- Joined
- Jun 3, 2009
- Messages
- 86,676
- Reaction score
- 25,907
Versatile Actor Alan Arkin - Oscar Winner for Little Miss Sunshine - Passes Away at 89
Alan Arkin, the versatile actor who finally won an Oscar — for Little Miss Sunshine — after making a career of disappearing into characters with turns that could be comic, chilling or charming, has died. He was 89.
His sons, Adam, Matthew and Anthony, announced the news in a joint statement. “Our father was a uniquely talented force of nature, both as an artist and a man,” they said. “A loving husband, father, grand and great-grandfather, he was adored and will be deeply missed.”
He had heart trouble and died Thursday at his home in San Marcos, California.
In his first significant role in a feature, Arkin received a rare best actor Oscar nomination for work in a comedy when he played a Russian sailor whose submarine is marooned off the coast of a New England fishing village in Norman Jewison’s The Russians Are Coming! The Russians Are Coming (1966).
Two years later, he moved audiences and earned another Oscar nom for portraying the lonely deaf mute John Singer in the poignant The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter (1968), Robert Ellis Miller’s adaptation of the Carson McCullers novel that was filmed in Selma, Alabama.
For playing the foul-mouthed, heroin-snorting grandfather Edwin Hoover in the road movie Little Miss Sunshine (2006), Arkin was rewarded with an Oscar that those in Hollywood recognized was long overdue. (At age 72, he was among the oldest to win the supporting actor trophy.)
Arkin then received a fourth Academy Award nom for his work as a jaded movie producer who makes a bogus film to save the hostages in Iran — and got bonus points for his line “Argo fuck yourself” — in the best picture winner Argo (2012).
Alan Arkin, Virtuoso Comic Actor With a Serious Side, Dies at 89

Alan Arkin, the versatile actor who finally won an Oscar — for Little Miss Sunshine — after making a career of disappearing into characters with turns that could be comic, chilling or charming, has died. He was 89.
His sons, Adam, Matthew and Anthony, announced the news in a joint statement. “Our father was a uniquely talented force of nature, both as an artist and a man,” they said. “A loving husband, father, grand and great-grandfather, he was adored and will be deeply missed.”
He had heart trouble and died Thursday at his home in San Marcos, California.
In his first significant role in a feature, Arkin received a rare best actor Oscar nomination for work in a comedy when he played a Russian sailor whose submarine is marooned off the coast of a New England fishing village in Norman Jewison’s The Russians Are Coming! The Russians Are Coming (1966).
Two years later, he moved audiences and earned another Oscar nom for portraying the lonely deaf mute John Singer in the poignant The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter (1968), Robert Ellis Miller’s adaptation of the Carson McCullers novel that was filmed in Selma, Alabama.
For playing the foul-mouthed, heroin-snorting grandfather Edwin Hoover in the road movie Little Miss Sunshine (2006), Arkin was rewarded with an Oscar that those in Hollywood recognized was long overdue. (At age 72, he was among the oldest to win the supporting actor trophy.)
Arkin then received a fourth Academy Award nom for his work as a jaded movie producer who makes a bogus film to save the hostages in Iran — and got bonus points for his line “Argo fuck yourself” — in the best picture winner Argo (2012).
Alan Arkin, Virtuoso Comic Actor With a Serious Side, Dies at 89