Portrait of Alan Arkin

Birthday profile

Alan Arkin

Alan Arkin, American actor (died 2023)

Born
March 26, 1934
Died
June 29, 2023
Zodiac sign
Aries
Birth year
1934

About Alan Arkin

Alan Wolf Arkin (March 26, 1934 – June 29, 2023) was an American actor, filmmaker and musician. In a career spanning seven decades, he received numerous accolades, including an Academy Award, a BAFTA Award, a Golden Globe Award, and a Tony Award as well as nominations for six Emmy Awards. Arkin performed in the sketch comedy group The Second City before acting on the Broadway stage, starring as David Kolowitz in the Joseph Stein play Enter Laughing in 1963, for which he won the Tony Award for Best Featured Actor in a Play. He returned to Broadway acting in the comedic play Luv (1964), and directed Neil Simon's The Sunshine Boys (1971), for which he received a Tony Award nomination. Arkin won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his role as a foul-mouthed grandfather in Little Miss Sunshine (2006). He was Oscar-nominated for his roles in The Russians Are Coming, The Russians Are Coming (1966), The Heart is a Lonely Hunter (1968), and Argo (2012). He also acted in Wait Until Dark (1967), Inspector Clouseau (1968), Popi (1969), Catch-22 (1970), The In-Laws (1979), Edward Scissorhands (1990), The Rocketeer (1991), Glengarry Glen Ross (1992), Grosse Pointe Blank (1997), Thirteen Conversations About One Thing (2001), Get Smart (2008), Going in Style (2017), Dumbo (2019) and Spenser Confidential (2020). Arkin also directed three films, including the comedies Little Murders (1971) and Fire Sale (1977). His television roles included Leon Felhendler in Escape from Sobibor (1987), and as Harry Rowen in The Pentagon Papers (2003) for which he earned Emmy nominations, respectively, for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Limited Series or Movie and Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Limited Series or Movie. Arkin voiced Schmendrick in The Last Unicorn (1982), J. D. Salinger in the animated series BoJack Horseman (2015–16), and Wild Knuckles in Minions: The Rise of Gru (2022). From 2018 to 2019, Arkin starred in the Netflix comedy series The Kominsky Method, earning two consecutive nominations for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series. For his performance, he received nominations for an Academy Award for Best Actor and a Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Drama, and won a New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Actor.

Biography source: Wikipedia. The profile adds birthday-specific historical context from the Celebs Birthday Today editorial database.

Alan Arkin timeline

  1. Arkin performed in the sketch comedy group The Second City before acting on the Broadway stage, starring as David Kolowitz in the Joseph Stein play Enter Laughing in 1963, for which he won the Tony Award for Best Featured Actor in a Play.
  2. Arkin won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his role as a foul-mouthed grandfather in Little Miss Sunshine (2006).

The world when Alan Arkin was born

Alan Arkin was born in 1934. The year snapshot below places that birthday in its cultural and historical setting: the music and films people were following, the headlines shaping public life, and the everyday prices families encountered.

Culture in 1934

  • #1 song"Stars Fell on Alabama"
  • Top movieIt Happened One Night
  • Best-selling bookTender Is the Night – F. Scott Fitzgerald

Headlines and milestones

  • Major sports momentFirst Masters Tournament held at Augusta National
  • Top headlineFBI kills John Dillinger outside a Chicago theater
  • Technology milestoneFirst streamlined passenger train (Burlington Zephyr)
  • Defining fadShirley Temple mania
  • Notable inventionLaundromat
  • World population2.20 billion

United States snapshot

  • U.S. leaderFranklin D. Roosevelt
  • Sports championSt. Louis Cardinals (World Series)
  • U.S. population126.4M

1934 versus 2026

These figures put everyday life in Alan Arkin's birth year beside the site's latest United States snapshot.

Measure19342026
Gas$0.19$3.45/gal
Average home$4,900$435,000
Average income$2,500$67,500
Minimum wage$0.25$7.25/hr (federal)
Movie ticket$0.20$11.95
Postage stamp$0.03$0.73
Population126.4M341 million

Sources and editorial standards

This profile combines a biographical source with structured birthday and historical context. Sources recorded for this profile: Wikipedia, IMDb, Wikidata. See our editorial policy for sourcing, corrections, and review standards.

Read the source biography on Wikipedia. Wikipedia text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License.