Alan Arkin, an Oscar and Tony award-winning Jewish actor known for roles in “Little Miss Sunshine,” “Argo” and “The Kominsky Method,” died on June 29. He was 89 years old.
Arkin was born in 1934 in Brooklyn, N.Y., to Russian and German Jewish parents. In the 1950s, he pursued a music career before shifting to acting with an improv troupe and his Broadway debut in 1963 in “Enter Laughing,” for which he won a Tony Award. He also starred in the 1996 comedy “The Russians Are Coming, the Russians Are Coming” and 1970’s satirical black comedy “Catch-22.”
Arkin won an Oscar for best supporting actor in “Little Miss Sunshine” (2006). He was nominated for several awards for his role in Netflix’s “The Kominsky Method.”
Arkin’s three sons, Matthew, Anthony and Adam, stated: “Our father was a uniquely talented force of nature, both as an artist and a man. A loving husband, father, grand[father] and great-grandfather, he was adored and will be deeply missed.”
“We are saddened by the loss of Alan Arkin, Oscar-winning Jewish actor from Brooklyn,” tweeted the Consulate General of Israel in New York. “He was known for starring in ‘Escape from Sobibor,’ a dramatization of the most successful Jewish uprising in a Nazi concentration camp during the Holocaust. May his memory be a blessing.”
