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Karl Malden

Personal Profile

Karl Malden
  • Birth Name:
    Mladen George Sekulovich
  • Date of Birth:
    March 22, 1912
  • Zodiac Sign:
    Aries
  • Place of Birth:
    Chicago, Illinois, USA
  • Place of Death:
    Brentwood, Los Angeles, California, USA
  • Date of Death:
    July 1, 2009
  • Cause of Death:
    Natural causes
  • Height:
    6' 0½"
  • Sex:
    Male
  • Nationality:
    American

Family

Karl Malden
  • Spouse:
    Mona Greenberg
  • Daughter:
    Mila Malden, Carla Malden

Career

Karl Malden

Trivia

Karl Malden
  • In 1971, he accepted the Oscar for "Best Director" on behalf of Franklin J. Schaffner, who wasn't present at the awards ceremony
  • 2008 marks the Maldens' 70th wedding anniversary making theirs the third longest marriage in Hollywood history surpassing the 69 years of Bob Hope and Dolores Hope (1934 until his death in 2003) and just behind Norman Lloyd and Peggy Lloyd, who were married in 1936. Art Linkletter and Lois Foerster hold the record with 73 years (1935).
  • Was a close friend of The Magnificent Seven (1960) star Brad Dexter. who was also of Serbian descent.
  • President of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences from 1989 to 1992.
  • Member of the jury at the Berlin International Film Festival in 1963.
  • Received both of his Oscar-nominations for movies also starring Marlon Brando.
  • Raised in the same city as Michael Jackson.
  • Of Serbian and Czechoslovakian descent.
  • In 2001, he received an honorary degree, Doctor of Humane Letters, from Valparaiso University.
  • He always practised meticulous preparation, studying a script carefully long before he stepped into the role.

Quotes

Karl Malden
  • "I never believed that politics had a place in art, that is to say, not in artistic relationships."
  • "Zera couldn't stand seeing a guy, like Kazan, do what he did, and therefore, he even took it out on me and Mona. For a couple of years, this is what happened in New York, at that time, it split people who became close."
  • "And then they talk to you about frustration. The first play I was in, Golden Boy, from that play, John Garfield, went to Hollywood, became a big star. Three years went by, and I did another play with another handsome actor, Gregory Peck, who left that play and went to Hollywood, became a big star, and here I am, plowing away, working away, this is years going by."
  • "If you look in those mills, and you do it long enough, you never forget that, that's there to stay because you feel you've being used for, not for what you have here, but what you have in your body, in your muscle. It's demeaning in a way because you're a human being."
  • "During that McCarthy period, I was a frightened young man. I was working, but I was frightened."
  • "They asked me how much money I had, and I told them I had saved my every dime from working in the mills, which was about $300. Well, they told me the school tuition for a year was $900. But the man in charge of the school made me an offer I'll never forget it. He asked me if I was a gambler. He said if I paid the $300, he would take me on and if I worked hard and proved I had talent, somehow he'd find the rest of the tuition money for me."
  • "Working in the mills was hard work, but it was good money, I started out as a laborer making $3.49 a day and later, got moved to an even harder position as a bricklayer that had better pay for $5 a day. And for three long and hard years I wondered to myself if this was where I was going to end up for the rest of my life. Finally, I decided I couldn't stay."
  • " I don't go to the movies. There's nothing I want to see. My wife will go out with friends to see a movie now and then, but there's nothing I want to see."
  • "I never thought I was salable. I learned in my second year of drama school that I was not a leading man -- I was a character actor. So I thought, I'd better be the best character actor around."
  • "I have an open-hearth face."
View all Quotes: Karl Malden

Biography

Karl Malden
Last Updated: Monday, August 31, 2009

Karl MaldenBorn Mladen Sekulovich, he always regretted that in order to become an actor, he had to change his name. Since he was proud of his heritage, when he starred in a movie or on TV, he insisted that a character carry his family name: In On the Waterfront (1954), Fred Gwynne's character was named "Sekulovich". Graduated from Emerson High School in Gary, Indiana, in 1931, with high grades. His father, Petar Sekulovich, worked in the steel mills and as a milkman, his mother, Minnie Sekulovich, was a seamstress. His family had lived longer lives than their son, Karl: his father, Petar Sekulovich, died at age 96, in 1976, two decades later, his mother, Minnie Sekulovich, died at age 104, in 1996.

After he graduated from high school at the top of his class, he briefly left Gary, Indiana, to move to Arkansas, where he'd hoped to get a college athletics scholarship. The college turned him down due to his refusal to play football, other than basketball, hence, he returned to his hometown of Gary, Indiana. On December 12, 2008, just six days before his 70th wedding anniversary, Malden was inducted into the Wall of Legends, at St. Sava Church in San Gabriel, California, where Milan Opacich paid tribute to a wonderful man who was a great benefactor of a Catholic church.

His wife graduated from Roosevelt High School in Emporia, Kansas, where she attended Kansas State Teachers College (now Emporia St. University). He and Mona visited the campus in 1959, and was impressed by the ESU Summer Theatre. He returned in the summer of 1964, to teach, working with the actors in the company. Prior to leaving, he gave his honorarium to established the Karl Malden Scholarship, which is still given today.

 

 

Filmography

Karl Malden

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