Karl Malden (born Mladen George Sekulovich; March 22, 1912 – July 1, 2009) 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 1946-7. 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 (1954), for which he received a second Best Supporting Oscar nomination.
He also played in high-profile Hollywood films such as I Confess (1953), Baby Doll (1956), The Hanging Tree (1959), Pollyanna (1960), One-Eyed Jacks (1961), How the West Was Won (1962), Gypsy (1962), Cheyenne Autumn (1964), Birdman of Alcatraz (1964) and Patton (1970). 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 (1886–1975) worked in the steel mills and as a milkman, and his mother, Minnie () Sekulovich (March 22, 1892 – July 15, 1995), was a Czech seamstress and actress. The Sekulovich family's roots trace back to Podosoje near Bileća, 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.
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 (according to his autobiography, Malden broke his nose twice while playing, 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. 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.