Alan Arkin (March 26, 1934 โ June 29, 2023) was an American actor, director and musician. In a career spanning six decades, he has worked on stage, film and television; He won an Oscar for his role as the grandfather in Little Miss Sunshine.
Born in Brooklyn, New York, he moved to Los Angeles with his family when he was eleven. He studied at Los Angeles State College and Bennington College. He began his career as a member of the folk band The Tarriers in the 1950s; the group gained recognition with a rendition of the Banana Boat Song.
Stage and cinema
He made his Broadway debut in 1961 after appearing in Chicago's improv comedy troupe The Second City. He won a Tony Award for his role in the play Enter Laughing in 1963. His first big break in cinema was The Russians Are Coming, the Russians Are Coming (1966); This film and its follow-up, The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter (1968), earned him two Oscar nominations. As a director, he directed the films Little Murders (1971) and Fire Sale (1977).
He remained productive in the second half of his career. He received the best supporting actor Oscar at the age of 72 for 2006's Little Miss Sunshine; He was nominated once again in the same category for Argo (2012), directed by Ben Affleck. In 2018โ2019, she co-starred with Michael Douglas in the Netflix series The Kominsky Method, for which she received two Emmy nominations. His last work was as the character Wild Knuckles, whom he voiced in 2022's Minions: The Rise of Gru.
Arkin died at his home in Carlsbad, California, on June 29, 2023, at the age of 89.
