365 Days of Columbo: May 20th

May 20th saw at least two Columbo birthdays of note.

Anthony Zerbe - "Max the Magnificent"

Anthony Zerbe got to play one of the more memorable murder victims in Columbo - the magician "Max the Magnificent" - beheaded by his own guillotine. 

Zerbe was born on May 20th, 1936, in Long Beach, CA and as of this writing he's thankfully still with us.

Columbo Goes to the Guillotine was the first episode of Season 8 and marked Columbo's return to the screen for the first time in 11 years.

Zerbe generally played villians, so it might have been fun for him to play the not-unsympathetic victim for a change.

Not sure this was Zerbe's best performance in his long career but we're grateful to him for it nonetheless.

James McEachin - A Columbo two-timer

James McEachin is readily recognizable to Columbo fans as he made two appearances, playing different characters each time. 

He made his debut (as did Dog, coincidentally) in the opening episode of Season 2 - Etude in Black. There he played Billy, the assistant to Maestro Benedict, the murderous conductor played by John Cassavetes.

In Season 7 he returned to Columbo in a slightly more substantial role, as the film projectionist Walter Mearhead who Kay Freestone tries to use as her alibi in Make Me a Perfect Murder.

He was solid as Billy, and for the most part as Mearhead, though I did think the director tried to make him just a bit too silly in one scene of Make Me a Perfect Murder, and it came off awkwardly. Still, he was well-cast and I wouldn't have minded if he'd been more a regular on Columbo.

Important fact: McEachin served in the United States Army during the Korean War where he earned the Silver Star for valor.

Trivial Columbo Trivia - "Come in 194"

Columbo very rarely uses the police radio to talk to anybody; he almost always uses the phone. However, in A Friend in Deed we get a rare example of Columbo using the police radio in his car and learn that his unit's call sign is: 194.