The venerable actor is dead. Malden became famous later for his American Express commercials, but was a huge screen presence in the movie realm, going tit-for-tat with George C. Scott as General Omar Bradley, a performance nearly as cherished as Scott’s Patton. A former Indiana steel-mill worker (how many actors can boast that type of background?), Malden was also featured in A Streetcar Named Desire. His resume is a Hollywood checklist of greatness – Fear Strikes Out, On The Waterfront, Birdman of Alcatraz, How The West Was Won, The Cincinnati Kid, Nevada Smith and a hundred episode run as a detective in The Streets of San Francisco. He continued to work until 2000, showing up in an episode of The West Wing.
Other than Patton, my personal Malden favorite – Wild Rovers as the gritty ranch owner. Malden as his scene-chewing best in a by-the-books Western with William Holden and an out-gunned Ryan O’Neal. A good ranching antitode to Brokeback Mountain.
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Don’t forget his role in “Gypsy.” If you want an example of his range, check that movie out.
He’ll always be walkin’ the street of San Francisco for me. RIP, Mr. Malden.
One of the “Greats.” He’ll be missed.
The Cincinnati Kid, great movie – “rounders” wayyyyy before poker was cool – and what a cast. The extended sequence where Steve McQueen goes to meet Tuesday Weld’s family is one of the best understated drama and tension I’ve ever seen, and Malden is perfect as the seen-it-all, oft-cuckolded mentor.
He might’ve made a good marriage counselor. He and his wife were married for a bit over 70 years!
What a week. Harve Presnell died today too. The grandfather in Fargo. He was good.
That makes 9 now since and including David Carradine.
Ten if you include Fred Travalena. Eleven for Gale Storm. I’ll omit the obligatory Nigel Tuffnel remark.
I may have missed some somewhere. I was counting those two.
Always liked Karl, even if he only made one Science Fiction movie (“Meteor”)
I guess the number is nine then. I hear Cronkite is in bad shape.
Cronkite is waiting to be escorted to his final reward by hundreds of thousands of the South Vietnamese dead.
I remember him giving an interview where he said that the hardest scene he had to film was the scene in On The Waterfront where he gave a speech and at the end of it, someone throws a beer bottle that hits him in the head.
He said the reason it was so hard was that he had to give the speech knowing that he was about to get hit in the head with a glass bottle, but pretending that he didn’t know it was coming. Now that’s acting, my friends.
Malden was great in ‘I, Confess’. Put it on your list if you haven’t seen it. I remember when John C. Reilly was cast in Streetcar and I said to myself, “This guy will make a great Mitch!” He was cast as Stanley though.
Fred Travalena and Gale Storm died too? It’s like the Grim Reaper’s holding a garage sale…
Gale Storm was the first woman who ever aroused sexual feelings in me. It was long ago, and I was very young. In a song-and-dance number on (I think) the Perry Como Show.
I used to watch her on reruns of “The Gale Storm Show.” She was a ship’s cruise director. Sort of an early “Love Boat,” only not as blatantly in your face. She was a cutey though.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bjt-SI_HtyU
Gale serenading Craig Stevens (Peter Gunn).
Malden was married to the same woman for 70 years.
No wonder he didn’t win an Oscar.
Always loved those American Express Travelers Check,too…I can hear Karl now:”What will you do…what will you do?”
Great TV ad.
Don’t forget “One Eyed Jacks”,either…he and Brando made some fabulous films.
We posted an obituary over at Republibot, if anyone’s interested http://www.republibot.com/content/obituary-karl-malden-1912-2009
You can add Mollie Sugden to the list of the dearly departed. TV’s Mrs. Slocombe.