Alan Arkin, ‘Little Miss Sunshine’ Oscar winner, dies aged 89
The actor Alan Arkin has passed away at the age of 89. Arkin had been a recipient of an Academy Award for his work on the 2007 comedy-drama Little Miss Sunshine, also starring Paul Dano and Steve Carell. In a joint statement made to People, Arkin’s sons, Adam, Matthew and Anthony, confirmed their father’s death. They wrote, “Our father was a uniquely talented force of nature, both as an artist and a man.”
The statement continued, “A loving husband, father, grand and great grandfather, he was adored and will be deeply missed.” Arkin had most recently starred in The Kominsky Method on Netflix alongside Michael Douglas.
The actor was born in 1934 in Brooklyn, New York, before moving to Los Angeles with his family when he was still a child. He dropped out of several colleges in his adolescence before beginning a brief music career as a singer and guitarist in a folk outfit called the Tarriers.
It wasn’t too long before Arkin, who’d been keen on acting as a child, set out to pursue his fortunes in the film industry. He cut his teeth in Chicago as part of the Second City improvisational comedy troupe, and eventually got his first break in acting when he made his debut on Broadway in the 1961 production of From the Second City. Two years later, he won a Tony award for the play Enter Laughing.
Arkin’s subsequent film career was littered with success too. He was nominated for an Academy Award for the 1967 Cold War comedy The Russians are Coming, the Russians are Coming, which was remarkably his first-ever feature performance. The actor’s second nomination came in the 1969 film adaptation of Carson McCullers’ novel The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter, and his third arrived more recently, in Ben Affleck’s Argo.
In Argo, Arkin portrayed Lester Siegel, a Hollywood writer who was employed to create a pretend sci-fi film so as to give an excuse for rescuing American hostages that were being held in Iran, while in Little Miss Sunshine, he masterfully played the swearing heroin-smoking grandfather of the story’s dysfunctional family.
Arkin’s other notable films include Popi, The In-Laws, Edward Scissorhands, Glengarry Glen Ross, Thirteen Conversations About One Thing and Get Smart. He’d made his directorial debut in 1969 with the Oscar-nominated 12-minute children’s film People Soup, before following up with the 1971 black comedy feature Little Murders and 1977’s Fire Sale. He will be missed by the film community.
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