Rest in Peace, Karl Malden

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