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Alan Arkin: Russians Are Coming
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Arkin was no novice to acting when he made his feature film debut in the popular satirical comedy The Russians Are Coming, the Russians Are Coming. Three years prior to that, he had won a Tony Award for his much acclaimed starring role in the Broadway production of Carl Reiner's autobiographical seriocomedy Enter Laughing. In Russians, Arkin, co-starring with Reiner and a large star cast, won an Oscar nomination playing a zany Russian squad leader who steps off a Soviet submarine which accidentally has been grounded near an island off the Massachusetts coastline. As he communicated with the startled natives, Arkin spoke a blend of strange Russian lingo and broken Russian-English, which left a bizarre, but very comical, impression.
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Arkin’s acting career took off in 1966 with an Oscar-nominated performance in “The Russians Are Coming the Russians Are Coming,” making him one of only a few who have received an Oscar nod for their first big-screen appearance. Superb in comedies as well as dramas, he received another Oscar nomination for his sensitive performance in “The Heart is a Lonely Hunter” in 1968, the same year that he starred in “Inspector Clouseau,” taking the Pink Panther reins from the legendary Peter Sellers. Some of his other noteworthy performances are in “Wait Until Dark,” “Catch-22,” “The Seven-Per-Cent Solution,” and “The In-Laws.”
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Arkin is one of only eight[9] actors to receive an Academy Award nomination for Best Actor for his first screen appearance (for The Russians Are Coming, the Russians Are Coming in 1966). Two years later, he was again nominated, for The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter.
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It's been 38 years since Alan Arkin's last Oscar nom, which was for "The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter" (1968). Previously, he'd been nommed for "The Russians Are Coming, The Russians Are Coming!" Is there a parallel to his situation and Henry Fonda's who won for "On Golden Pond 41 years after his previous nomination.
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Although Charlotte's late ex-husband, Maurice, wrote about Hollywood and Broadway actors, Charlotte edited one --- Alan Arkin. An actor's actor, who has always been courageous enough to stretch fully yet naturally into a huge variety of roles, he has appeared in The Russians are Coming, the Russians are Coming!, Slums of Beverly Hills, Grosse Point Blank, The In-Laws, Edward Scissorhands, and Joshua Then and Now, to name just a few.
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Russians Are Coming