When Peter Falk filmed scenes for his new movie "Cookie" at Sing Sing, it marked a sentimental return.
Not that he was ever a guest at the legendary slammer. He grew up in Ossining, N.Y."Yeah, I remember Sing Sing," he reflected/ "As a kid. I used to go into the prison because the town's basketball team played the prisoners. A lot of the kids I went to school with, there fathers were guards there.
"Whenever you mentioned to people that you came from Ossining, they always had the same question: Do the lights go out when they electrocute somebody? Of course the lights never dimmed. You were not aware of the prison as an ominous thing.
"The major memory about Sing Sing had to do with the one big escape when I was in high school. Three guys broke out and went down to the river by the railroad station and got a hold of a boat. One local cop was shot on the way down, and one of the convicts was shot. They actually rowed across the Hudson, and they were picked up on the Palisades across the way. That was a big thing."
In the new Warner Bros. release, "Cookie," Falk is mobster Dino Capino who is about to be sprung after 13 years in Sing Sing. His teen-age daughter, played with amazing skill by English actress Emily Lloyd, comes to visit him. She is resentful, since he hasn't married her mother (Dianne Wiest). He already has a wife (Brenda Vaccaro). As you might guess, "Cookie" is not "The Godfather III."
After his long service as TV's slovenly gumshoe, Columbo, Falk is on the other side of the law. That's were he started in movies.
"It was nice being a mob guy again," he remarked. "It was nice looking good, too. Great suits they gave me. Did I look good? I thought I did." However, he would brook no criticism of his Columbo raincoat, which is still in action after 18 years.
"You know my first picture was `Murder, Incorporated' in 1960? I made a little splash in that," he said. "I played Abie Reles, who was part of that Jewish mob that operated out of Brooklyn at that time. They were the first ones who hired themselves out to kill people. They were all quite crazy. Abie was probably the craziest.
"Those mob guys when they saw that picture, they went for it. They liked me. They came around, and I spent some time with them. I had a real interest in those guys - I think everybody does.
"I remember going around with some cops in New York. They were mostly involved in drug cases, but they also had some wire taps of mob guys. I wanna tell ya, if I had those tapes here and could play 'em for ya, you'd roll on the floor. There are no funnier conversations I ever heard in my life."
Peter Falk may sound like a street guy, but he has a bachelor's degree in political science from the New School of Social Research in New York. He was studying for his master's at Syracuse University when he dropped out to try acting.
"When I started out, I was 25-26 years old in off-Broadway in New York," he said. "Like most actors I knew at that time, we all wanted the same thing: to be in the Actors Studio. We thought that was heaven on Earth.
"I never thought about being in movies, I never thought about being in television. I just wanted to be a stage actor. I remember this agent - I've told the story before - the guy said to me, `You know, you won't be able to do TV or movies.' I don't know why, but that didn't make any difference to me. Because I had never considered doing TV or movies.
"I asked what he was talking about, and he said, `Your glass eye."' Falk lost his eye when he was 3. He won an Academy nomination for his supporting performance in "Murder, Incorporated," and he has been working in films and television ever since.
Falk won three Emmy awards for his portrayal of Lt. Columbo during its 1971-1977 run on NBC. Last season, ABC installed "Columbo" as part of its "ABC Mystery Movie," much to Falk's delight. The show has been renewed for 1989-90, and he hopes to play the role for years to come.
"I'll play him as long as the people want to see him," he said. "I think it would terrific to grow old as Columbo. If Columbo really can't hear (chuckling) . . . and Columbo really can't see (more chuckles) . . . and he gets to the point where it takes him an hour to get into the office. I think that would be hilarious.
"I'd like to see him saying, `What's my name?' (laughing) `Did you murder someone?' `What case IS this? I gotta call the office and find out."'