365 Days of Columbo: June 7th

Happy Birthday Leland Sun

Actor Leland Sun was born on June 7th, 1950, in New York City. His Columbo appearances are of the blink-and-you-might-miss-him variety, but that only makes him more fun for dedicated viewers to spot.

Sun can be seen as an exhibition guest in Suitable for Framing, the classic Season 1 outing in which Dale Kingston makes the mistake of trying to frame Lieutenant Columbo for murder. He later returned as a casino gambler in Double Shock, the Martin Landau episode that gives Columbo not one Paris brother to investigate, but two.

Smoke and Shadows in the Netherlands

June 7th also marks an international Columbo anniversary. On June 7th, 1992, Murder, Smoke and Shadows received its release in the Netherlands, a little more than three years after its original American broadcast on February 27th, 1989.

The episode pits Columbo against boy-genius film director Alex Bradey, played by Fisher Stevens. Bradey’s studio-lot kingdom is full of artificial rain, phony streets and manufactured illusions — all useful tools for a director, but rather less useful when Lieutenant Columbo begins asking questions about a suspicious death on the backlot.