Sunshine Boys (1972), and others. After a span of thirty‐four years, he performed again as two zany characters in the Off‐Broadway comedy Power Plays (1998). Autobiography: Halfway Through the Door, 1979.
As a multi-talented film and stage performer with an intense comic flair, the diminutive and stocky Jewish-American character actor Alan Arkin built a career for himself out of playing slightly gruff and opinionated yet endearing eccentrics. Though not commonly recognized as such, Arkin's ability extends not only beyond the range of the comedic but far beyond the scope of acting. In addition to his before-the-camera work, Arkin is an accomplished theatrical and cinematic director, an author, and a gifted vocalist.
Born March 26, 1934, to immigrant parents of Russian and German Hebrew descent, Arkin came of age in New York City, then attended Los Angeles City College in the early '50s and launched his entertainment career as a key member of the folk band the Tarriers, alongside Erik Darling, Carl Carlton, and Bob Carey. Unfortunately, the Tarriers never managed to find a musical foothold amid the 1960s folk boom -- which, despite the success of a European tour in 1957, encouraged Arkin to leave the group and carve out a niche for himself in another arena.
Arkin instead turned to stage comedy and joined Chicago's Second City troupe, then in its infancy. (It officially began in 1959.) From there, Arkin transitioned to Broadway roles, and won a Tony and critical raves for his debut, in Carl Reiner's autobiographical seriocomedy Enter Laughing (1963). He followed it up with the lead in Murray Schisgal's surrealistic character comedy Luv, and made his onscreen debut alongside friend and fellow actor Reiner, for Norman Jewison's frenetic social satire The Russians Are Coming! The Russians Are Coming! The picture not only scored with the public and press (and received a Best Picture nod) but netted Arkin a nomination for Best Actor. He lost to Paul Scofield, for the latter's role as Thomas More in A Man for All Seasons.
Arkin evinced pronounced versatility by cutting dramatically against type for his next performance: that of Harry Roat, a psychopath who systematically psychologically tortures Audrey Hepburn, in Terence Young's Wait Until Dark (1967). A return to comedy with 1968's Inspector Clouseau (with Arkin in the Peter Sellers role) proved disastrous. Fortunately, Arkin took this as a cue, and shifted direction once again the following year, with his aforementioned portrayal of Singer in The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter -- a gentle and beautiful adaptation of Carson McCullers' wonderful novel. For the effort, Arkin received a much-deserved sophomore Academy Award nomination for Best Actor, but lost to Charly's Cliff Robertson.
The '70s brought mixed prospects for Arkin. He debuted as a film director in 1971, with a screen adaptation of Jules Feiffer's jet-black comedy Little Murders -- a theatrical work that Arkin had previously directed, to rave reviews, off-Broadway. A foray into the subject of American apathy in the face of random violence as it escalated during the late '60s and early '70s, the film tells the story of a sociopathically aggressive woman (Marcia Rodd) who wheedles an apathetic photographer-cum-avant-garde filmmaker (Elliott Gould) into marriage. The film divided journalists sharply. Despite initial reservations and objections, the film aged well with time, and has received renewed critical attention in recent years.
Arkin's choice of projects over the remainder of the decade varied dramatically in quality -- from the dregs of Gene Saks' Neil Simon cinematization Last of the Red Hot Lovers (1972) and the tasteless police comedy Freebie and the Bean (1974) to the finely wrought, overlooked comedy-mystery The Seven-Percent Solution (1976) and Arthur Hiller's sensational farce The In-Laws (1979). Alongside his film work during the '70s, Arkin authored two best-sellers: the children's book Tony's Hard Work Day (1972) and an exploration of yoga, Half Way Through the Door: An Actor's Journey Towards the Self (1975). In the late '70s, Arkin made a rare television appearance, delighting younger viewers with a wild and gothic starring role on an episode of Jim Henson's Muppet Show.
If the 1970s struck Arkin fans as something of a mixed bag, the actor's career choices suffered during the '80s, perhaps because of the paucity of solid comedic roles available in Hollywood during that decade. A brief list of Arkin's film credits during that period render it surprising that he could even sustain his own career throughout such poor choices: Chu Chu and the Philly Flash (1981), Improper Channels (1981), Full Moon High (1982), Bad Medicine (1985), Big Trouble (1985), and Escape from Sobibor (1987).
Arkin did make two wonderful contributions to overlooked '80s comedies, however: 1980's Simon and 1985's Joshua Then and Now. In the first picture, directed by fellow Tarrier vocalist (and former Woody Allen co-scenarist) Marshall Brickman, Arkin plays Simon Mendelssohn, a college professor who falls prey to a nutty government think tank run by Max Wright and Austin Pendleton. Although the film remained an obscurity, Joshua delivers some of Arkin's most impressive onscreen work to date, and doubtless enabled him to pull from his own Jewish heritage in developing the character.
The public's decision to snub these two pictures may have foreshadowed Arkin's work in the '90s, when he appeared in several fine, but equally overlooked, efforts. These included: Havana (1990), The Rocketeer (1991), Indian Summer (1993), Bullets Over Broadway (1994), the aforementioned Mother Night (1996), Grosse Pointe Blank (1997), and Slums of Beverly Hills (1998). He delivered a searing performance as the "loser" salesman who robs his company of much-sought-after leads, in James Foley's David Mamet cinematization Glengarry Glen Ross (1992), and offered the only memorable contribution to Andrew Davis' fable Steal Big, Steal Little (1995), as "an opportunist who weighs in with the underdogs and learns the true meaning of decency and friendship...[striking] the perfect blend of cynicism, sincerity, and simpatico."
Arkin maintained a comparatively lower profile during the early years of the millennium, aside from outstanding contributions to the otherwise dull farce America's Sweethearts (2001), the gripping telemovie The Pentagon Papers (2003), and the historical biopic And Starring Pancho Villa as Himself (2003). In early 2007, Arkin received his first Academy Award nod in 38 years: a Best Actor nomination that he subsequently won for his hilarious turn in the road comedy Little Miss Sunshine. In that movie, Arkin played the grandfather of an über-dysfunctional family, who is ejected from a nursing home for his freewheeling lifestyle. The character's passions include porn and heroin -- elements that, as used by the film's directors, enable Arkin to provide much of the film's fresh and inspired humor.
Alan Arkin has married and divorced three times, to Jeremy Yaffe, to Barbara Dana, and to Suzanne Arkin. In addition to the legacy engendered by his own career resumé, Arkin has fathered something of an acting dynasty; his three sons, Adam, Matthew, and Tony, are all gifted and accomplished actors, with Adam Arkin (Northern Exposure, Chicago Hope) maintaining a somewhat higher profile than his brothers. ~ Nathan Southern, Rovi
Arkin was born in Brooklyn, New York City, the son of Beatrice (née Wortis), a teacher, and David I. Arkin, a painter and writer who mostly worked as a teacher.[1] Arkin was raised in a Jewish family with "no emphasis on religion"; his maternal grandfather was an immigrant from Odessa, Ukraine.[2] The family moved from Brooklyn to Los Angeles when Arkin was 11 years old,[2] but an eight-month Hollywood strike cost Arkin's father a set designer job he had wanted to take. During the 1950s Red Scare, Arkin's parents were accused of being Communists, which led to David losing his job when he refused to answer questions about his political affiliation. David challenged the dismissal and was ultimately vindicated, but only after his death.[3]
Arkin has been married three times. He and Jeremy Yaffe, to whom he was married from 1955 to 1961, have two sons: Adam Arkin, born August 19, 1956, and Matthew Arkin, born in 1960. In 1967, Arkin had son Anthony (Tony) Dana Arkin with actress-screenwriter Barbara Dana (born 1940), to whom he was married from June 16, 1964 to the mid-1990s. In 1996, Arkin married a psychotherapist, Suzanne Newlander.[3] As of 2007, they live in New Mexico.
He is the first cousin of children's author Edward Irving Wortis, who is better known by his pen name Avi.
Career
Early work
Arkin, who had been taking acting lessons since age 10, became a scholarship student at various drama academies, including one run by the Stanislavsky student Benjamin Zemach, who taught Arkin a psychological approach to acting.[4] Arkin attended Los Angeles City College from 1951 to 1953. He also attended Bennington College. With two friends, he formed the folk music group The Tarriers, in which Arkin sang and played guitar. The band members co-composed the group's 1956 hit "The Banana Boat Song", a reworking, with some new lyrics, of a traditional, same-name Jamaicancalypso folk song combined with another titled "Hill and Gully Rider".[5] It reached #4 on the Billboard magazine chart the same year as Harry Belafonte's better-known hit version.[6]
From 1958 to 1968, Arkin performed and recorded with the children's folk group, The Baby Sitters.[7] He also performed the role of Dr. Pangloss in a concert staging of Leonard Bernstein's operetta Candide, alongside Madeline Kahn's Cunegonde. Arkin was an early member of The Second City comedy troupe in the 1960s.[8] Arkin and his second wife, Barbara Dana, appeared together on the 1970–71 season of Sesame Street as a comical couple named Larry and Phyllis who resolve their conflicts when they remember how to pronounce the word "cooperate." In 1985, he sang two selections by Jones & Schmidt on Ben Bagley's album Contemporary Broadway Revisited.
Arkin's directorial debut, in 1969, was a 12-minute children's film, People Soup, starring his sons Adam Arkin and Matthew Arkin. Based on a story he had published in the Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction in the 1950s, People Soup is a fantasy about two boys who experiment with various kitchen ingredients until they concoct a magical soup which transforms them into different animals and objects. The original story had a girl and a boy as its characters, but Arkin changed them to two boys to cast his sons in the film.[11]
Arkin's most acclaimed directorial effort is Little Murders, released in 1971. Written by cartoonist Jules Feiffer, Little Murders is a black comedy film starring Elliott Gould and Marcia Rodd about a girl, Patsy (Rodd), who brings home her boyfriend, Alfred (Gould), to meet her severely dysfunctional family amidst a series of random shootings, garbage strikes and electrical outages ravaging the neighborhood. The film opened to a lukewarm review by Roger Greenspan,[12] and a more positive one by Vincent Canby[13] in the New York Times. Roger Ebert's review in the Chicago Sun Times was more enthusiastic, saying, "One of the reasons it works, and is indeed a definitive reflection of America's darker moods, is that it breaks audiences down into isolated individuals, vulnerable and uncertain."[14]
Arkin also directed Fire Sale (1977), Samuel Beckett Is Coming Soon (1993) and Arigo (2000).
Writing
Arkin is the author of many books, including the children's stories Tony's Hard Work Day (illustrated by James Stevenson, 1972), The Lemming Condition (illustrated by Joan Sandin, 1976), Halfway Through the Door: An Actor's Journey Toward Self (1979) and The Clearing (1986 continuation of Lemming). In March 2011, he released his memoir, An Improvised Life.[15]
^Canby, Vincent (February 21, 1971). "What's So Funny? Murders". New York: New York Times. p. D1. "Little Murders succeeds, at times triumphantly, and it does everything more or less backwards."
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