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Karl Malden (born on March, 1912) is an Emmy Award-winning, Oscar-winning and
Golden Globe-nominated American actor. In a career that spanned over seven decades,
he was featured in classic films such as A Streetcar Named Desire, On the
Waterfront and One-Eyed Jacks, with Marlon Brando, and also starred in the
blockbuster movie, Patton. Among other notable film roles are Archie Lee Meighan in
Baby Doll and Zebulon Prescott in How the West Was Won both starring Carroll Baker.
His best-known role was on television as Lt. Mike Stone on the 1970s crime drama,
The Streets of San Francisco.
 Early
life
The eldest of three brothers, Malden was born Mladen George Sekulovich (from Mladen
George Sekulović, Serbian).
He was the product of a Serb father, Petar Sekulovich, and Minnie Sekulovich, a
Czech seamstress. The family moved from to the Serbian quarter of Gary, Indiana in
1917, when Malden was five years old.
It is in Gary where his father would work in the steel mills and as a milk man.
The Sekulovich family roots trace back to the city of Bileća in Herzegovina.
Malden spoke Serbian until he was in kindergarten. Malden's father had a passion
for music, as Petar began organizing for the choir. As a teenager, Karl joined the
Carol George Choir. In addition, his father produced Serbian plays at his church.
Petar also taught students acting. A young Malden took part in many of these plays,
including a version of Jack and the Beanstalk but most centering on the community's
Serbian heritage. In high school he was a popular student and the star of the
basketball team (according to his autobiography, Malden broke his nose twice while
playing basketball, taking elbows to the face and resulting in his trademark
bulbous nose). He participated in the drama department, and was narrowly elected
senior class president. After graduating from Emerson School for Visual and
Performing Arts in 1931, with high marks, he briefly planned to leave Gary for
Arkansas, where he hoped to win an athletic scholarship, but college officials did
not admit him due to his refusal to play any sport beside basketball. From 1931
until 1934, he worked as a factory worker in the steel mills, just like his father
had.
From his uncle, he changed his name from Mladen Sekulovich to Karl Malden, when he
became an actor at age 22.
Stage work
and education
In September of 1934, Malden decided to leave his native Gary, Indiana to pursue
formal dramatic training at the Goodman Theater (later DePaul University). Although
he had worked in the steel mills in Gary for three years, he had helped support his
family and was unable to save enough money to pay for schooling. Making a deal with
the director of the program, he gave the Institute the little money he did have,
agreeing that if he did well, he would be rewarded with a full scholarship. He won
the scholarship. When Malden performed in the Goodman's children's theater, he
wooed the actress Mona Greenberg (stage name: Mona Graham), who married him in
1938. He graduated from the Chicago Art Institute in 1937. Soon after, without work
and without money, Malden returned to Gary.
Film career
and character actor before and after World War II
His life in his hometown came to an end as he traveled to New York City, and found
some more appropriate plays for the city. He first appeared as an actor on Broadway
in 1937, then did some radio work, before becoming a movie character actor in 1940,
where his first film was They Knew What They Wanted (1940). He also attended the
Group Theatre where he began acting in many plays and was introduced to a young
Elia Kazan, who would soon work with him on A Streetcar Named Desire (1951) and On
the Waterfront (1954). His acting career was interrupted by World War II and Malden
served as a noncommissioned officer in the US 8th Air Force. While in the war, he
was given a small role in the U.S. Army Air Forces play and film Winged Victory.
After the war in 1945, he resumed his acting career, receiving yet another small
supporting role in the play, Truckline Cafe, with a young, unknown actor, Marlon
Brando. He also guest-starred in both The Ford Theatre and The Armstrong Circle
Theatre. Jobs were getting harder to find for him as he was in his mid-30s and was
about to give up. He received a co-starring role in the play, All My Sons with the
help of director, Elia Kazan. With that success, he then crossed over into
movies.
Film career: 1950s to
1970s
Malden resumed his film acting career in the 1950s, starting with The Gunfighter
(1950), which followed by Halls of Montezuma (1950). The following year, he starred
in A Streetcar Named Desire (1951), where he played Mitch, Stanley Kowalski's best
friend and started a romance with Blanche DuBois (Vivian Leigh), On the Waterfront
(1954), where he played a priest who influenced Terry Malloy (Marlon Brando) to
testify against mobster-union boss Johnny Friendly (Lee J. Cobb). In Baby Doll
(1956), he played a power-hungry sexual man who had been frustrated by a teenaged
wife. Before and after he arrived in Hollywood, he starred in dozens of films of
the late 1950s to the early 1970s, such as Fear Strikes Out (1957), Pollyanna
(1960), Birdman of Alcatraz (1962), Gypsy (1962), How the West Was Won (1962), The
Cincinnati Kid (1965), and Patton (1970), playing General Omar Bradley. After his
last film, Summertime Killer (1972), roles were harder to find, however, he also
starred in the made-for-television movie The Hijacking of the Achille Lauro (1989)
(as Leon Klinghoffer).
Television
work
The Streets
of San Francisco
In 1972, Malden was approached by producer Quinn Martin about starring as Lt. Mike
Stone in The Streets of San Francisco. Although the concept originated as a
made-for-television movie, ABC quickly signed on to carry it as a series. Martin
hired Michael Douglas to play Lt. Stone's young partner, Inspector Steve
Keller.
On Streets, Malden played a widowed veteran cop with more than 20 years of
experience who is paired with a young officer recently graduated from college.
During its first season, it was a ratings winner among many other 1970s crime
dramas, and served as ABC's answer to such shows as Hawaii Five-O, Ironside, Kojak,
McMillan and Wife, Police Woman, The Rockford Files and Switch.
During the second season, production shifted from Los Angeles to San Francisco. For
his work as Lt. Stone, Malden was nominated for Emmys four times between 1974 and
1977 as Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series but never won. After two episodes
in the fifth season, Douglas left the show to act in movies (also, in 1975 he had
produced the film One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest); on the show, his character left
police work for teaching. Lt. Stone's new partner was Inspector Dan Robbins, played
by Richard Hatch. The show took a ratings nosedive, and ABC canceled The Streets of
San Francisco after five seasons and 119 episodes.
American
Express
He famously delivered the line "Don't leave home without it!" in a series of US
television commercials for American Express in the 1970s and 1980s.
Awards
Karl Malden won the 1951 Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for A Streetcar
Named Desire and was nominated in 1954 for his supporting role in On the
Waterfront. Karl Malden is a past president of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts
and Sciences. In October of 2003, Malden was named the 40th recipient of the Screen
Actors Guild's Life Achievement Award for career achievement and humanitarian
accomplishment.
On November 12, 2005, the L.A. Barrington Station renamed the building, Karl Malden
Post Office, in Los Angeles, California, in honor of his proud achievements, which
was followed by a passage of a bill founded by U.S. Congressman, Henry Waxman.
For his contribution to the motion picture industry, Karl Malden has a star on the
Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6231 Hollywood Blvd. In 2005, he was inducted into the
Western Performers Hall of Fame at the National Cowboy & Western Heritage
Museum in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.
- "All About Eve" Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor
- "A Streetcar Named Desire"
- "Viva Zapata!"
- "Terrible Joe Moran" Primetime Emmy Award for Supporting Actor -
Miniseries - "Fatal Vision"
- "Death of a Salesman"
Screen Actors Guild Life Achievement Award 2004
Source : Some of the information on this page came
from a Wikipedia article and is licensed under the GNU Documentation
License. ©2008 www.geneticmatrix.com.
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Karl
Malden - Generator - Biography
