ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Saturday, March 2, 1996 TAG: 9603040095
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: B-9 EDITION: METRO
COLUMN: The People Column
SOURCE: FROM WIRE REPORTS
Kwame Toure, who as Stokely Carmichael made the phrase ``black power'' a rallying cry during the 1960s civil rights movement, left aNew York hospital after treatment for prostate cancer.
Dr. Barbara Justice, his personal physician and a cancer specialist, said the prognosis was good for 54-year-old Toure, who entered Columbia Presbyterian Hospital on Feb. 5.
As the young Carmichael during the 1960s, the Trinidad native headed the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee and later the Black Panthers.
Lt. Columbo has been promoted to chevalier.
Peter Falk, who endeared himself to American and French TV audiences as the rumpled, wily detective on ``Columbo,'' was made a Chevalier of Arts and Letters, France's highest arts honor.
Film star Gerard Depardieu, a longtime friend of Falk's, bestowed the honor in a Culture Ministry ceremony this week.
``Peter Falk is one of the 15 best actors on the planet,'' Depardieu said. ``Two thousand years from now, he's someone the whole world will still be in love with.''
``This role of Columbo has been one of the best and the worst things for me,'' Falk said. ``If I hadn't played this role, I surely would have become a better actor and had a different career.
``But it isn't a cancer. Columbo earned me a lot of money, international notoriety and some great places to play basketball. If I could do it all over again, I wouldn't change a thing.''
LENGTH: Short : 40 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: (headshot) Toureby CNB