Academy Award-winning actor Karl Malden dies 97

Karl Malden, the Academy Award-winning actor, Wednesday died 97 of natural causes at his Brentwood home in Los Angeles.

Malden was born Mladen Sekulovich in Chicago on March 22, 1912. His intelligent characterizations on stage, screen and television made him a star.

"A Streetcar Named Desire" opened on Broadway in 1947 and went on to win the Pulitzer Prize and New York Drama Critics Circle awards.

In 1951 Malden won a supporting actor Oscar for his role as Blanche DuBois' naive suitor Mitch in "A Streetcar Named Desire" a role he also played on Broadway.

He was nominated again as best supporting actor in 1954 for his performance in "On the Waterfront." In both movies, he costarred with Marlon Brando.

Malden gained perhaps his greatest fame as Lt. Mike Stone in the 1970s television show "The Streets of San Francisco," in which Michael Douglas played the veteran detective's junior partner.

"The Streets of San Francisco" earned him five Emmy nominations. He won one for his role as a murder victim's father out to bring his former son-in-law to justice in the 1985 miniseries "Fatal Vision."

In 2004, Malden received the Screen Actors Guild's Lifetime Achievement Award, telling the group in his acceptance speech that "this is the peak for me."    

He served as the president of Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences from 1989-92. "His career has spanned the spectrum of the arts from theater to film and television, to some very famous commercial work," the Academy president Sid Ganis said.