TV’s Columbo, Peter Falk, dead at 83

LOS ANGELES – Peter Falk, the gravel-voiced US actor who played Hollywood’s rumpled detective Lieutenant Columbo, has died at 83, family members told US media Friday.

Falk, whose portrayal of the disheveled, trenchcoat-wearing homicide detective made him a household name around the world, died Thursday at his home in Beverly Hills, they said.

In the hit TV show he played a seemingly slow-witted Los Angeles detective who invariably succeeded in nabbing the criminal just minutes before the closing credits.

The veteran actor also had considerable success on stage and on the big screen, scoring a couple of Oscar nominations among the more than 40 Hollywood movies in which he appeared.