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Thursday March 18, 2010

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Remembering Karl Malden – 1912 to 2009

Posted by: James Sherlock for 3AW.com.au | 2 July, 2009 - 2:57 PM
Karl Malden.

As Hollywood and the entertainment world continues to mourn the passing of actress Farrah Fawcett, character actor and Johnny Carson sidekick Ed McMahon and singing sensation Michael Jackson, the dark clouds continue to gather over the entertainment capital with the death of stage and screen star Karl Malden at the age of 97.

Born Mladen Sekulovich to a Czech mother and a Serbian father in Chicago on 22 March, 1912, only three weeks before the Titanic went down, Karl Malden went on to become a major Hollywood fixture for six decades.   

A member of Lee Strasberg’s famed Actors Studio, he was one of Hollywood’s most respected and gifted actors of his generation Karl Malden remained fiercely loyal to his craft from his beginnings on the stage in 1937 under the direction of legendary director Elia Kazan, followed by his screen debut in the romantic drama They Knew What They Wanted in 1940 opposite Carole Lombard and Charles Laughton.

He went on to co-star and star in over 70 TV and big screen roles and became a household name to a whole new generation with his starring role in the hit 1970’s TV series The Streets of San Francisco opposite Michael Douglas, and again with his 21 year run of American Express commercials which continued his popularity.

For the three decades before becoming one of the small screens favourite cops and credit card representatives to the fading flower power and baby boomer audience he had achieved legendary status on the big screen alongside such greats as Marlon Brando, Montgomery Clift, Bette Davis, Burt Lancaster, Richard Widmark, Gary Cooper, Charlton Heston and Steve McQueen, to name just a few.

In 1951, under the direction of his friend Elia Kazan, Malden took home the coveted Best Supporting Actor Academy award for his outstanding, scene stealing  performance in Tennessee Williams’ searing screen adaptation of A Streetcar Named Desire, sharing the screen with equal vigor and power opposite Vivien Leigh, Marlon Brando and Kim Hunter, and again for Kazan with Brando as Father Barry in the 1954 classic On The Waterfront, for which he was nominated a second time for the Academy award.   

From 1988 to 1992 he served as President of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and made his final screen appearance in an episode of The West Wing in 2000.

“There’s no excuse, you must be 100% loyal and faithful to your character and to your craft, you must focus completely, otherwise you are cheating the audience and I cannot do that. You must have dignity and respect for your audience otherwise you are letting them down and I won’t do that,” he once told me, no matter how big or small the part.

The passing of Karl Malden brings closer the end of a whole generation of screen performer that no longer exists in Hollywood today, when a classic movie was a weekly occurrence, and the best of his work can be experienced through DVD, for those again who shared his career throughout the decades, and now for the new generation who want to experience his work for the first time.

His honesty, loyalty, respect  and determination is unequalled, and listed below is a selection of classic films available on DVD that are a fitting tribute to a dedicated and talented individual:  

1. A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE.

2. ON THE WATERFRONT.

3. PATTON.

4. I, CONFESS.

5. BIRDMAN OF ALCATRAZ.

6. HOW THE WEST WAS WON.

7. THE CINCINNATI KID.

8. GYPSY.

9. NEVADA SMITH.

10. FEAR STRIKES OUT.

James Sherlock.

Blog comments Your Say

  • Great actor,i was watching Hotel a couple of days before he died,what a wonderful job he did as the hotel theif.

    Greg Wednesday 15 July, 2009 - 4:50 AM

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