88 Fun Facts About Columbo

For which police department does Columbo work?

Los Angeles in the series is half invented: its creators called it a mythical city and set out never to show him at police headquarters or at home.

What is Columbo's most famous item of clothing?

The rumpled beige raincoat was Peter Falk's own coat, which he brought to the role; with the cigar and the battered old car it completed the character.

Columbo drives a battered old car of which make?

Peugeot sold its 403 convertible as a costly, leather-trimmed luxury model in small numbers; Columbo's is such a wreck that other characters keep taking it for scrap.

Which food does the show repeatedly mention Columbo loving?

Chili is what he orders even in a smart restaurant in 'Publish or Perish'; stung by the bill, he queries it, and the waiter puts it up because he had left off the iced tea.

Columbo often leaves a room and returns with which catchphrase before a key question?

Just one more thing began as a shortcut: a scene in the writers' stage play ran short, and rather than retype it they had him put his head back round the door with another question.

Which Star Trek actor played the murderous heart surgeon in the Columbo episode 'A Stitch in Crime'?

Leonard Nimoy's surgeon stitches a colleague up with dissolving thread so he will die days later; when the doctor laughs at him, Columbo for once drops the bumbling act and loses his temper.

Who created the character of Columbo?

Levinson and Link, friends since school, first wrote him for a 1960 TV play; when the network pressed them to give him a young sidekick, they answered with a basset hound.

On which network did Columbo first air as part of a rotating 'Mystery Movie' block in 1971?

NBC bought it as one spoke of a rotating wheel, alongside McCloud and McMillan & Wife, so a new Columbo came round only about once a month.

Besides four Emmys, which award did Columbo bring Peter Falk just once?

Golden Globe voters chose him only once; Falk had gone back to television reluctantly, and had to be talked into committing to a full series at all.

Besides Lee J. Cobb, who was suggested for Columbo but turned it down to protect his golf time?

Bing Crosby liked the script but would not give up his hours on the course; Falk, a golfer himself, said he simply went over and talked to the writers instead.

The 1968 TV movie that launched Columbo was adapted from which stage play by his creators?

Prescription: Murder toured American theatres in 1962 and was itself reworked from a live TV mystery of 1960, so Peter Falk was the third actor to play the detective.

What does Columbo call the basset hound that accompanies him in later episodes?

Dog is all he ever calls it, after trying out names that never stick. Falk first resisted the hound as one gimmick too many, then met the drooling rescue from the pound and gave in.

Which future blockbuster director made the 1971 Columbo episode 'Murder by the Book'?

Steven Spielberg was in his mid-twenties with only TV episodes to his name; he later said the producers urged him to shoot it like a feature film, not a TV show.

Columbo's first name is almost never spoken, but identification props show it as what?

Frank can be read on the badge he holds out in the first-season episode 'Dead Weight' if you freeze the frame; it is never spoken, and Falk liked to joke that the name was Lieutenant.

Unlike most TV detectives, Columbo does what?

Columbo never carries a gun because his creators resolved to keep the series nonviolent: no shootings, no car chases, no fights, only talk, like an English drawing-room mystery.

The 1979 spinoff Mrs. Columbo starred which actress as the detective's wife?

Kate Mulgrew was cast over the objections of Columbo's creators, who said the magic of the wife was never seeing her; the show went through four titles and ended up divorcing her from him.

When the pieces start to fall into place, Columbo often begins whistling which tune?

'This Old Man' was just a tune Falk liked to sing: one day, he said, it came out of Columbo, and the show's arrangers later worked it into the scores.

What caused Peter Falk's distinctive squint?

A childhood glass eye: a tumour cost him his right eye as a small boy, and a studio boss later turned him down, saying that for the same price he could get an actor with two eyes.

Columbo's murderers usually come from which walk of life?

Wealthy high society was chosen for drama, not politics, his creators said: a rumpled cop is simply more fun set against a Noel Coward type than against someone like himself.

Columbo's final case in 2003 sent him into which world?

Underground raves: in 'Columbo Likes the Nightlife' the killer is a club promoter, and Columbo finds a body under a fish tank set in the dance floor after noticing it holds fewer koi than the rest.

In the 1971 Columbo pilot 'Ransom for a Dead Man', who played the killer?

Lee Grant's lawyer shoots her husband and fakes his kidnapping, keeping the ransom for herself; she is caught when she uses that same cash to pay off her stepdaughter.

The creators said Columbo was partly inspired by a character in which Dostoevsky novel?

Crime and Punishment's investigator Porfiry Petrovich, who wears down Raskolnikov with polite persistence, was one model; the creators also cited G. K. Chesterton's Father Brown.

A bronze statue of Columbo was unveiled in 2014 in which European capital?

Budapest put him on Falk Miksa Street, named for a 19th-century Hungarian politician; officials floated a family link to the actor that has never been proved, and a bronze basset hound sits at his feet.

Peter Falk recalled being told he was wrong for Columbo because, next to the detective the writers pictured, he was what?

Much younger than the detective they had pictured, Falk was told he was too young and not right; he rang one of the writers anyway and said he would kill to play that cop.

Peter Falk won his first Emmy in 1962 for 'The Price of Tomatoes', playing what?

A truck driver with a kind heart, who stops for a pregnant hitchhiker: quite a change from the hit man and the comic mobster that had just brought him two Oscar nominations.

Falk frequently collaborated with which filmmaker friend on movies like A Woman Under the Influence?

John Cassavetes, a close friend, also directed him in Husbands, then turned up in Columbo as a murderous conductor given away by the carnation that fell from his lapel.

Falk played the grandfather who reads the story in which 1987 fantasy film?

In The Princess Bride his sick grandson asks warily whether the story will have a lot of kissing in it; by the end the boy wants it read again the next day.

Which Columbo episode breaks the format by hiding the killer's identity until the end?

Last Salute to the Commodore (1976) is a true whodunit: the man shown disposing of the body is later murdered himself, and Columbo names the real culprit only in the final scene.

In Columbo's last 1970s case, an Irish poet secretly does what?

Buys IRA guns, and whiskey undoes him: he scratches each bottle with his diamond ring to mark how far he will drink, and one marked bottle places him at the murder.

Who played the psychiatrist who murders his wife in the 1968 Columbo TV movie?

Gene Barry's Dr Ray Flemming has his young mistress pose as his wife for an alibi; Columbo turns the same trick on him with a decoy, and she overhears him say he never cared for her.

Which actor, one of Peter Falk's closest friends, directed the Columbo episodes 'A Friend in Deed' and 'Troubled Waters'?

Ben Gazzara, who starred beside Falk in Husbands, directed both; in 'A Friend in Deed' the murderer is Columbo's own superior, a deputy police commissioner who orders him to chase a burglar instead.

Who played the killer magician in Columbo's 'Now You See Him'?

Jack Cassidy killed three times on the show: twice as a man from the book trade, then as a magician who murders the blackmailer threatening to expose his past as an SS guard.

Which future Oscar-winning director made the Columbo episode 'Murder Under Glass'?

Jonathan Demme came up through Roger Corman's exploitation films; his Columbo killer is a food critic who poisons a restaurateur's wine, years before he filmed a rather different gourmand in Hannibal Lecter.

In 1989's 'Columbo Goes to the Guillotine', the beheaded magician made a living exposing what?

Fake psychics were his trade, and his killer is one: Columbo, back after eleven years away, proves it by lying under the blade himself, having quietly rigged it first.

In the spinoff Mrs. Columbo, what job does the Lieutenant's wife hold?

A newspaper reporter who keeps finding herself solving crimes; Peter Falk was blunt about the spinoff, calling it disgraceful.

In which Neil Simon spoof does Falk play the detective Sam Diamond?

Murder by Death sends up the great fictional sleuths, with Falk's Sam Diamond as its Sam Spade; two years on, Neil Simon had him do Bogart again in The Cheap Detective.

Before acting, Peter Falk held which state job?

Efficiency expert, and by his own account a hopeless one: on his first day he could not even find where he was meant to report, and he later quit for the stage.

Which film star won an Emmy as the killer who romances Columbo in 1993's 'It's All in the Game'?

Faye Dunaway's socialite turns her charm on the Lieutenant to shield her daughter, and he ends by letting the daughter walk free; Peter Falk wrote the script himself.

Which actor was the first to play Columbo, in a 1960 Chevy Mystery Show episode?

Bert Freed, a busy character actor, played the lieutenant in 'Enough Rope'; its writers then stretched the story into a stage play, and the play into the 1968 film that gave Peter Falk the part.

Which Oscar-winning actor played Columbo on stage in 1962, six years before Peter Falk took the part?

Thomas Mitchell, Scarlett O'Hara's father in Gone with the Wind, played second fiddle: the tour's star was Joseph Cotten as the murderous doctor, and the play never reached Broadway.

Which false first name did The Trivia Encyclopedia plant as a copyright trap for Columbo?

Fred L. Worth planted 'Philip' in The Trivia Encyclopedia; when Trivial Pursuit repeated it, he sued for $300 million and lost, the courts ruling that facts are not copyrightable.

Which actor played the Columbo murderer a record four times and also directed several episodes?

Patrick McGoohan, star of The Prisoner, won an Emmy as the first: a military academy commandant who rigs a cannon to explode, then is caught because he spotted the cadets' forbidden cider, visible only from the cannon at dawn.

Who composed the Mystery Movie theme that introduced Columbo in the 1970s?

Henry Mancini, the man behind the Pink Panther theme, never scored a single episode; his tune opened the whole rotating Mystery Movie slot, so Columbo never had a title theme of its own.

How does Columbo trap the winemaker in 'Any Old Port in a Storm'?

Serves him spoiled wine: a port from the cellar where Donald Pleasence's winemaker left his half-brother to die with the cooling off; a heatwave had cooked it, and his rare palate betrays him.

Peter Falk was asked to address which nation when its new Columbo episodes ran out?

Romania restricted American imports, so when new episodes ran out viewers suspected the regime of holding them back, and Falk was asked to tell them otherwise.

Which country music star played the murderer in the Columbo episode 'Swan Song'?

Johnny Cash's gospel singer drugs his wife, bails out of their plane with a home-made parachute and lets it crash; Columbo waits in the hills and catches him coming back for the chute.

Two 1990s Columbo episodes were adapted from which crime writer's 87th Precinct novels?

Ed McBain wrote team-based police procedurals, a different animal: 'No Time to Die' has a kidnapped bride, a race against the clock and no murder at all, and Columbo never even meets the villain.

In which Wim Wenders film set in Berlin do people in the street greet Peter Falk, playing himself, as 'Columbo'?

Wings of Desire has him sense an angel he cannot see and tell him what he is missing: small human pleasures like a hot coffee, a smoke and rubbing cold hands together.

Which famous mechanical movie monster makes a cameo as himself in Columbo's 'Fade in to Murder'?

The shark from Jaws, a mechanical prop known as Bruce, appears as itself in the 1976 episode, whose killer is an actor who plays a TV detective.

Which actress was pregnant with Gwyneth Paltrow while filming the Columbo episode 'Étude in Black'?

Blythe Danner played the wife of a murderous orchestra conductor, and her daughter was born ten days after the episode aired. Myrna Loy played her mother.

In Columbo's 'How to Dial a Murder', two killer Dobermans are named after which comedy duo?

Laurel and Hardy are trained to maul on a spoken trigger word. Columbo works the word out, then has the pair retrained so that they play with him instead of attacking.

In Columbo's 'Death Hits the Jackpot', which animal's fingerprints on a medallion expose the killer?

A chimpanzee the victim was minding for a friend liked to handle shiny objects, so it left prints on the medallion from the killer's Halloween costume.

Which Mary Poppins star played a wife-killing photographer in Columbo's 'Negative Reaction'?

Dick Van Dyke played Paul Galesko, who gives himself away by grabbing the right camera from a shelf of thirteen without a moment's hesitation.

The duo who created Columbo went on to co-create which long-running 1980s mystery series?

Murder, She Wrote ran for 12 seasons from 1984, following mystery writer Jessica Fletcher as she solved killings in Cabot Cove, Maine, and far beyond it.

Before becoming an actor, Columbo star Peter Falk was turned down for a job by which US agency?

The CIA rejected him over his membership in a seafarers' union, which he had been required to join while working as a cook in the Merchant Marine.

Nicholas Colasanto, who directed two Columbo episodes, later played Coach in which sitcom?

Cheers made him famous as the bartender Ernie Pantusso. A decade earlier he had been behind the camera for 'Étude in Black' and 'Swan Song'.

In 'Rest in Peace, Mrs. Columbo', a vengeful widow gives the Lieutenant a poisoned jar of what?

Marmalade is her doctored gift to the Columbos, but the Lieutenant has it tested at once and then fakes his wife's death to draw out a confession.

Columbo's 'Dagger of the Mind' sends the Lieutenant abroad to study police methods in which city?

London hosts him as a guest of Scotland Yard, and he traps two stage actors there by flicking a pearl into an umbrella on show in a wax museum.

In Columbo's 'The Most Dangerous Match', killer and victim are rival champions at which game?

Chess grandmaster Emmett Clayton loses a casual game to his opponent the night before their title match, and decides that murder is safer than playing him again.

In Columbo's 'Troubled Waters', the Lieutenant solves a singer's murder while on holiday where?

On a cruise ship bound for Mexico, Columbo is pressed into service by the captain after the lounge singer is shot. His wife is travelling with him, though viewers never see her.

Which future Naked Gun star plays the killer's boyfriend in the Columbo episode 'Lady in Waiting'?

Leslie Nielsen was still a straight dramatic actor in 1971, a decade before his deadpan comedies. He came back to Columbo as the victim in 'Identity Crisis'.

Which original Star Trek cast member played the Columbo killer in 'Butterfly in Shades of Grey'?

William Shatner played a domineering radio host undone by a mobile phone signal, years after he first killed for Columbo as a vain television actor.

Which future West Wing president plays the murdered chemist in Columbo's 'Lovely but Lethal'?

Martin Sheen plays Karl Lessing, bludgeoned by a cosmetics tycoon when he refuses to sell her back the formula for a wrinkle remover.

In Columbo's 'Ashes to Ashes', the man who kills a gossip columnist has which profession?

Funeral director Eric Prince slips his victim, played by sitcom star Rue McClanahan, into a casket bound for cremation. A shard of wartime shrapnel gives him away.

In Columbo's 'Short Fuse', a chemist kills his uncle with a booby-trapped box of what?

Cigars rigged to explode kill the uncle as he is driven through the mountains. Columbo later produces a second, harmless box in a cable car and lets the nephew panic.

Which rock and roll pioneer makes a cameo as himself in 'Columbo and the Murder of a Rock Star'?

Little Richard appears as himself in the 1991 film, in which a celebrity defence lawyer strangles his rock-singer girlfriend and fakes a speed-camera alibi.

Which Psycho star played a faded movie star who kills her husband in Columbo's 'Forgotten Lady'?

Janet Leigh's character is one of the few Columbo killers who is never arrested: she is dying of a brain disease, so her old dance partner confesses in her place.

Because Columbo shows the killer first, the series is often called which twist on a whodunit?

A howcatchem turns the puzzle around: the audience knows who did it and watches for the small slip that lets the Lieutenant prove it. The formal name is an inverted detective story.

Which Fantasy Island star played a retired matador who kills in Columbo's 'A Matter of Honor'?

Ricardo Montalbán plays a Mexican national hero who froze in the bullring. The old footage his character watches of himself comes from Fiesta, a film the actor made in 1947.

Which Rosemary's Baby star played the mystery writer who kills in Columbo's 'Try and Catch Me'?

Ruth Gordon was 81, the oldest murderer in the series. Her character shuts her niece's widower in a walk-in safe, and the dying man hides a note naming her inside it.

Which Mission: Impossible star played both twin suspects in the Columbo episode 'Double Shock'?

Martin Landau played a flamboyant TV chef and his strait-laced banker brother. The episode hides which twin did it until Columbo shows the killing needed both of them.

Which I Spy star played the Columbo murderer three times, starting with 'Death Lends a Hand'?

Robert Culp killed in 'Death Lends a Hand', 'The Most Crucial Game' and 'Double Exposure', then came back in 1990 as the father of a murderer.

In Columbo's 'Lovely but Lethal', which plant gives the Lieutenant and the killer the same itch?

Poison ivy was on a microscope slide that shattered at the murder scene, so sharing Columbo's rash proves the cosmetics boss touched the broken glass that night.

In Columbo's 'Death Lends a Hand', which supposedly missing item lures the killer back to his car?

A contact lens was never missing at all. Columbo invented it, then waited in the repair garage until the private eye came to search the trunk of his own car.

Which future creator of Hill Street Blues scripted the Columbo episode 'Murder by the Book'?

Steven Bochco, then a story editor at Universal, scripted the first regular episode and several more, years before he co-created L.A. Law and NYPD Blue.

Which first-season Columbo episode is the only one that Peter Falk directed?

Blueprint for Murder was the only episode of any television series that he ever directed. Its architect villain dares Columbo to dig up a construction site in search of the body.

At the end of Columbo's 'Suitable for Framing', what does the Lieutenant reveal he is wearing?

A pair of gloves proves that his fingerprints on the stolen paintings were left earlier, at the art critic's home, and not during the search that was meant to frame an aunt.

In Columbo's 'The Most Crucial Game', a football executive bludgeons the team's owner with what?

A piece of ice melts away in the swimming pool, so the death passes for an accident. The killer had slipped out of the stadium disguised as an ice cream vendor.

Which Oscar-winning costume designer appears as herself in Columbo's 'Requiem for a Falling Star'?

Edith Head, winner of eight Academy Awards for costume design, has a cameo in the episode, which stars Anne Baxter as an ageing movie star with a body under her garden fountain.

In Columbo's 'Double Exposure', which technique lures the victim out of a film screening to be shot?

Subliminal advertising does it: after serving salty caviar, the killer splices single frames of a cold drink into the film. Columbo later catches him with the same trick.

Which creator of Mike Hammer plays the murdered novelist in Columbo's 'Publish or Perish'?

Mickey Spillane, who had played Mike Hammer himself in a 1963 film, is shot by a hired bomb-maker while his publisher stages a drunken alibi at a nearby bar.

Which mechanical star of Forbidden Planet plays the machine MM-7 in Columbo's 'Mind Over Mayhem'?

Robby the Robot, built for the 1956 film, is cast as a think-tank machine that the killer programs to oversee a war game in his place while he slips out to commit murder.

In Columbo's 'An Exercise in Fatality', which detail of the victim's gym kit exposes the killer?

His shoelaces were knotted the way a person ties someone else's shoes, so Columbo knew the fitness boss had dressed the corpse in workout clothes after the killing.

Which future scream queen plays a waitress in Columbo's 'The Bye-Bye Sky High I.Q. Murder Case'?

Jamie Lee Curtis was making only her third television appearance as the surly coffee-shop waitress, and her film breakthrough as Laurie Strode was still to come.

Which future Married... with Children star has a small part in Columbo's 'Candidate for Crime'?

Katey Sagal, then unknown, plays a secretary in the 1973 episode, which was directed by her father, Boris Sagal. Its killer is a politician running for the Senate.

In Columbo's 'Agenda for Murder', a bite mark left in which food puts the lawyer at the crime scene?

Cheese on the dead man's plate had a chunk bitten off, and the tooth marks matched impressions the lawyer had left in his discarded chewing gum.

In 'Columbo Cries Wolf', which device does the Lieutenant ring to find a body hidden behind a wall?

A pager worn on the victim's wrist sounds from inside a newly built wall. Her earlier disappearance had been a publicity stunt for a men's magazine, so the killer counted on the police not searching twice.

Which actress, who married Peter Falk in 1977, appeared in six Columbo episodes?

Shera Danese made more appearances than any other actress in the series, from a secretary in 1976 to one of a pair of murderous lovers in 1997.