Karl Malden

The Steel Mill and the Method

Mladen George Sekulovich was born in Chicago in 1912 and grew up amid the smoke of the steel mills in Gary, Indiana. His father was Serbian and his mother was Czech. That industrial environment of tough guys and dirty hands forged an actor who never needed studio lighting to dominate a scene.

Before reaching Broadway, he worked in the mines and steel mills of his hometown. But theater pulled him out of there. He changed his name because his original surname didn't fit on the marquee lights of the era. That's how Karl Malden was born.

Elia Kazan signed him to the Group Theatre in New York, where he began refining a technique that moved away from classical stage diction. Malden didn't have the marble jaw of the leading men of the 1940s. He brought a physical truthfulness that sometimes made his co-stars uncomfortable.

And then came mass recognition.

In 1951, he won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for A Streetcar Named Desire. His role as Mitch was the perfect counterpoint to the raw animalism of Marlon Brando. He made a secondary, somewhat pathetic character carry the emotional weight of the film's most tense scenes.

The Profile That Broke the Mold

His nose was broken twice playing football in high school. He never had it fixed. That feature became his ticket to the raw reality of the streets and a working tool that casting directors desperately sought. In 1954, he worked with Kazan again on On the Waterfront and earned another Oscar nomination.

He played Father Barry with a force that overshadowed the leads in several stretches of the film. Malden understood that movies weren't about looking handsome but about making you seem like you'd spent your whole life living in that harbor neighborhood. That made him the most reliable supporting actor in the industry.

He took on all kinds of productions over the following decades. In 1962, he appeared in How the West Was Won, and in 1970 he played General Omar Bradley in Patton. His ability to hold his own opposite volcanic actors like George C. Scott kept him at the forefront without him ever needing to top the billing.

Television came calling when many thought his time had passed.

Between 1972 and 1977, he starred in The Streets of San Francisco. That ABC series brought him a global fame that the movies had doled out to him sparingly. He played Lieutenant Mike Stone and became the mentor of a very young Michael Douglas, with whom he maintained a real friendship off the set until the end of his days.

Business and Silence in Brentwood

Malden was more than just a man in front of the camera. In 1989, he took over as president of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in Hollywood. He held the post until 1992 and focused on cleaning up the institution and improving transparency in Oscar voting. He wasn't chasing red carpet glitter, but he did want order in the offices.

He earned 50,000 dollars per episode during the peak years of his crime series. It was a record figure for an actor of his generation who came from serious theater. But he never squandered the money on eccentricities or made headlines with tabloid scandals.

And her bet on sobriety paid off.

His final professional appearance came in 2000 in the series The West Wing. He played Father Cavanaugh in an episode titled Take out the Trash Day. He died of natural causes at his Brentwood home on July 1, 2009, at the age of 97. His marriage to Mona Greenberg lasted exactly 70 years.