Oscar-winning actor Karl Malden has died in Los Angeles at age 97, his agent has said.
Oscar-winning actor Karl Malden dies aged 97
Malden was best known for roles in films such as A Streetcar Named Desire, On the Waterfront and Patton.
But it was decades later when he gained a new legion of fans in the 70s TV series The Streets of San Francisco, in which he played widowed cop Lieutenant Mike Stone opposite co-star Michael Douglas's rookie Inspector Steve Keller.
Born Mladen George Sekulovich to parents of Czech and Serbian origins in Gary, Indiana, he was famous for his trademark bulbous nose - a result of breaking it twice in his youth.
At the age of 22, he changed his name to Karl Malden but often found ways of slipping in his real name Sekulovich in lines in the films and TV shows he appeared in.
Having worked in the steel mills in Gary, he went on to study drama and eventually met his future wife Mona Greenberg, marrying her in December 1938. They had one of the longest marriages in Hollywood.
After serving with the US Army during World War II, Malden starred in A Streetcar Named Desire in 1951, which won him a Best Supporting Actor Oscar, before playing a priest in On the Waterfront three years later.
In 1972 he was approached about starring in The Streets of San Francisco, initially to be a made-for-TV movie but which went on to become a hit show.
Malden also starred in a series of ads for American Express travellers cheques in which he delivered the famous line "Don't leave home without them!".