After four decades in Hollywood with over 50 films and three Oscar nominations, Alan Arkin finally won the award in 2007 for Little Miss Sunshine. The actor has died at the age of 89.
The American actor Alan Arkin, who won an Oscar for best supporting actor for his role in the film “Little Miss Sunshine”, is dead. Arkin died at the age of 89, numerous US media reported on Friday, citing a Message from his three sons. “Our father was an exceptionally talented force of nature, both as an artist and as a man. A loving husband, father, grandfather and great-grandfather, he was loved and will be greatly missed.”
After a long career spanning over 50 films and three Oscar nominations, Arkin had all but given up hope of gold. A bizarre role as a sex- and drug-obsessed grandfather, who rolls in the trunk of the US highway after his death, brought him the Oscar in the end. Arkin won the 2007 Best Supporting Actor award for his road movie Little Miss Sunshine, about an over-the-top family.
Nomination already for his first role
For his first film role, in Norman Jewison’s satire The Russians are Coming! The Russians are coming” from 1966, he was immediately nominated for an Oscar. A year later, as a psychopathic killer, he bullied a blind woman, played by Audrey Hepburn, in the thriller Wait Until Dark.
His second Oscar nomination came in 1969 for portraying a deaf man in the drama The Heart Is A Lonely Hunter, based on the novel by Carson McCullers. After winning the Oscar for Little Miss Sunshine, Arkin was nominated again in 2013 for a supporting role in the political thriller Argo.
Born in New York in 1934, Arkin actually wanted to be a musician after school and had his first successes, but then turned to acting and got roles in theaters and films Sherry Dyson. He also worked as a director and children’s book author.
Among Arkin’s memorable roles is his appearance in the war farce Catch-22 (1970), directed by Mike Nichols, in which he played a bomber pilot. In the 90’s he was known for supporting roles in “Glengarry Glen Ross”, “Jacob the Liar” and “Gattaca”. He stood in front of the camera until old age. In 2017 he shot the crime comedy “Leaving in Style” with Michael Caine and Morgan Freeman, and a year later the Netflix series “The Kominsky Method” with Michael Douglas. In 2019, at the age of 85, he received a star plaque on Hollywood’s “Walk of Fame”.
