Peter Falk,already an established character actor before "Columbo" made him a star,studied with famed actress Eva Le Gallienne, who encouraged him to quit his job in Hartford and pursue acting. In 1956, he appeared at Circle in the Square in the famous revival of The Iceman Cometh with Jason Robards, playing the bartender. He made his Broadway debut that same year, appearing in Alexander Ostrovsky's Diary of a Scoundrel. Shortly after, he acted again on Broadway as an English soldier in Shaw's Saint Joan, with Siobhán McKenna.
In 1972 he was acclaimed for his performance as a frustrated, unemployed New Yorker in Neil Simon's comedy The Prisoner of Second Avenue. It would be his Broadway swan song, though he did play the lead role of Levine in a 1985 Chicago production of David Mamet's Glengarry Glenn Ross.He will be most remembered as Columbo, the iconic detective he created in the television series of the same name.

Source: Playbill.com