In "The Princess Bride", who played the grandfather?

In “The Princess Bride,” Peter Falk played the grandfather.

Falk appears in the film’s framing story as the grandfather who visits his sick grandson and reads him William Goldman’s adventure-romance novel. His warm but mischievous performance gives the opening and closing scenes much of their charm, especially as the grandson repeatedly tries to skip the kissing parts.

The framing device is central to the film’s structure. The medieval story of Buttercup, Westley, and Prince Humperdinck is presented as a book being read aloud, allowing the movie to shift between contemporary comedy and a deliberately exaggerated fairy-tale adventure. Falk’s character acts as the audience’s guide into that fictional world.

Peter Falk was already internationally famous before the film, particularly for playing Lieutenant Columbo in the television mystery series “Columbo.” The role in “The Princess Bride” is sometimes confused with Peter Cook, who played the Impressive Clergyman responsible for the famously comic wedding ceremony. Falk played the grandfather, while Fred Savage played the grandson.