Karl Malden (Chicago, Illinois, USA, March 22, 1912 - Brentwood, Los Angeles, California, USA, July 1, 2009)
Karl Malden was born as Mladen George Sekulović in 1912 in Chicago to a Czech mother named Minnie and father, Petar, who was from Bileća (Bosnia and Herzegovina) but who moved to America in search of work. Upon finishing high school in 1931 in the small town of Gary, Indiana, he started college in Arkansas where he hoped to get a sport scholarship. However, he did not get it because he refused to play any other sport than basketball, so he returned to Gary and spent three years working at the local steel factory. In 1934, he decided he wanted more than that and started to take acting classes in Chicago. Soon afterward, he moved to New York, where he joined a group of actors and directors gathered around the Group Theater. He had his acting debut on Broadway in 1937, where the young director Elia Kazan noticed him. The two of them collaborated on theatre plays All My Sons by Arthur Miller and A Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams. After serving in the Air Force during WW II, he returned to acting and moved on to film. His first credited film role was in They Knew What They Wanted (1940). After several small roles, he played in the film adaptation of Williams’ A Streetcar Named Desire, also directed by Elia Kazan. The film was made in 1951 and Karl won an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor a year later. He was nominated for the same award two years later for his role in On the Waterfront (1954), again directed by Elia Kazan. His other important films from this period are Ruby Gentry (1952) by King Vidor, I Confess (1953) by Alfred Hitchcock, Take the High Ground! (1953) by Richard Brooks, Baby Doll (1956) by Elia Kazan, The Hanging Tree (1959) by Delmer Daves, One-Eyed Jacks (1961) by Marlon Brando, All Fall Down (1962) and Birdman of Alcatraz (1962) by John Frankenheimer, omnibus How the West Was Won (1962), Dead Ringer (1964) by Paul Henreid and Cheyenne Autumn (1964) in which he worked with John Ford for the last time. From the mid-1960’s until the mid-1970s he continued to work in film and had smaller parts. Important films from that period are Patton (1970) by Franklin James Schaffner and his collaboration with Dario Argento in Il gatto a nove code (1971). In 1972, he started to play the role of the detective Mike Stone in the TV series The Streets of San Francisco, playing opposite Michael Douglas. It was a hugely popular show and Malden starred in five seasons (1972 - 1977). Afterwards he returned to film and briefly starred in the TV series Skag (1980). He made two TV films and then starred in Goran Paskaljević’s Twilight Time (Suton, 1982) in that way paying hommage to his father and his home country (the hero’s last name in the film is his father’s last name, Sekulović, and he plays a man who has returned to Croatia after having spent years in America). He acted in eleven more films and the film sequel to the TV The Streets of San Francisco, the TV film Back to the Streets of San Francisco (1992) in which he played Mike Stone again. In 1993, he stopped acting and thereafter appeared in just one episode of the TV series The West Wing (2000). In 1957, he directed the film Time Limit. Forty years later, he published his autobiography When Do I Start?: A Memoir, co-written with his daughter Carla Malden.
Filmography:
They've Taken Our Children: The Chowchilla Kidnapping (1993)
Back to the Streets of San Francisco (1992)
Absolute Strangers (1991)
Call Me Anna (1990) (TV)
The Hijacking of the Achille Lauro (1989)
My Father, My Son (1988) (TV)
Nuts (1987)
Billy Galvin (1986)
Alice in Wonderland (1985)
Fatal Vision (1984)
With Intent to Kill (1984)
The Sting II (1983)
Twilight Time (Suton, 1982)
Miracle on Ice (1981)
Word of Honor (1981)
Meteor (1979)
Beyond the Poseidon Adventure (1979)
Captains Courageous (1977)
The Streets of San Francisco Detective Lt. Mike Stone (120 episodes, 1972-1977)
Un verano para matar (1972)
Wild Rovers (1971)
Il gatto a nove code (1971)
Patton (1970)
Hot Millions (1968)
Blue (1968)
Billion Dollar Brain (1967)
The Adventures of Bullwhip Griffin (1967)
Hotel (1967)
Murderers' Row (1966)
Nevada Smith (1966)
The Cincinnati Kid (1965)
Cheyenne Autumn (1964)
Dead Ringer (1964)
Come Fly with Me (1963)
How the West Was Won (1962)
Gypsy (1962)
Birdman of Alcatraz (1962)
All Fall Down (1962)
Parrish (1961)
One-Eyed Jacks (1961)
The Great Impostor (1961)
Pollyanna (1960)
The Hanging Tree (1959)
Bombers B-52 (1957)
Time Limit (1957) (unaccredited)
Fear Strikes Out (1957)
Baby Doll (1956)
On the Waterfront (1954)
Phantom of the Rue Morgue (1954)
Take the High Ground! (1953)
I Confess (1953)
Ruby Gentry (1952)
Operation Secret (1952)
Diplomatic Courier (1952)
The Sellout (1952)
A Streetcar Named Desire (1951)
Halls of Montezuma (1950)
Where the Sidewalk Ends (1950)
The Gunfighter (1950)
Kiss of Death (1947)
Boomerang! (1947) (unaccredited)
13 Rue Madeleine (1947) (unaccredited)
Winged Victory (1944)
They Knew What They Wanted (1940)
Charlie Chan at the Opera (1936) (unaccredited)