PETER FALK - FALK'S GLASS EYE WOES

FALK'S GLASS EYE WOES

TV legend PETER FALK was left humiliated when he saw ART TATUM perform, because his pals hid his false eye in the jazz legend's drink. The veteran actor, famous for his role as raincoat-wearing TV detective COLOMBO, lost his right eye to cancer when he was just three years old, and he told friends he would be unable to attend the Tatum concert because he had misplaced his glass replacement. But his friends persuaded him that people would not notice he was lacking an eye in a dark jazz club, so he went along - and walked right into their practical joke. He says, "When it got too late and the place emptied, the five of us stood around the piano listening to Tatum play. "Art liked his gin and usually had a jigger (a measure of liquor) within reach. At one point he slid the jigger in my direction, saying, 'Help yourself.' "I lifted the jigger and then I noticed something at the bottom of the glass - my glass eye! Those sons of bitches had stolen my eye and set me up. I can still see Tatum laughing."