Happy birthday Ida Lupino
Actress/director Ida Lupino was born on February 4, 1918.
Columbo fans got her twice, and the two appearances show off totally different
sides of her screen persona.
First, she pops up in Short Fuse (aired January 19, 1972)
as Doris Buckner — the formidable aunt in the Buckner family orbit, watching
the corporate and family tensions boil over. Then she returns in Swan Song (aired March 3, 1974) as Edna Brown, the zealously religious wife of Johnny
Cash’s gospel singer Tommy Brown — one of the less sympathetic victims in the series.
She passed away on August 3, 1995.
Gary Conway
Gary Conway was born on February 4, 1936. In Columbo, he’s
best remembered as Rick Carsini in Any Old Port in a Storm (aired October 7,
1973) — the murder victim who gives his brother Adrian his
motive.
Conway’s Rick is an interesting Columbo victim: he’s not
written as a saint, and Conway plays him with a casual entitlement that makes
the family conflict feel uncomfortably plausible. It’s exactly the sort of
shading that helps the episode feel like a real, messy family tragedy rather
than a simple chess match.
Conway had a long TV career beyond the Mystery Movie wheel,
and later in life he even reinvented himself as a winemaker — which feels like
a delightfully Columbo‑adjacent second act for a man who got memorably
wine‑adjacent on screen.
Collin Wilcox
Collin Wilcox was born on February 4, 1935. Columbo fans
will recognize her from An Exercise in Fatality (aired September 15, 1974),
where she plays slightly smashed Ruth Stafford.
Wilcox is also widely remembered for her film work,
especially for playing Mayella Ewell in “To Kill a Mockingbird” (1962). She
died on October 14, 2009.
In Memoriam: John Dehner
Actor and voice legend John Dehner died on February 4, 1992.
Columbo used him perfectly: he’s the kind of commanding character actor who can
make a handful of lines feel like a full backstory.
Columbo fans may remember Dehner as Roland Pangborn in Swan Song (aired March 3, 1974), and as Otis Swanson in the famously offbeat LastSalute to the Commodore (aired May 2, 1976).
Dehner had a staggering career across film, television, and radio, often playing smooth authority figures or velvet‑voiced villains — and he brought that same gravitas to his Columbo appearances, even when the episodes around him leaned surreal.
That’s the Columbo roll call for February 4th. If you’ve got
another February 4 connection — a crew birthday, a production tidbit, a filming
anniversary, a newspaper listing you’ve spotted — send it my way and I’ll
happily add it to the record.
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