Karl Malden

American actor, commercial pitchman, writer, and president of the Motion Picture Academy. Malden made a film career playing the Everyman. The versatile actor played priests to gangsters, heroes to heavies, ordinary, decent men just trying to survive in the world. Struggling for work in the theater in the late '30s, Malden's career took off in the '40s with film roles directed by friend Elia Kazan. After playing in the original stage company of "A Streetcar Named Desire," Malden landed the role on film. He received the Best Supporting Actor Oscar for the role with his co-star Vivian Leigh in 1952. He wrote his autobiography with his screenwriter daughter, Carla, "When Do I Start" published by Simon and Schuster November 1997. As president of the Motion Picture Academy, he came under heat by the motion picture community for the awarding of Elia Kazan, a controversial figure in his role in the Hollywood black-list, a lifetime Academy award in the ceremony of 1999.

Malden's father, Petar Sekulovich, emigrated to America stopping at Ellis Island on 18 April 1906. The Serbian immigrant wanted to live in San Francisco but ended up in the Serbian community of Chicago. Malden was born in Chicago but his father moved the family to Gary, Indiana when he was five-years-old. His father supported the family for 38 years driving the milk wagon in town. Raised speaking no English, Malden found school in Gary frustrating and difficult. He could not understand what English words meant nor how to spell words. Malden's love for the theater stemmed from his father's dedication to staging Serbian productions in Gary, Indiana. As a teen, Malden appeared as a pasha in many of his father's stage plays.

In high school, he excelled at basketball, winning the championship game. He played the lead in his senior class play, Shaw's "Arms and the Man.