Alan Arkin Remembered: ‘The Russians Are Coming, The Russians Are Coming’ Director Norman Jewison on His ‘Brilliantly Funny’ Friend

Alan Arkin etched many indelible performances over his long career in movies. From heroin-snorting grandfathers (Little Miss Sunshine) to ornery movie producers (Argo) to harried dentists (The In-Laws), Arkin, who died on June 29 at the age of 89, played an extraordinary range of roles with great gusto.

But its fair to say that none of it would have been possible were it not for 1966s The Russians Are Coming, The Russians Are Coming, a Cold War comedy that marked Arkins first major screen role. Its the film that earned him the first of four Oscar nominations (hed win for 2006s Little Miss Sunshine) and a part that launched his career as a shape-shifting character actor.

And it was Norman Jewison, riding high on the success of The Cincinnati Kid, who took a bet that Arkin, a gifted Broadway actor but movie novice, could make the transition from stage to screen. He plays a Russian political officer who takes a small troop of men into a sleepy island community in the United States after their submarine runs aground. Jewison says that Arkin was such a chameleon, many viewers were stunned to find out that the Brooklyn-born actor wasnt, in fact, Russian. Jewison spoke with Variety about working with Arkin on the comedy masterpiece and his boundless acting abilities.

Alan was a close friend, as well as one of my best performing actors. When I found out that he had died, I started thinking about the first time we met. I was in New York, and he was in a play that Mike Nichols directed called Luv with Eli Wallach and Anne Jackson. He had such a gift for accents.

When I was getting ready to make The Russians Are Coming, The Russians Are Coming, I remembered that and I called him up and said, I need someone who can play a Russian and be completely believable. He came over to the studio I dont think hed ever made a movie before and we did some improv. I had him play a KGB member who was traveling with the Bolshoi Ballet while they were in America to make sure they didnt get into any trouble. He was just perfect.

The studio didnt want him, but its never easy to find the right actor for a part, so I just pushed it. I told them that they already had Eva Marie Saint and Carl Reiner and other well-known actors, and so we stayed strong and made it happen.

To prepare for the role, he found this Russian, a diplomat or something, from the south of Russia. I think he was from Tbilisi in Georgia, so he had sort of the Russian version of a Southern accent. And they worked on the lines, particularly the Russian translations. It was exciting to see how immersed he got in the part.

Because he had that training from his time at Second City, he was such a gifted improviser. He and Carl would basically throw the script away. They were just brilliantly funny. Alan was new to film, but it didnt show. He was relaxed on set. He didnt seem to be tense at all. I always see that confidence in really great improvisational actors.

Theres a scene towards the end of the film where hes getting in the submarine and saying goodbye to the Americans hes gotten so close to, and he just breaks your heart. When we shot it, Alan was on this styrofoam submarine that my production designer had created. It looked real most of the time, but if there were a lot of waves the whole thing would bend and start to fall apart.

Maybe its good that he wasnt a well-known actor at the time, because people accepted his brilliant performance to the point where they believed he was Russian. Thats not easy for an American actor to pull off. But the most important thing for an actor is believability, and you always believed Alan when he was on screen. I ended up showing the film in Moscow to the Russian Film Workers Union and they said, Oh, hes really from Georgia. He sounds like hes from Tbilisi. So they also believed totally in his performance. And that was always true of Alan, from Little Miss Sunshine to Popi, where he plays a Puerto Rican man, you just accepted him as genuine when he was on screen.

When the film came out, it was the height of the Cold War, so it was controversial to be making fun of all that. But it just took off. And Alan, who was the centerpiece of the film, got an Academy Award nomination for the performance. It kind of clicked off his career.

We stayed close, but I never had the opportunity to work with him again. I just never had a part that I thought was right for him. When I direct a film, Im always strongly supportive of my actors. Alan appreciated that. Years later, he told me, I think I enjoyed making Russians Are Coming more than anything Ive ever done. And he looked at me and said, That movie worked because of you. And I said, No Alan, it was because of your talent. You are a gifted, gifted man.