At the tender age of three, Peter Falk had his right eye surgically removed (and replaced with a glass one) when a malignancy was found. Years later Harry Cohn, the boorish chief of Columbia Pictures, rejected Falk for a role in one of the studio's films. "For the same money," he declared, "I can get an actor with two eyes!"

[How did his mother explain the operation to her three-year-old son? Um.. she didn't: "They checked me into the hospital. I remember standing in front of an open elevator door with my mother and the doctor in the hospital. I wasn't quite sure what was happening to me. Suddenly Mom said to me, 'You just get in the elevator, son. I have to go back to your room and get my purse.' Then the doctor took my hand and walked me into the elevator. I remember telling him, 'Just hold on a minute. My mother went to get her purse. She'll be right here.' The next thing I knew I was asleep, and it was all over."]