Alan Wolf Arkin (born March 26, 1934) is an Academy Award-winning American actor, director, and musician. He is best-known for starring in such films as: Catch-22; The In-Laws; Edward Scissorhands; The Russians Are Coming, the Russians Are Coming; Glengarry Glen Ross; and Little Miss Sunshine, for which he won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor in 2007. He is the father of actors, Adam Arkin, Anthony Arkin and Matthew Arkin.

Arkin was born in Brooklyn, New York City, the son of Beatrice Wortis, a teacher, and David I. Arkin, a painter and writer who mostly worked as a teacher. Arkin was raised in a Jewish family with "no emphasis on religion;" his maternal grandfather was an immigrant from Odessa, Ukraine. The family moved from Brooklyn to Los Angeles, California when Arkin was 11 years old, but an eight-month Hollywood strike cost Arkin's father a set designer job he had wanted to take. Arkin's parents were accused during the 1950s Red Scare of being Communists, which led to Arkin's father losing his job after refusing to answer questions regarding his political affiliation. David Arkin challenged the dismissal and ultimately prevailed, but only after his death.

Arkin has been married three times. He and Jeremy Yaffe, to whom he was married from 1955 to 1960, have two sons: Adam Arkin, born Aug. 19, 1957, and Matthew Arkin, born in 1960. In 1967, Arkin had son Anthony (Tony) Dana Arkin with actress-screenwriter Barbara Dana (born 1940), to whom he was married from June 16, 1964 to the mid-1990s. In 1996, Arkin married a psychotherapist, Suzanne Newlander. As of 2007, they live in New Mexico.