Karl Malden

What's WRONG? At CLUB DEAD, The bell tolls for Karl Malden Hoosier, Serb, sometimes the hero, sometime's the hero's best friend, dead at 97.

Mladen Sekulovich came of age in the close-knit Serbian community in Gary, Indiana. Handsome, strong and determined, he made a great impession on those who new him. Diversions came in two forms, sports and performing. His father was active in choirs and plays in their church, and young Mladen was encouraged to join in.

The early decades of the 20th Century were the glory days for Gary, when the steel mills meant opportunity and financial stability for the men who could handle the inferno. There was little doubt that Mladen would one day take his place in the mills, following in the footsteps of so many other first and second generation members of the immigrant families who had settled on the Indiana shore of Lake Michigan.

But after three years of the daily grind, his dream of an acting career finally broke through. Surpisingly, his father, who had encouraged such things within the church, felt such goings on were not proper fodder for a career. Undaunted, the young man made his way to Arkansas, enrolled in college. A name change to the more American-sounding "Karl Malden" followed, and within a few years, he was pounding the boards in New York. Broadway soon called, then after service in World War II, Hollywood.

So many movie classics bore his imprint: The Gunfighter, A Streetcar Named Desire, On the Waterfront, Baby Doll, Pollyanna, The Great Impostor, One-Eyed Jacks, Birdman of Alcatraz, How the West Was Won, Gypsy, Cheyenne Autumn, The Cincinnati Kid, Nevada Smith, Hotel, Patton, The Wild Rovers...

One of his best friends in New York had been Issr Danielovich, another Eastern European immigrant who became famous after changing his name to Kirk Douglas. When Karl's TV cop show "The Streets of San Francisco" was being cast, a young actor showed up to audition for the part of the young hotshot officer who provided the counterpoint to Malden's seasoned, experienced detective. "That's a Douglas chin," remarked Malden with a smile, recognizing the famous cleft. And so Michael Douglas got his big break. With solid performances, and the great scenery of the city, "The Streets of San Francisco" was a fixture on ABC for several seasons.

He remained humble and never forgot his working-class upbringing, nor his Serbian Orthodox heritage. His TV show "Skag" told of a Serbian man who raised a family while toiling in the steel mills. It was a critical sucess, if not a commercal one. And in most of his movies, there is a charater or reference to someone named "Sekulovich."

He was universally lauded and respected by his peers. He recieved several Academy Award nomitations, and won the 1952 Oscar as Best Supporting Actor for A Streetcar named Desire." In 1988, he was elected president of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, a title he held for five years. His characters were memorable, and always crafted with painstaking detail.

Then again, screw him, he's dead. Let's go look for crocodiles.

StevenK