Karl Malden Biography

Karl Malden (born as Mladen Sekulovich in Chicago, Illinois on March 22, 1912) is an American actor, known for his bulbous nose and expansive manner who played Lt. Mike Stone on The Streets of San Francisco.

Malden is the son of a Serbian father and a Czech mother. The Sekulovich family roots trace back to the city of Bileća in Herzegovina. At the age of five, Karl and his family moved to Gary, Indiana, where he grew up, after which he moved to New York City. He first appeared as an actor on Broadway in 1937, then did some radio work, before becoming a movie character actor in 1940. His acting career was interrupted by World War II and Malden served as a noncommissioned officer the US 8th Air Force.
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Among the many films Malden has acted in are A Streetcar Named Desire (1951), On the Waterfront (1954), Pollyanna (1960), Birdman of Alcatraz (1962), How the West Was Won (1962), and Patton (1970) (playing Gen Omar Bradley). He also starred in the television movie The Hijacking of the Achille Lauro (1989) (as wheelchair-bound senior citizen Leon Klinghoffer).

Malden's big break came in 1972 when he was given the lead role in the popular crime drama, The Streets of San Francisco, where he played veteran widowed police officer, Lt. Mike Stone. Stone, a seasoned officer with more than 20 years experience in the business, works with a plainclothes detective, Inspector Steve Keller (played by a young Michael Douglas). Through this program, he became a household name to millions of people, after 25 years of his movie work. He was nominated for an Emmy twice in 1976 and 1977 for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series and he was also nominated for a Golden Globe in 1976, but didn't win. In 1977, just 1 year after the series' co-star (Michael Douglas) had left the show to produce the movie One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, the series was cancelled.

He tried getting another hit series, Skag, but unlike his role on Streets, it was less successful and was cancelled in 1980. In 1987, he also tried hosting the popular mystery series, Unsolved Mysteries, but lost the part to Robert Stack.

He famously delivered the line "Don't leave home without it!" in a series of US television commercials for American Express in the 1970s and 1980s.

Karl Malden won the 1951 Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for A Streetcar Named Desire and was nominated in 1954 for his supporting tole in On the Waterfront. Karl Malden is a past president of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. In October of 2003, Malden was named the 40th recipient of the Screen Actors Guild's Life Achievement Award for career achievement and humanitarian accomplishment.

Karl Malden inspired the newsgroup alt.fan.karl-malden.nose.

Malden has been married to Mona Graham since December 18, 1938. Their marriage is the second longest in Hollywood history. Bob Hope's sixty-nine year marriage to Dolores Reade, which lasted from February 19, 1934 until his death on July 27, 2003, is the longest.

KARL MALDEN PICTURES

KARL MALDEN BIOGRAPHY