Celebrating Alan Arkin
Alan Wolf Arkin was born on March 26, 1934, in Brooklyn, into a family of Ukrainian and German Jewish immigrants. He began acting at age 10—”Every film I saw, every play, every piece of music fed an unquenchable need to turn myself into something other than what I was,” he says—and he hasn’t stopped yet.
Arkin has been an actor, producer, and director, working on stage and screen for over seven decades. He made his film debut with the Cold War comedy in The Russians Are Coming! The Russians Are Coming!, winning a Golden Globe right off the bat. Arkin has been nominated for several Academy Awards for Best Actor and won Best Supporting Actor in 2006 for his nimble comedic performance in Little Miss Sunshine.
We’ll pay tribute to this famously versatile actor through a sampling of his roles: as the terrifying killer in the unnerving thriller Wait Until Dark, a sincere but clueless dentist in the madcap classic The In-Laws, the paranoid salesman in the haunting Glengarry Glen Ross, and the outrageous, foulmouthed grandpa Edwin Hoover in Little Miss Sunshine—and we’ll also show his darkly comedic directorial debut, Little Murders. We’re thrilled that Arkin himself—who’s in the middle of production on his latest project—will take time away from his busy shooting schedule to join us by Skype for this celebration.
Glengarry Glen Ross
“You can see the joy with which these actors get their teeth into these great lines, after living through movies in which flat dialogue serves only to advance the story.” (Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times)
This haunting film adapted by David Mamet from his 1984 Pulitzer Prize– and Tony Award–winning play is not to be missed. With its star studded cast—Alan Arkin, Jack Lemmon, Al Pacino, Alec Baldwin, Ed Harris, Kevin Spacey—the film depicts two days in the lives of four real estate salesmen who learn that all but the top two will be fired in a week. Mistrust and double-crossing ensue, tensions boil over, and everyone becomes a suspect when real estate leads are stolen. With its famously energetic foulmouthed performances and razor-sharp writing, this is an indelible piece of ensemble acting of the highest order.
