Karl Malden dies

Malden was one of most familiar faces in American cinema, who played a wide range of characters.  Born Mladen Sekulovich in 1912 in Chicago to a Czech mother and Serbian father, he worked in a steel mill before joining a local theatre in 1934.  He moved to Broadway, where he met director Elia Kazan, who cast him in his production of A Streetcar Named Desire in 1947.
 
He starred in several dozen films, including Kazan’s adaptation of Streetcar and his On the Waterfront and Baby Doll.  He also appeared in How the West Was Won, The Cincinnati Kid, Cheyenne Autumn and Patton, in which he played Gen. Omar Bradley. 

He won a best supporting actor Oscar for playing Mitch in Streetcar Named Desire (1951), but also had a distinguished TV career, notably as Lt. Mike Stone in the 1970s series The Streets of San Francisco, alongside Michael Douglas, who considered him his mentor.
 
Douglas called him “a great actor, father and husband. I admired and loved him deeply.  Eva Marie Saint, his screen partner in On the Waterfront, called him "a consummate actor” who “loved acting.”

Sid Ganis, president of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences, which Malden headed from 1989-92, said the actor had “lived a rich, full life” and his career “spanned the spectrum of the arts from theatre to film and television, to some very famous commercial work,” notably a 21-year stint for American Express credit cards, speaking the famous catchphrase “Don’t leave home without them.”

Malden was married for more than 70 years to Mona, an actress he met in Chicago.  Their anniversary party last December was sort of the last goodbye,” said Saint.  “His wish was, ‘After I die, I don’t want you to do anything but have a party.’

Malden liked to joke that his famous big nose, the result of breaking it several times playing sports, made him “the only actor in Hollywood whose nose qualifies him for handicapped parking.”

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Malden with Marlon Brando and Eva Marie Saint in On the Waterfront (Elia Kazan, 1954) and with Carroll Baker in Baby Doll (Elia Kazan, 1956)

© DR / Coll. Institut Lumière

02/07/09