By Dennis McLellan
12:17 PM PDT, July 1, 2009

Karl Malden, one of Hollywood's strongest and most versatile supporting actors, who won an Oscar playing his Broadway-originated role as Mitch in "A Streetcar Named Desire," died today. He was 97.

Malden starred in the 1970s TV series "The Streets of San Francisco" and was the longtime American Express traveler's-check spokesman, warning travelers to not leave home without it. He died of natural causes at his home in Brentwood, said his daughter Mila Doerner.

With his unglamorous mug -- he broke his bulbous nose twice playing sports as a teenager -- the former Indiana steel-mill worker realized early on the course his acting career would take.

"I was so incredibly lucky," Malden once told The Times. "I knew I wasn't a leading man. Take a look at this face." But, he vowed as a young man, he wasn't going to let his looks hamper his ambition to succeed as an actor.

In a movie career that flourished in the 1950s and '60s, Malden played a variety of roles in more than 50 films, including the sympathetic priest in "On the Waterfront," the resentful husband in "Baby Doll," the warden in "Birdman of Alcatraz," the outlaw-turned-sheriff in "One-Eyed Jacks," the pioneer patriarch in "How the West Was Won," Madame Rose's suitor in "Gypsy," the card dealer in "The Cincinnati Kid" and Gen. Omar Bradley in "Patton."

His varied performances established Malden, former Times film critic Charles Champlin once wrote, "as an Everyman, but one whose range moved easily up and down the levels of society and the IQ scale, from heroes to heavies and ordinary, decent guys just trying to get along."

Malden was a longtime holdout to television until he agreed to play Lt. Mike Stone on the ABC police drama "The Streets of San Francisco," with Michael Douglas. The series, which ran from 1972 to 1977, earned Malden four consecutive Emmy nominations as lead actor in a drama series.

When he finally won his sole Emmy, it was for outstanding supporting actor in a limited series or special, as a man who begins to suspect that his daughter was murdered by her husband in the fact-based 1984 miniseries "Fatal Vision."

Malden also starred in "Skag," a short-lived 1980 NBC dramatic series in which he played a Serbian family man and union foreman at a Pittsburgh steel mill.

But for all his movie and television roles, it was primarily the series of American Express traveler's-check commercials Malden made between 1973 and 1994 that gave him his greatest public recognition. (Even Johnny Carson, complete with fake proboscis, dark suit and short-brimmed fedora, spoofed Malden's sober-faced commercials on "The Tonight Show.")

"After 50 years of doing all those other things in the business, wherever I go, the one thing people will say to me is, 'Don't leave home without it,' " Malden said in 1989. "What am I going to say? It's kind of frustrating in a way, but at the same time, American Express has been very good to me, and it's given me independence. I don't have to jump at anything and everything that comes my way."

He was born Mladen Sekulovich in Chicago on March 22, 1912, the son of an immigrant mother from the nation that later became Czechoslovakia and a Serbian father, who delivered milk for 38 years.

Malden spoke little English until after his family moved from their Serbian enclave in Chicago to the steel-mill community of Gary, Ind., when he was 5.

Malden's father was a theater lover who staged Serbian plays in the church and in Serbian patriotic organizations in Gary. As a teenager, Malden played heavies -- usually Turks, complete with a big, black mustache -- in his father's productions.


Actress Mollie Sugden dies at 86
By Daily Mail Reporter

Last updated at 8:10 PM on 01st July 2009

The Are You Being Served? star passed away at the Royal Surrey Hospital in Guildford following a long illness with her twin sons, Robin and Simon Moore, at her bedside.

The Yorkshire-born star was renowned for playing battleaxes - with her most popular role as Mrs Slocombe in the long-running BBC sitcom.

Her agent Joan Reddin said last night: 'I represented her for more than 30 years and I was a very close friend as well. 'She had had a long illness and various problems but it was very quick in the end.

'Her twin boys were with her and she faded away. She was a lovely, lovely person and I never had any trouble with her. 'She was a great professional.'

The actress, who reprised the role in Grace and Favour, also starred as Mrs Hutchinson in The Liver Birds and was regarded as one of Britain's finest comedy performers. Her portrayal of overpowering and snooty women made her a household name, not least for her talent of bringing a humorous warmth to the most tyrannical of roles. Born in Keighley, West Yorkshire, in 1922, she attended the local grammar school and went on to study drama at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London - taking three major awards in one year.

Despite this promising start, success did not come quickly and she spent many years in repertory up and down the country. Her first job was with Oldham Coliseum Repertory Club.

It was in 1956, while she was working for Swansea Rep at the Grand Theatre, earning about 12 pounds a week, that she met her husband, fellow actor William Moore.

They married two years later, when she was 35 and he was 39. Their twin sons Robin and Simon were born six years later, just as Sugden was becoming a familiar face on television with hit programmes such as Hugh And I, Please Sir! and The Love Of Ada.

She quickly found her strength was in comedy and she was happiest in comedy dramas.

It was as the formidable Mrs Hutchinson in The Liver Birds that she started to show her true potential. It was a series that was so popular in the late 60s and early 70s that it was revived in the late 90s using the original cast. She was the star of many other comedies, including Come Back Mrs Noah, That's My Boy and My Husband And I, which she made with her husband.

But it was as the bossy sales lady Betty Slocombe in Are You Being Served? that she was best known. The long-running television comedy was such a hit that a feature film was made based on the series. She achieved celebrity status, particularly on television, and for a while enjoyed a change of direction in her career with her own slot on the consumer programme That's Life. Yet her tremendous success backfired in 1988 when ITV bosses decided not to use her in any more programmes.

One programme director at the time was quoted as saying: 'If I see another situation comedy starring Mollie Sugden, I will die.' Despite the setback to her career on British television, Sugden was still a highly popular actress.

As she continued to find great popularity on the stage - sometimes working alongside her husband - she found new fame in the United States.

Re-runs of Are You Being Served? transformed both Sugden and co-star John Inman, famous for his catch phrase "I'm free" into cult figures in the US in the early 1990s.

Such was her popularity in America that at the age of 71 she was asked to appear in Donizetti's opera La Fille Du Regiment in a non-singing role.

In Britain, Sugden and Moore were regarded as one of the establishments of showbusiness, with a marriage that had stood the test of time and was full of the vivacity of the couple themselves.

Their private haven away from the world of acting was in a village near Dorking in Surrey.

Moore, who died in 2000, also continued successfully with his acting career to become a household name through his television work.

He was perhaps best-known for his portrayal of the long-suffering husband and father in the comedy Sorry!, which starred Ronnie Corbett.

It was with great affection that Sugden was seen once again on British television in a revival of The Liver Birds in 1996.

It was almost inevitable that, despite being 74 and playing only a supporting role, she still managed to steal the show.

Harve Presnell whose booming baritone graced such Broadway musicals as "The Unsinkable Molly Brown" and "Annie," has died at the age of 75.

Presnell's agent Gregg Klein says the actor died Tuesday of pancreatic cancer at St. John's Health Center in Santa Monica, Calif.

Presnell also appeared in the film versions of "Molly Brown" and "Paint Your Wagon" as well as "Fargo."

Ex-boxing great, Managua Mayor Alexis Arguello dies at 57 ...
By FILADELFO ALEMAN, Associated Press Writer
Wednesday, July 1, 2009
(07-01) 07:18 PDT MANAGUA, Nicaragua (AP) --

Managua Mayor Alexis Arguello, a three-time world boxing champion, was found dead at his home Wednesday, his Sandinista Party's Radio Ya said.

Radio Ya said coroners were conducting an autopsy on the 57-year-old mayor to determine the cause of death, but it appeared to be a suicide. The La Prensa newspaper reported he was found with a gunshot wound to the chest.

The Hall of Fame boxer was the top fighter of the 20th century in his weight class, according to a panel of experts assembled by The Associated Press in 1999.

The death of Arguello prompted President Daniel Ortega to announced he was canceling a trip to Panama for the inauguration of President-elect Ricardo Martinelli.

Arguello fought against the Sandinista government in the 1980s after it seized his property and bank account, according to the International Boxing Hall of Fame.

But he joined the party to win the mayorship of the capital in 2008, though opponents alleged the vote was fraudulent.

"We are upset," said presidential spokeswoman, Rosario Murillo, who declined to give details about the death. "This is a heartbreaking announcement. He was the champion of the poor, an example of forgiveness and reconciliation."

Born in 1952, the Hall of Fame boxer fought 14 world champions and in 1981 he became the sixth man in boxing history to win a title in three weight divisions — featherweight, super featherweight and lightweight — according to the International Boxing Hall of Fame.

Arguello returned Sunday from Puerto Rico where he honored the late baseball Hall of Famer Roberto Clemente.