Alan Arkin, Oscar-Winning ‘Little Miss Sunshine’ Actor, Dead at 89

Alan Arkin, the Oscar-winning actor who starred in films like Little Miss Sunshine, Argo, and Glengarry Glen Rose during a career that spanned over 60 years, has died at the age of 89.

Arkin’s sons Adam, Matthew, and Anthony confirmed their father’s death in a statement to People. “Our father was a uniquely talented force of nature, both as an artist and a man,” his sons wrote. “A loving husband, father, grand and great grandfather, he was adored and will be deeply missed.” No cause of death was provided.

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Arkin’s The Kominsky Method co-star Michael Douglas wrote on Instagram, “Today we lost a wonderful actor whose intelligence, sense of comedy and consummate professionalism over the past 70 years has left an indelible mark on our industry. My experience of working with Alan were some of my most memorable. He will be deeply missed.”

“Today we lost a wonderful actor whose intelligence, sense of comedy and consummate professionalism over the past 70 years has left an indelible mark on our industry. My experience of working with Alan were some of my most memorable. He will be deeply missed.

A four-time Academy Award nominee — including twice in the Best Actor category — Arkin finally won a Best Supporting Actor Oscar in 2006 for his role as a sympathetic yet heroin-addicted grandfather in the 2006 off-kilter comedy Little Miss Sunshine. He would again be nominated in that category for playing a film producer in the Best Picture-winning Argo in 2013.

A dependable comic actor who just as easily could slip into a serious role when required, Arkin was born March 26, 1934, in Brooklyn, New York; as good an actor as Arkin would become, he could never shake his birthplace’s thick, unmistakable accent. Prior to becoming a full-time screen actor, Arkin first made his impact on the stage, in both comedy troupes, and on Broadway: In 1963, Arkin won the Tony Award for Best Actor in a Play for his role in Enter Laughing. (Arkin, as a member of the late-Fifties folk group the Tarriers, also co-wrote “The Banana Boat Song,” later popularized by Harry Belafonte.)

Arkin’s Hollywood breakthrough came in 1966 with a lead role in the comedy The Russians Are Coming, the Russians Are Coming, which resulted in a Best Actor Academy Award nomination for Arkin, a rare feat for a comedy film. The following year, he starred as the menacing con man who tormented a blind Audrey Hepburn in the thriller Wait Until Dark, a big-screen adaptation of Frederik Knott’s Broadway play; in the film, Arkin played the role of Roat, originally portrayed by Robert Duvall on the stage.

Arkin would also earn another Best Actor Academy Award nomination for portraying deaf-mute John Fisher in the acclaimed adaptation of The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter in 1969; Arkin would have to wait another 37 years for another Oscar nomination.

The Seventies were bookended by a pair of renowned comedic roles: In 1970, Arkin starred as the lead Yossarian in the Mick Nichols-directed anti-war black comedy Catch-22, an adaptation of the famed Joseph Heller novel. Arkin then closed out the decade by forming one of comedy’s greatest duo performances as the straight man alongside Peter Falk’s unorthodox CIA agent in The In-Laws.

Arkin eventually settled into the role of a scene-stealing character actor, his wide-ranging filmography boasting memorable parts in Glengarry Glen Ross, Edward Scissorhands, The Rocketeer, The Jerky Boys, So I Married an Axe Murderer, and dozens more.

Over the past decade-and-a-half, Arkin enjoyed a post-Oscar-winning renaissance of sorts, appearing in Grudge Match, Going in Style, and The Incredible Burt Wonderstone and culminating in a co-starring role alongside Michael Douglas in the acclaimed Netflix series The Kominsky Method. His final credited part was a voice role in 2022’s Minions: The Rise of Gru.

John Cusack, who appeared on-screen with Arkin in both Grosse Point Blank and America’s Sweethearts, tweeted:

Fellow America’s Sweethearts actor Billy Crystal added, “Alan Arkin was one of our greatest actors. Hilarious, heartbreaking, and the ability to be terrifying, his range was amazing. I cherish the chance I had to act with him in #America’s Sweethearts.”

Michael McKean tweeted Friday, “When I was a young actor people wanted to know if I wanted to be a serious actor or a funny one. I’d answer ‘Which kind is Alan Arkin?’ and that shut them up.”

Seinfeld’s Jason Alexander tweeted of Arkin’s death, “Such a wonderful, original voice for comedy. And on the few occasions I was in his presence, a kind and generous soul. I learned so much from watching him. And the laughs I got from his glorious work seem endless. May he rest well.”

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