#primary book cited was lertzman's beyond columbo; other texts include various interviews plus falk's autobio and shooting columbo

[columboscreens]

I know you're a Columbo blog and I'm not trying to stir shit up or to cancel a guy who's been dead for a decade (or cancel anyone else for liking him -- I like Peter Falk, I love Columbo, best TV detective ever), but anyway what do you think about the age gap between him and Shera, meeting her when he was around 45 and she was around 23?

not suggesting he was abusive or anything, and I'm aware she was awful later in his life. but I'm asking what your thoughts are on the age gap

it's a completely understandable question with what i believe to be a rather understandable answer.

i didn't know the guy personally. i respect him greatly as an actor, as an artist, and as an overall kind, intelligent, talented man. nearly everyone who interacted with him liked him on a personal level. i'm genuinely bummed that i'll never get to meet him.

but as columbo teaches us, there's often more than meets the eye, especially when it comes to celebrities. so, too, is the case with peter falk.

the short answer is this: if you want a red-hot acting career, a nightfly lifestyle where you hit the town with the boys all the time, and any semblance of a normal family life...you kind of have to choose only two of those. peter wanted a woman more in line with the choices he made--which is to say, a hot party girl half his age.

in my eyes, the age and power differences between peter and his second wife, shera danese, are worthy of the eyebrow raise you'd get from most people given those gaps. after all, he was 46 and she was 24. but frankly, at 24 your brain is just about fully grown. and though i can't claim to know, my gut doubts he was out to prey on her or exploit a power dynamic so much as he was trying desperately to reclaim his youth and maintain his carousing lifestyle with--you guessed it--a hot party girl half his age. tale as old as time.

if you want the long answer with more background and history, read on:

if you don't know it by now, by every account you can possibly read, and in a stark contrast to columbo's devotion to his wife, peter falk was an utterly incorrigible philanderer. i'm not here to judge, nor am i here to armchair the psychology of a guy who's been dead for over a decade, but he definitely had an intoxicating, interminable fixation on women that strongly impinged upon his family life. one account that i'd read implied that he'd been that way since high school; being as charming and attractive as he was, he certainly never suffered a shortage of women wanting to sleep with him. he was simply a man with a natural propensity towards that particular deadly sin, especially coupled with the strong, sometimes negative influences of friends john cassavetes and ben gazzara.

there's some hearsay about his behavior and various involvements with other women, but the fact of the matter is, peter met shera danese while filming mikey and nicky in philadelphia and kept her as a mistress--while very much still married to his first wife, alyce mayo.

peter met alyce at syracuse, dabbling in theatre while earning his master's and trying to find something to do with his life. a petite, dark-haired thing, alyce's bailiwicks were fashion, art, and music; she mainly worked behind the scenes costuming and would later go on to design high-end fabric patterns and teach piano. in this instance, she happened to be understudying as one of the sprites in a school performance of shakespeare's the tempest.

he was very attracted to her disposition, artistic skill, and free spirit, though he hadn't yet worked up the nerve to ask her out. but don't let me tell you, let peter:

so he was like "Haha Hell Yeah Up Mine" and in love they fell for nearly three decades.

the two were uniquely close in that they connected very well as friends aside from being romantically entwined. they traveled together, supported each other's careers, and he valued her judgement; even after their divorce, he continued to go to her for advice. it's probably part of why they stayed together for so long, trying desperately to make everything work, despite the numerous strains put on their marriage.

but even on their wedding day, alyce had doubts. it'd taken peter nine years of dating to propose to her, and that was due in part to pressure from his parents to grow up and settle down. he'd always enjoyed the company of other women and spending nights carousing with his buddies, and he was never quite as keen as she on the idea of raising a family.

they actually, in a rather impressive feat, seemed to make things work for them through the 50s and 60s as peter kickstarted his acting career. when he hopped around on various location shoots, oftentimes she was able to travel with him. he wasn't massively busy like he became in the late 60s-70s for obvious reasons. they didn't have kids. but even then alyce had made concessions and sacrifices--her career in nyc and his all over the place meant they had to work hard to keep things together.

alyce and peter tried for children, but she struggled greatly. by the early 70s, they'd adopted two girls, jackie and catherine. peter had always loved children, and very clearly loved his daughters, but it was equally clear that his family life suffered as a result of his lifestyle.

he continued traveling for work, though by that point alyce was unable to accompany him as easily because of the children, and as she well knew, he often fell prey to the various temptations that surrounded him. she felt trapped, and with the offer of stability that was columbo, the family settled in LA in a final attempt to spread roots.

unfortunately, the only thing that spread was the cracks in their marital foundation. gazzara and cassavetes, legendary as their friendship was, seemed to play a role in enabling peter's hedonistic behavior, bringing out night after night the boy who only longed to party and philander til dawn.

by 1973, while filming mikey and nicky in philadelphia, peter saw shera walking down the street, and that was that. she followed him to LA and remained his mistress until, despite attempts at reconciliation, alyce had finally had enough and kicked peter out of the house in '76. they divorced the same year, and peter and shera were married the very next.

but it wasn't long before peter's second marriage became even more turbulent than his first. as it turns out, it's awfully hard to teach an old dog new tricks. he'd continued his lifelong pattern of unfaithful behavior during his marriage to shera, except this time he wasn't as beholden to his family. he could never really figure out how to keep his hands to himself, by which she, as his long-term mistress, was somehow blindsided.

there was, too, the unforseen limitation of them not only being from two completely different generations, but also not being able to agree on literally anything. everything was a fight with them. most interviews and media you can find of the two of them poke fun at their constant discord, but it's always palpable.

for emphasis, in the columbo episode murder of a rock star, shera and peter got into one of their trademark massive fights and she stormed off the set, refused to finish her scenes, and left to go clothes shopping. when some of the crew went to retrieve her, she refused to return, so they had to rewrite and film the final scene around her. and if you've watched the episode, you can definitely tell.

when asked what the two had in common, they always said "we both like the color blue" as perhaps some sort of inside joke for not actually having much in common, but they were so well-known for their heated blowouts that they came to be known in hollywood as the "fighting falks". they upheld that namesake well: the two separated several times and attempted to divorce twice. they did, at the very least, remain married until his death.

so there you have it. aside from the fact that this relationship was an egregious display of infidelity, do i think the age gap was particularly healthy? were they well suited where it mattered most? did it fix peter falk's midlife crisis? i'm in no position to judge. draw your own conclusions from the information given.

was their relationship wrong simply by virtue of that gap? i don't think so.