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Karl Malden in 2004 - Source: Reuters -
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Oscar winner Karl Malden, the character actor acclaimed for film roles in A Streetcar Named Desire and On the Waterfront before gaining TV fame as a leading man in The Streets of San Francisco, died on Thursday at age 97.
Also remembered as the commercial spokesman for American Express
travellers cheques, sternly warning tourists, "Don't leave home
without them", Malden died in his sleep at his Los Angeles-area
home, according to his longtime agent, Budd Moss.
He said the actor had been in failing health in recent
years.
In a career spanning seven decades, Malden made his mark
portraying plain-spoken men of gruff manners, though he was noted
for bringing an understated, natural dignity to many of his
roles.
He acted in the plays of Arthur Miller and Tennessee Williams, as
well as in the films of directors Elia Kazan, Alfred Hitchcock and
John Frankenheimer.
Malden, whose trademark bulbous nose was broken twice while
playing high school sports, often said he was keenly aware that he
lacked the looks of a leading man.
"There were times when certain leads would come along, and I'd say,
'Gee, I could do that,'" Malden recalled in a 2004 interview with
Reuters. "But ... you've got to have a great nose. You've got to
have great eyes. Everything that an actor has to have to be that
leading man, I don't have. So I made the best with what I
had."
He was born Mladen George Sekulovich in Chicago to parents of Serb
and Czech origins, grew up in Gary, Indiana, and worked at a steel
mill before moving to New York City in 1937 to pursue
acting.
His stage debut came that year in Golden Boy and he later appeared
in the original cast of Miller's All My Sons.
From films to television
Malden landed his first big-screen part in the 1940 drama They
Knew What They Wanted, starring Carole Lombard and Charles
Laughton, and went on to appear in some 50 movies over the next 40
years.
Malden won an Academy Award for his 1951 portrayal of the lovelorn
Mitch in Tennessee Williams' A Streetcar Named Desire, a role he
created on Broadway. He earned a second Oscar nomination as the
crusading priest Father Barry in the 1954 classic On the
Waterfront.
Both films were directed by Elia Kazan and starred Marlon Brando,
who Malden called the most brilliant actor I've worked
with.
Malden had a memorable turn as General Omar Bradley in Patton in
1970 before becoming a prime-time TV fixture and earning four Emmy
nominations as police detective Mike Stone in The Streets of San
Francisco. Then-budding actor Michael Douglas co-starred
as his young partner.
"I admired and loved him deeply," Douglas said in a
statement.
Saluting Malden as he received an American Film Institute award
last month, Douglas said, "It was Karl more than anyone who got me
to understand that an actor is just one part of a whole team that
makes a TV series or a movie work."
Malden returned the compliment in a taped message played back for
Douglas at the ceremony, saying, "I wish Michael could have been my
son. I'm so proud of him."
The Streets of San Francisco ran from 1974 until 1977.
In 1985, Malden won an Emmy as the father of a woman murdered by
her husband in the NBC miniseries Fatal Vision.
He found himself at the centre of a controversy surrounding his
longtime friend, Kazan, who had been shunned by the Hollywood
establishment since naming names of alleged Communists to the US
House of Representatives Un-American Activities Committee in
1952.
Malden proposed at a 1999 board meeting of the Academy of Motion
Picture Arts and Sciences that Kazan receive a special Oscar
honoring his body of work. The award was given over the protests of
many film industry veterans who believed Kazan's actions during the
blacklist era were unforgivable.
Malden and wife Mona, whom he married in 1938 and who survives him,
had one of Hollywood's longest marriages. They had two
children.
