Mladen George Sekulovich, known as Karl Malden, was an American stage, movie, and television actor. For Disney, he portrayed Reverend Paul Ford in Pollyanna and Judge Higgins in The Adventures of Bullwhip Griffin.
Malden was born to Slavic immigrants in Chicago and spent his childhood in Gary, Indiana. He attended the Emerson School for Visual and Performing Arts and later DePaul University. Following his graduation, Malden traveled to New York City where he performed on stage as well as in some radio dramas before his career was interrupted by World War II. Enlisting in the air force. Malden served as a noncommissioned officer and was discharged in 1946. Returning to his stage career, he would gain acclaim being a part of the original casts of All My Sons and A Streetcar Named Desire. He would recreate his role in Streetcar for the 1951 film adaptation where he won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor.
He continued his film success throughout the 1950s to the 1970s with titles, such as On the Waterfront, Baby Doll, The Hanging Tree, Birdman of Alcatraz, Gypsy (1962), How the West Was Won, Patton, and Meteor. However, his career breathed in 1972 new life when he took on the lead role of Lt. Mike Stone in the television crime drama The Streets of San Francisco. Following the show's end in 1977, Malden appeared in a number of television films, such as Miracle on Ice, Fatal Vision, Alice in Wonderland (1985), and The Hijacking of the Achille Lauro. He also served as president of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences from 1989 to 1992.
He retired from acting after 2000 and struggled with his health in his final years until his death on July 1, 2009 at his home in Los Angeles.
Roles[]
(Pollyanna)
(The Adventures of Bullwhip Griffin)
