Alan Arkin
26 March, 1934
| 1.79 m
Actor
Director
Writer
Biography
Alan Arkin was an Academy Award-winning American actor who was also an acclaimed director, producer, author, singer and composer.He was born Alan Wolf Arkin on March 26, 1934, in Brooklyn, New York. His family were Jewish emigrants from Russia and Germany. In 1946, the Arkins moved from Brooklyn to Los Angeles, California. His father, David I. Arkin, was an artist and writer, who worked as a teacher, and lost his job for merely refusing to answer questions about his political affiliation during the 1950s Red Scare. His father challenged the politically biased dismissal and eventually prevailed, but unfortunately it was after his death. His mother, Beatrice (Wortis) Arkin, a teacher, shared his father's views. Young Arkin was fond of music and acting, he was taking various acting classes from the age of 10. He attended Franklin High School, in Los Angeles, then Los Angeles City College from 1951 - 1953, and Bennington College in Vermont from 1953 - 1954. He sang in a college folk-band, and was involved in a drama class. He dropped out of college to form the folk music group The Tarriers, in which Arkin was the lead singer and played guitar. He co-wrote the 1956 hit "The Banana Boat Song" - a Jamaican calypso folk song, which became better known as Harry Belafonte's popular version, and reached #4 on the Billboard chart. At that time Arkin was a struggling young actor who played bit parts on television and on stage, and made a living as a delivery boy, repairman, pot washer and baby sitter. From 1958 - 1968 he performed and recorded with the children's folk group, The Babysitters. He has also recorded an entire album for the Elektra label titled "Folksongs - Once Over Lightly."In 1957 Arkin made his first big screen appearance as... show more
Movies
Maxwell Smart, a highly intellectual but bumbling spy working for the CONTROL agency, is tasked with preventing a terrorist attack from rival spy agency KAOS.
When two Boston police officers are murdered, ex-cop Spenser teams up with his no-nonsense roommate Hawk to take down criminals.
Desperate to pay their bills and support their loved ones, lifelong pals Willy Davis, Albert Gardner, and Joe Harding risk it all by robbing the bank that absconded with the pension money that they earned from working there for years.
The untold story of one twelve-year-old's dream to become the world's greatest supervillain.
In order to raise the tuition to send her young son to private school, a mom starts an unusual business -- a biohazard removal/crime scene clean-up service -- with her unreliable sister.
A young pilot stumbles onto a prototype jetpack that allows him to become a high-flying masked hero.
A pair of aging stickup men try to get the old gang back together for one last hurrah before one of the guys takes his last assignment - to kill his comrade.
A sports agent stages an unconventional recruitment strategy to get talented Indian cricket players to play Major League Baseball.
A recently blinded woman is terrorized by a trio of thugs while they search for a heroin-stuffed doll they believe is in her apartment.
A man is trying desperately to be certified insane during World War II, so he can stop flying missions.
In 1976, a lower-middle-class teenager struggles to cope living with her neurotic family of nomads on the outskirts of Beverly Hills.
After her much older husband forces a move to a suburban retirement community, Pippa Lee engages in a period of reflection and finds herself heading toward a quiet nervous breakdown.
In New York City, the lives of a lawyer, an actuary, a house-cleaner, a professor and the people around them intersect as they ponder order and happiness in the face of life's cold unpredictability.
Without hostile intent, a Soviet submarine runs aground off New England. Men are sent for a boat, but many villagers go into a tizzy, risking bloodshed.
On the eve of their children's marriage, NYC in-laws Sheldon Kornpett and Vince Ricardo embark on a series of misadventures involving the CIA, the Treasury Department and Central American dictators.
In 1950s Cuba, a professional gambler falls for a woman heavily involved in the revolution movement.
Three short films, one each from Directors Michelangelo Antonioni, Steven Soderbergh, and Wong Kar Wai, address the themes of love and sex.
Seven friends reunite for a week-long reunion at a summer camp in Ontario they used to attend as children which is now threatened with being closed down.
Brazillian urban guerrilla fighters kidnap the American Ambassador. Now, the diplomat's life hangs in the balance - helplessly caught between a government unwilling to cooperate - and his fear of the captors themselves.
