He started as a tough kid who survived cancer and learned to live with “a glass eye,” turning every rejection into determination. That same drive pushed him through small roles and constant doubt until Columbo changed everything. Audiences fell for the rumpled detective “who could dismantle a killer with one more question and a tilted head.”

But the ambition that built his career took a toll at home. Long work hours, constant travel, and a need for escape strained his first marriage and distanced him from his daughters. As fame grew, those cracks deepened.

His second marriage brought new loyalties and new tensions. Over time, those tensions hardened—just as his memory began to slip. When Alzheimer’s became part of the story, decisions shifted “behind closed doors,” and the daughter who had once been welcome everywhere found herself shut out, relying on lawyers instead of hospital visits.

The world mourned the actor with the familiar shrug and gentle charm, celebrating a TV icon whose curiosity seemed endless. Inside the family, grief was far more tangled—love mixed with anger, and regret sat beside affection.

In the end, the hardest part wasn’t only watching him fade. It was knowing that the man known for solving mysteries left behind one final, painful question: why a proper goodbye “had to be denied.”