A durable character actor with a big schnozz and a heart to match died today in Los Angeles. Karl Malden was 97, and leaves a tremendous legacy of stage, film and small-screen work.

Classic film buffs remember him as the tough-talking priest in On the Waterfront, as likeable General Omar Bradley in Patton, and of course as Stanley's best friend Mitch in A Streetcar Named Desire -- a role he originated on Broadway, and which brought him an Oscar as Best Supporting Actor. (TV viewers may know him best as the savvy cop in the successful crime show Streets of San Francisco, in which he costarred with a young Michael Douglas. And even more people will remember him as the pitchman for American Express, warning unwary travelers: "Don't leave home without it."

Born to a Serbian immigrant family in Gary, Indiana, on March 22, 1912, he started his formal training as a stage actor in Chicago. That's where he met his actress wife, Mona Greenberg. They married in 1938, and their union is one of the longest and strongest in Hollywood history.

Malden's real name was Mladen Sekulovich, and even though he changed it to Karl Malden when he was 22, he would find ways to say "Sekulovich" on screen -- in a list of prisoners in Birdman of Alcatraz, or as the name of a soldier helping him out in Patton. I loved catching those little references.

His nose was broken twice when he played sports as a kid. He didn't have a handsome, leading man's kind of face, but he brought heart and depth to every role. Here's the LA Times obit.

Malden in 2005, by Frazer Harrison/Getty Images

Film historians agree that 1939 was the greatest single year for classic movies in all of Hollywood's Golden Age.

Turner Classic Movies celebrates that amazing year this month, running classics from 1939 every Thursday night in July. They kick it off with the children's classic, The Wizard Of Oz, on July 2, and a rerun of a 1990 documentary on the film.

In addition to Wizard, each of the ten films nominated for Best Picture that year will be featured:
Gone With the Wind (the winning film, on July 30)
Dark Victory (July 23)
Goodbye, Mr. Chips (July 23)
Love Affair (July 30)
Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (July 23)
Ninotchka (July 2)
Of Mice and Men (July 23)
Stagecoach (July 9)
Wuthering Heights (July 30).

Also on July 2, TCM will premiere a new documentary, 1939, an all-new documentary narrated by actor/filmmaker Kenneth Branagh. Sounds fascinating - new interviews with film scholars/critics Leonard Maltin, Daniel Selznick and Molly Haskell, plus archival interviews with Claire Trevor, Douglas Fairbanks Jr., Francis Lederer, Maureen O'Hara, Ann Rutherford, George Cukor and Howard Hawks.

Here's an anniversary: Today, June 30, marks the 73rd anniversary of the publishing of Gone With the Wind, one of the most successful novels of all time. Came out in 1936.

Which of course, spawned one of the most successful films of all time. 1939's Gone With the Wind held its box office record for years (maybe still does, if you adjust the dollars for inflation), and wininng ten Academy Awards, the record at the time. (Bested by Ben Hur in 1959 with eleven Oscars).

Well, fiddle-dee-dee!

I'm actually praying for rain this weekend, because with the lineup on Turner Classic Movies, I'd love an excuse to stay indoors.

As the June salute to great directors continues, Friday brings us David Lean and Norman Jewison. I'm going for Dr. Zhivago at 1:30 Eastern, and Bridge on the River Kwai at 5:00 p.m. from Lean. Dessert will be Jewsion's Fiddler on the Roof at 1 a.m. Saturday. (I cried so hard when I saw this as a kid that a complete stranger sitting next to me patted me on the shoulder, and said, "Oh. honey don't cry. It's only a movie.")

Then Saturday is a complete Alfred Hitchcock festival, from Suspicion at 6 a.m. to The 39 Steps at 4:30 a.m. Sunday morning. I'll probably sleep through most of the Geroge Cukor movies Sunday, but I hope I can wake up in time for Born Yesterday at 6 p.m., and maybe My Fair Lady at 12:20 a.m. Monday morning.

It's a tough job, but someone's got to do it.

Back in the early days of Oscar, the field for Best Picture was crowded. From the dawn of the Academy Awards in 1932, there were eight, ten, even a dozen contenders for the top award -- until Oscar decided to be more selecttive. Staring in 1944, only five movies were nominated for the top prize.

Now, the Los Angeles Times reports that Oscar will go back to the future, and nominate ten films for the top slot each year.

Since the last movie to win against more than four competitors was the immortal Casablanca, I'd say next year's competitors will have big shoes to fill.

Oscar workshop/Getty Images

You know, I'm not sure if I got to pick my own guardian angel, my first choice would be Bette Davis, but it might be a lot of fun.

For the next 10 days at The Producer's Club in New York, theatergoers will have the chance to find out.

My Pal Bette was a hit at the Orlando fringe festival, and will be playing in the Big Apple. I wish I could go. I'd love to see what advice the chain-smoking diva of yesteryear has for a confused nine-year-old -- and how they manage to shoehorn Cher into the plotline as well. Sounds like a very good time, especially at $20 a ticket.

As Turner Classic Movies continues its salute to great directors in the month of June, one of my favorites is coming up Friday: Blake Edwards. Noon Eastern brings us Victor, Victoria, one of Edwards' wife Julie Andrews' best films, and the fabulously funny A Shot in the Dark, the first of the Pink Panther movies with the one, the only Peter Sellers as bumbling Inspector Clouseau.

Saturday brings a salute to Mervyn LeRoy, and my pick there has always been his take on the successful stage play The Bad Seed. Nice and creepy, with one of the most evil movie kids ever to grace the silver screen, at 10:15 p.m.

Sunday, it's Vincente Minnelli, with Father of the Bride at 8 p.m. and the sequel, Father's Little Dividend after.

Enjoy!

Turner Classic Movies has launched a social networking site - still in beta - for lovers of classic film and it looks like fun.

TCM's web site is generally outstanding, and I love their graphics. The new feature looks like a mashup of Ivy League collegiate imagery and the WPA art project, with a little Sheperd Fairey thrown in. Classic Film Fans Unite!

It looks like there's plenty of opportunity for users to comment. The site also seems well-organized and easy to navigate, even for the oldsters who must make up a goodly chunk of TCM's fan base.

The second in the series of ice cream commercials digitally inserting 30 Rock actress Jane Krakowski into classic movies has come out, and I have to say the second effort is more fun than the first.

It's King Kong, with the concept that Jane meets him through an online dating service, and the movie is their first date. It's a little lame, but still cute, with some genuinely funny lines.

And I liked it a lot better than the debut commercial, in which she found herself playing Scarlet in Gone With the Wind. It's a lot easier to accept them messing with the image of King Kong than Clark Gable. After all, King Kong was a fantasy to begin with. Clark Gable is a dead actor, and no one can ask his personal permission to appear in a commercial (unless the seance biz has gotten a whole lot better than it used to be).

Krakowski in New York earlier this year, by Joe Corrigan/Getty Images