Karl Malden

I just heard that old Karl had passed away-I remember when he was in The Streets of San Francisco with Michael Douglas and even the old American Express commercials-he was a pretty good actor.

If someone had asked me, I would have assumed he had been dead for some time. I guess being 97 causes a guy to slow up some. Competent although not compelling supporting actor type, Malden was memorable for that nose that looked like a bran muffin and an earnest intensity that he brought to most roles. He is probably best known for his roles in On the Waterfront and Patton, although folks of my generation will remember him playing the mentor cop to young Michael Douglas in Streets of San Francisco. He was no threat to make anyone forget Nicholson, Brando, or Scott, but he was reliable and professional in his work.

Dependable journeyman actor on stage screen and television for 50 years. Famous for his appearances in a couple of Marlon Brando's earliest successes, Streetcar Named Desire and On The Waterfront, he had a solid supporting career in film and a good run on television as the elder mentor cop to Michael Douglas in The Streets of San Francisco. He also did a long running series of ads for American Express “Don’t leave home without it”. Farewell Karl, presumably he can leave his Amex card at home this time.

Outside of TV and movies, I didn't know him, never met him, never corresponded with him, he never called or visited. Not even a stinking card! Like everyone else on this list (including Mark Fydrich, who I have met), there is no void in my life because they died, because there was nothing to take away. Let the friends, families and people who benefited from associating with him do the mourning. It's the tragedies...the sudden deaths of people who were supposed to have so much more time... that make me stop and think. Did Karl entertain me? Yah, sure, he did a great job and, like everyone else on this list, if I ever get the urge to revisit him for the only thing I knew him for, there's TV, movies and sites like youtube. In the olden days, I wouldn't even make the trip to the cemetery to stand over his grave. In terms of who really matters in your life, with some exceptions, it's the people who you know and the people who know you. While we're on the subject...and I promise this will... Read more

Look. .. Malden was a solid (and dated) character actor. Serious film buffs know him - always wearing that hat and being a solid stock character in those B+W dramas. (Check him out in Hitchcock's "I Confess" for a typical performance as a cop.) Malden's career was solid- an Oscar-award winner, no less. . .but to be honest, he's going to rate very low in the 2009 dead-celebrity give-a-shite-o-meter. . .he just doesn't resonate outside of film fans. Still, this rating does not diminish his body of work. If you were filming a stock B+W film in that day and age, there was probably a job for Malden somewhere in your cast. . .

Malden's career was before my time, and I'm not enough of a film geek to have really gotten into any of his classic films. Congratulations to him for living a long life, and staying married for over seventy years.