Best known as everybody's favourite fumbling, bumbling, brilliant detective, Lieutenant Columbo, famous from any number of TV movies. He's actually got quite a filmography in both acting and producing; some relatively recent (actually, not so much) credits that you may or may not be familiar with are the narrator and Fred Savage's grandfather in The Princess Bride and crabby old Rocky in the tragically underrated 1995 movie Roommates.

His trademark and most distinguishing characteristic is his glass eye, which sees right through even the most cunning miscreant, into their dark heart.

He has a glass eye due to him losing his eye as a child.

My ophthalmologist had him as a patient, and I've managed to hear the story of the havoc he played as a kid in school in Ossining, NY.

One day the school teacher had to leave the room, and assigned him to stand up front of the classroom and keep order in the class, and make sure nobody misbehaved.

Well, when she left, the class wouldn't listen to him and was just being plain rowdy. So, he took out his glass eye, and put it on the desk in front of all the kids. Instantly the room got quiet as he said, "I've got my Eye on you."

Nobody moved until she got back.