Postscript: Alan Arkin 1934 - 2023

I see in the Times that Alan Arkin died. I remember him for his extraordinary performance as the deaf-mute in Robert Ellis Miller’s The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter. I saw that film when it first came out, in 1968. I was fifteen, just embarking on my love affair with movies. It was a great time to start. Bonnie and Clyde, Cool Hand Luke, and In the Heat of the Night had all appeared the previous year. The acting in those films impressed me immensely. Then I saw Arkin’s performance in The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter. It bowled me over. For years after, when anyone asked me who my favorite actors were, I’d answer Paul Newman, Rod Steiger and Alan Arkin. Today, looking at old reviews of The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter, I see that Renata Adler, in The New York Times, wrote, “Alan Arkin, as Singer, is extraordinary, deep and sound.” This strikes me as exactly right.