Oscar Winner Karl Malden Dies

Los Angeles – Karl Malden, the acting great who formed the Waterfront with Marlon Brando and patrolled The Streets of San Francisco with Michael Douglas, died today at 97.

Malden anesthetized abroad from accustomed causes at his home in the Brentwood area of Los Angeles, his ancestors announced.

While Gen Xers may apperceive Malden best as the guy who warned us not to leave home after an American Express agenda in a alternation of 1980s TV commercials, he was one of the best admired stars in Tinseltown.

Known for his tough-guy persona and agee nose, Malden rose through the Hollywood ranks with adolescent Method man Brando, acceptable a Acknowledging Amateur Oscar as best associate Mitch to the latter's Stanley Kowalski in 1951's A Streetcar Alleged Desire.

Malden was nominated afresh in the aforementioned class three years after for arena a priest who abiding Brando's Terry Malloy to affirm adjoin a mob-backed abutment bang-up in Elia Kazan's On the Waterfront. (Coincidentally, Brando additionally died on July 1, bristles years ago.)

Other notable cine credits accommodate Baby Doll (1956), Fear Strikes Out (1957), Pollyanna (1960), Birdman of Alcatraz (1962), Gypsy (1962), How the West Was Won (1962), The Cincinnatti Kid (1965) and Patton, arena Gen. Omar Bradley adverse Oscar champ George C. Scott.

Malden showed Douglas the ropes as Lt. Mike Stone on the hit '70s TV abomination alternation The Streets of San Francisco, earning four Emmy nominations. He eventually won an Emmy for his acknowledging role in the 1984 TV cine Fatal Vision.

In 2003, the Screen Actors Guild presented Malden with its Lifetime Achievement Award, while the U.S. House of Representatives alike accustomed a Los Angeles column appointment to be alleged in his honor.

Last month, at his own AFI tribute (to which Malden contributed a video salute), Douglas hailed the man he alleged "my accurate mentor."

"It was Karl added than anyone who got me to accept that an amateur is aloof one allotment of a accomplished aggregation that makes a TV alternation or a cine work. And acknowledgment to him, I abstruse about the dichotomy of continuing abandoned in a ability area one charge collaborate.

"For 104 episodes of Streets of San Francisco Karl Malden was a caring, absolute and acceptable abecedary who i can never accord for all he has done for me...And Karl apperceive this—you accomplished your adopted son well."

And in a account today, Douglas alleged Malden "a abundant actor, ancestor and husband," adding, "I admired and admired him deeply."

Malden's survivors include his wife, Nona, and daughters Mila and Cara.

(Originally appear July 1, 2009, at 12:38 p.m. PT)

··· THEY SAID WHAT? Get today's best commented belief now at www.eonline.com