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.

Wait Until Dark

“An excellent suspense drama, effective in casting, scripting, direction and genuine emotional impact.” (Variety)

Terence Young’s spine-tingling thriller, adapted from the Broadway hit by Frederick Knott (Dial M for Murder), is set in the cramped garden-level Manhattan apartment of recently blinded Susy Hendrix (played dazzlingly by Audrey Hepburn, who received her fifth Best Actress nomination for this role) and her devoted husband, photographer Sam (Efrem Zimbalist Jr.). Sam befriends a fellow passenger on a flight to New York and agrees to hold onto a doll for her until she returns to the city. But then Sam is called away, and Susy, fiercely independent (and stubborn), is left alone to fight for her life when a trio of crooks led by a ruthless predator (Alan Arkin, in perhaps his best role) invade the apartment in search of the doll. Wait Until Dark features outstanding performances and one of the most electrifying climaxes in film history.