Karl Malden
Karl Malden was an American stage, movie and television actor who first achieved acclaim in the original Broadway productions of Arthur Miller's All My Sons and Tennessee Williams' A Streetcar Named Desire in 1946 and 1947. Recreating the role of Mitch in the 1951 film of Streetcar, he won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor.
Malden primarily was a character actor, who according to Robert Berkvist, "for more than 60 years brought an intelligent intensity and a homespun authenticity to roles in theater, film, and television", especially in such classic films as A Streetcar Named Desire and On the Waterfront, for which he received a second Best Supporting Oscar nomination.
He also played in high-profile Hollywood films such as I Confess, Baby Doll, The Hanging Tree, Pollyanna, One-Eyed Jacks, How the West Was Won, Gypsy, Cheyenne Autumn, Birdman of Alcatraz and Patton. From 1972 to 1977, he portrayed the leading role of Lt. Mike Stone in the primetime television crime drama The Streets of San Francisco. He was later an advertising spokesman for American Express.
Film and culture critic Charles Champlin described Malden as "an Everyman, but one whose range moved easily up and down the levels of society and the IQ scale, from heroes to heavies and ordinary, decent guys just trying to get along", and at the time of his death, Malden was described as "one of the great character actors of his time" who created a number of "powerhouse performances on screen".
Malden served as president of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences from 1989 to 1992.
Early life
Karl Malden, the eldest of three sons, was born Mladen Sekulovich in Chicago, Illinois, on March 22, 1912, which was his mother's 20th birthday. He was raised in a home at 457 Connecticut Street in Gary, Indiana.His Serb father Petar Sekulović worked in the steel mills and as a milkman, and his mother, Minnie Sekulovich, was a Czech seamstress and actress. The Sekulovich family's roots trace back to Podosoje near Trebinje, Bosnia and Herzegovina. Malden spoke only Serbian until he was in kindergarten; he remained fluent in the language until his death. Malden's father, who had a passion for music, organized the Serbian Singing Federation, uniting immigrant choral ensembles across the United States.
File:KarlMaldenmonument.jpg|thumb|left|upright|Monument to Karl Malden in Belgrade, Serbia
As a teenager, Malden joined the Karageorge Choir and acted in church plays produced by his father. He took part in many of these plays, which included a version of Jack and the Beanstalk, but mostly centered on the community's Serbian heritage. In high school, he was a popular student and the star of the basketball team.
He participated in the drama department and was narrowly elected senior class president. Among other roles, he played Pooh-Bah in The Mikado. After graduating from Emerson High School 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 owing to his refusal to play any sport besides basketball. From 1931 until 1934, he worked in the steel mills, as had his father.
He changed his name from Mladen Sekulovich to Karl Malden at age 22, something director Elia Kazan urged him to do. He anglicized his first name by swapping its letters "l" and "a" and used it as his last and taking his grandfather's first name as his own. This was because the first theatre company he was in wanted him to shorten his name for its marquee. He thought that they wanted to fire him and were using his name as an excuse; although that was not the case, he still changed his name to give them no excuse.
Malden later stated that he regretted changing his name and tried to insert the name Sekulovich wherever possible in his work. For example, as General Omar Bradley in Patton, as his troops slog their way through enemy fire in Sicily, Malden says "Hand me that helmet, Sekulovich" to another soldier. In Dead Ringer, as a police detective in the squad room, Malden tells another detective: "Sekulovich, gimme my hat." In Fear Strikes Out, Malden, playing Jimmy Piersall's father John, introduces Jimmy to a baseball scout named Sekulovich. In Birdman of Alcatraz, as a prison warden touring the cell block, Malden recites a list of inmates' names, including Sekulovich. In On the Waterfront, in which Malden plays the priest, among the names of the officers of Local 374 called out in the courtroom scene is Mladen Sekulovich, Delegate. Perhaps the most notable usage of his real name, however, was in the television series The Streets of San Francisco, where Malden's character, Mike Stone, employed a legman with that name.
Education and early stage work
In September 1934, Malden left Gary, Indiana, to pursue formal dramatic training at the Goodman School, then associated with the Goodman Theater in Chicago. Although he had worked in the steel mills in Gary for three years, he had helped support his family and was consequently unable to save enough money to pay for his schooling. Making a deal with the director of the program, he gave the institute the little money that he did have, with the director agreeing that, if Malden 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 actress Mona Greenberg, who married him in 1938. He graduated from the Chicago Art Institute in 1937. Soon after, without work or money, Malden returned to his hometown.
Acting career around World War II
He eventually traveled to New York City, and first appeared as an actor on Broadway in 1937. He did some radio work and then made his film debut with a small role in They Knew What They Wanted.Malden also joined the Group Theatre, where he began acting in many plays and was introduced to a young Elia Kazan, who later worked with him on A Streetcar Named Desire, On the Waterfront and Baby Doll.
His acting career was interrupted in 1942 by the Second World War, during which he served as a noncommissioned officer in the 8th Air Force of the United States Army Air Corps. While in the service, he was given a small role in the United States Army Air Forces play and film Winged Victory. Malden was discharged in 1946 as a Sergeant and was awarded the Air Force Presidential Unit Citation, the American Campaign Medal and the World War II Victory Medal.
After the war, Malden resumed his acting career on Broadway, playing yet another small supporting role in the short-lived Maxwell Anderson play Truckline Cafe, with a then-unknown Marlon Brando. The next year, director Elia Kazan gave Malden a co-starring role in Arthur Miller's breakout play All My Sons. By the end of that year he had joined the legendary original cast of Tennessee Williams's landmark drama A Streetcar Named Desire, also directed by Kazan, playing Harold "Mitch" Mitchell. With that high-profile theatre success, he then crossed over into steady film work.
Film career: 1950s to 1970s
Malden appeared in a small role in the film noir Kiss of Death during the run of All My Sons, but did not resume his film acting career until 1950, starting with The Gunfighter and Where the Sidewalk Ends, followed by Halls of Montezuma. For Kazan's film version of A Streetcar Named Desire, he recreated his role as Harold "Mitch" Mitchell, Stanley Kowalski's best friend, who starts a romance with Blanche DuBois. For this performance, he won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. His other films during this period included Alfred Hitchcock's I Confess with Montgomery Clift and Anne Baxter, and On the Waterfront — where he received his second nomination for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor — playing a priest who influences Terry Malloy to testify against mobster-union boss Johnny Friendly.File:One-Eyed Jacks 1961.jpg|thumb|Malden hugging actresses Pina Pellicer and Katy Jurado while they stare at Marlon Brando in One-Eyed Jacks
In Baby Doll, Malden's last collaboration with Kazan, he played the leading role, a man sexually frustrated by a teenaged wife. The film was condemned by the Legion of Decency and did not air long. He also played the lead in Bombers B-52, but most of his film work was in supporting roles.
He co-starred in dozens of films from the late 1950s to the early 1970s, such as Fear Strikes Out and Time Limit. The latter picture was Malden's only directing credit of a film, but when Delmer Daves was taken ill during the shooting of The Hanging Tree, Malden assumed direction of the movie for two weeks. He also starred in Pollyanna, One-Eyed Jacks , Birdman of Alcatraz, Gypsy, How the West Was Won, The Cincinnati Kid, and Patton, in which he portrayed General Omar Bradley.
Malden's wife, Mona, graduated from Roosevelt High School in Emporia, Kansas, where she attended Kansas State Teachers College, now Emporia State University. He first visited the campus with her in 1959 and was impressed by the ESU Summer Theatre. He returned there in the summer of 1964 to teach, working with the actors in the company. Upon leaving, he gave his honorarium to establish the Karl Malden Theater Scholarship at ESU, still awarded there today.
In 1963, Malden was a member of the jury at the 13th Berlin International Film Festival.
Television work
''The Streets of San Francisco'' (1972–1977)
In 1972, producer Quinn Martin gave Malden the role of 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. Michael Douglas played Lt. Stone's young partner, Inspector Steve Keller.Malden's character Stone was a widowed cop with more than 20 years of experience, who is paired with Keller, a recently graduated officer. During its first season, The Streets of San Francisco was a ratings winner among many other 1970s crime dramas. For his work as Lt. Stone, Malden was nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series four times between 1974 and 1977, though he never won. After two episodes in the fifth season, Douglas left the show to act in movies; Lt. Stone's new partner was Inspector Dan Robbins, played by Richard Hatch. The show took a ratings nosedive after being rescheduled against another Quinn Martin series on CBS, Barnaby Jones, and ABC cancelled the series after five seasons and 120 episodes.