“Boys, this is my church. And if you don’t think Christ is down here on the waterfront, you’ve got another guess coming.”
Karl Malden has passed away at the age of 97. Malden won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for 1951′s A Streetcar Named Desire, but I liked him best as the dockyard priest, Fr. Barry, in On the Waterfront. Both films (as well as Baby Doll) were directed by Elia Kazan, whom Malden knew from his early days on Broadway. Malden was instantly recognizable for his bulbous nose, but he had a kind face and a gentle manner. His talent is inarguable. Malden also will be remembered by many for his television show, Streets of San Francisco (co-starring Michael Douglas), as well as AmEx commercials. Besides his contributions to film and television, Malden’s achievements include service in World War II, a five-year stint as president of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, committee work for the US Post Office, and, perhaps most impressively, a 70 year marriage. Though any passing is marked by grief, Malden lived for nearly a century, was married to one woman for more than two/thirds of that time, and appeared in some of the most important and well-loved movies of the time (besides the Kazan movies, some others are Ruby Gentry, Hitchcock’s I Confess, Fear Strikes Out, Pollyanna, One-Eyed Jacks, Birdman of Alcatraz, How the West Was Won, Gypsy, The Cincinnatti Kid, and Patton). My mom would call that “a good run.”
*No posts for a month! June flew by because of unavoidable work obligations and the like. The Divorcee has been sitting by my DVD player just begging to be watched, and will be soon. Incidentally, I did get a chance to watch Spaced. I may be 10 years too late to the party, but how genius was that show? I’m obsessed.
