Midnight Movies

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Oscar winner Karl Malden, the bulbous-nosed character actor acclaimed for film roles in “A Streetcar Named Desire” and “On the Waterfront” before gaining TV fame as a leading man in “The Streets of San Francisco,” died on Wednesday at age 97.

Also remembered as the commercial spokesman for American Express travelers checks, sternly warning tourists, “Don’t leave home without them,” Malden died in his sleep at his Los Angeles-area home, according to his longtime agent, Budd Moss. He said the actor had been in failing health in recent years.

In a career spanning seven decades, Malden made his mark playing plain-spoken men of gruff manners, though he was noted for bringing an understated, natural dignity to many roles.

His talents earned him a place in the works of playwrights Arthur Miller and Tennessee Williams, as well as directors Elia Kazan, Alfred Hitchcock and John Frankenheimer. He shared the screen with the likes of Marlon Brando, Vivien Leigh, Montgomery Clift, Rod Steiger and George C. Scott.

Malden, whose trademark nose was broken twice while playing high school sports, often said he was keenly aware that he lacked the looks of a leading man.

“There were times when certain leads would come along, and I’d say, ‘Gee, I could do that,’” Malden recalled in a 2004 interview with Reuters. “But … you’ve got to have a great nose. You’ve got to have great eyes. Everything that an actor has to have to be that leading man, I don’t have. So I made the best with what I had.”

He was born Mladen George Sekulovich in Chicago to parents of Serb and Czech origins, grew up in Gary, Indiana, and worked at a steel mill before moving to New York City in 1937 to act.

His stage debut came that year in “Golden Boy” and he later appeared in the original cast of Miller’s “All My Sons.”

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Malden landed his first movie role in 1940 drama “They Knew What They Wanted” starring Carole Lombard and Charles Laughton, and went on to appear in some 50 movies over 40 years.

He won an Academy Award for his 1951 portrayal of the lovelorn character Mitch in Tennessee Williams’ “A Streetcar Named Desire,” a role he created on Broadway. He earned a second Oscar nomination as the crusading priest Father Barry in the 1954 classic “On the Waterfront.”

Both films were directed by Elia Kazan and starred Brando, who Malden called “the most brilliant actor I’ve worked with.”

Malden had a memorable turn as General Omar Bradley in “Patton” in 1970 before becoming a prime-time TV fixture and earning four Emmy nominations as police detective Mike Stone in “The Streets of San Francisco.” Then-budding actor Michael Douglas co-starred as his young partner.

“I admired and loved him deeply,” Douglas said in a statement.

Saluting Malden as he received an American Film Institute award last month, Douglas said, “It was Karl more than anyone who got me to understand that an actor is just one part of a whole team that makes a TV series or a movie work.”

Malden returned the compliment in a taped message played back for Douglas at the ceremony, saying, “I wish Michael could have been my son. I’m so proud of him.”

“The Streets of San Francisco” ran from 1974 until 1977. The following decade, Malden won an Emmy as the father of a murdered woman in fact-based NBC miniseries “Fatal Vision.”

As his career waned, Malden found himself at the center of a controversy surrounding his longtime friend, Kazan, who had been shunned by the Hollywood establishment since naming names of alleged Communists to the U.S. House of Representatives Un-American Activities Committee in 1952.

It was Malden who proposed at a 1999 board meeting of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences that Kazan receive a special Oscar honoring his body of work. The award was given over the protests of many film industry veterans who believed Kazan’s actions during the “blacklist” era were unforgivable.

Malden is survived by his wife of more than 70 years, Mona, whom he married in 1938. They had two children.

 Source - http://www.reuters.com

Ingrid recalls the fine actor once thought to be the successor to Vincent Price…

It was only a month or so ago that sci-fi legend, Forry Ackerman, died. I thought that was pretty close to home. Now I have just heard that America’s answer to Count Dracula, Bob Quarry, died a couple of weeks ago, on 20th February. I think Bob must be one of the most underrated actors of all time. If not, he was terribly unlucky. In spite of the fact that he was friendly with some of the biggest guns of studio-led Hollywood, he never seemed to be able to get the chance at something really substantial. Something that put him up on the Marquee.

I have never met anybody who has anything nasty to say about him. In spite of being in loads of films, it wasn’t until he took up the cape and fangs that he came into his own.

It was about 20 years ago that I first met him. I had heard about him, of course. People kept writing to me and asking me if I had seen the film Count Yorga, Vampire. The reason they wrote to me was because there was a scene from The Vampire Lovers in Bob’s film and they wanted to make sure that I saw it. But I never did.

When I first met Bob it was one of the first things he asked me. When I told him I hadn’t seen it he promised to send me a copy. I never got it. There are a lot of stories about Bob and Vincent Price not getting on. Bob denied this. He said it was all to do with Price’s sense of humour. Which, he said, was rather British(?) He worked on Dr. Phibes Rises Again and he seemed to be all set to take over from Price as THE man in American horror after his success as Yorga.

He had all the attributes that Lee had sewn into the cape; tall, dark, and handsome with an easy manner, he could have given his predecessors a run for their money in the Fanging Stakes, but again ill-luck blocked his path. Crossing the road he was mown down by a drunken driver and it put him on the back burner for many years.

Fred Olen Ray, prolific producer and carnie man, was a friend and kept him in employment whenever he could. I was with Fred when I first met Bob. I had been invited to the Chiller Theatre Convention in New Jersey. When I think about it, it was probably the first Chiller. I wasn’t in a very tranquil mood when I finally battled my way through the pathologically malignant Customs Officers of Newark Airport. My mood wasn’t enhanced when I found out that the limo sent to pick me up had left. For no reason, the driver had supposed that I wasn’t on the flight. I was getting heavy with one of the porters when Fred drove into view, calmed me down and insisted he took me to the hotel in his car - which turned out to be one of those long white cars that look like a circumcised bus.

One thing is for sure. It is impossible to get in or out of them with any degree of elegance. Already aboard was Bob Quarry. He listened to me fume about the US Customs and then introduced himself. He had a wonderful voice. Like jelly covered titanium in a mink glove. By the time I flopped out of the limo at the hotel, he had managed to put me in a more friendly mood. That evening I sat in the bar with Fred, Bob and Jesse Lilley, editor of Scarlet Street magazine and chewed the fat ’til well after the haunting hour. Bob was great. He was on first touch terms with practically everyone in the US film industry and had tales to tell. Jess would occasionally come up with a zippy tale to supplement what Bob had said while Fred and I sat and listened. Unusual for me, I know, but they were on their home turf and I thought it would be impolite to compete. Fred is a good listener, more laid back than second hand lino.

Later, I was in Los Angeles for the 100th anniversary of Bram Stoker’s Dracula and Bob rang and said he was coming to the hotel the following day to see me. I explained to him that I was doing a spot of filming the next day but I would ring him as soon as I had finished. It wasn’t to be and I left without seeing him. Fred told me that Bob had been involved in an accident of some sort and that was why he hadn’t come. Whenever I was at a festival or convention, Bob would turn up with a little present, a bunch of flowers or a box of chocolates. One time he brought me a bucket of ice cream. And when I say bucket, I mean bucket. By the end of the day I felt as sick as a hermit crab and twice as sluggish. And so did the people who had all been diving in. Bob was even worse than me. At least I was able to go out for dinner that evening while he wallowed in his bed groaning.

It was good news when I was asked last year to do a film with him. We were to play husband and wife in a screenplay adapted from Edgar Allen Poe’s Tell-Tale Heart with embellishments from an American Civil War story by Ambrose Bierce. Originally it was supposed to go in the Spring. Then I got a call from the producer, Mark Redfield, to say that shooting had been postponed because his money man had kicked the proverbial bucket. He said he was rescheduling for August/September. Bob rang me a couple of days later. He was still fairly upbeat but admitted that he wasn’t too confident about the film. As he explained to me, he felt that if the film didn’t shoot before the end of the year, he wouldn’t be around to do it.

The after effects of the car accident he had in the Eighties, and further health problems, curtailed his body of work and gave him time to become a Grand Master - or whatever it is called - in Bridge. He also turned his brilliant mind to cooking and wrote a book called Wonderfully Simple Recipes For Wonderfully Simple Food.

I feel really sad that we didn’t have that last chance to work together. But you have to admire the grasp he had on the essentials.

Source - http://www.denofgeek.com

Robert Quarry, who died on February 20 aged 83, achieved cult status with his splendidly sardonic portrayal of the lead role in Count Yorga, Vampire (1970) and its equally bloodthirsty sequel The Return of Count Yorga (1971).

The tall, raven-haired Quarry was billed as “Dashing, Dark and Deadly”, and relished the description. “Actors always wanted to play the good guys first,” he once reflected. “I was different, and, boy, I did have a lot of fun drinking the blood of the lovely DJ Anderson. I always tried to play villains like the heroes. Vincent Price always over-egged the pudding. I played Count Yorga straight.”

Robert Walter Quarry was born on November 3 1925 at Santa Rosa, California, the son of a doctor. His grandmother, a frustrated actress, introduced him to the world of theatre and cinema. Although academically gifted, he left school at 14 and by the 1940s he was working on radio in juvenile roles. He then won a scholarship to the Pasadena Playhouse, where he was spotted by Alfred Hitchcock and cast as Teresa Wright’s boyfriend in Shadow of Doubt (1943) – only to be replaced by Charles Bates and given a smaller role instead.

Quarry joined the Army in November 1943 and formed a theatrical group which put on a hit production of the play The Hasty Heart. After the war he returned to filmmaking, landing a contract with RKO and then MGM, where he befriended Katharine Hepburn and taught her to play tennis. She chose him to star opposite her in the Broadway production of As You Like It (1950), and the next year he played Lucentio in The Taming of the Shrew.

Little came of Quarry’s time at MGM. He appeared in Soldier of Fortune (1955) and House of Bamboo (1955), then played Dwight Powell opposite Robert Wagner, Joanne Woodward and Mary Astor in A Kiss Before Dying (1956). His other films included Crime of Passion (1957), Winning (1969) and WUSA (1970), the last two starring Paul Newman.

Quarry’s role as Count Yorga made him one of the industry’s most bankable horror stars. Although groomed as the “new Vincent Price”, he never quite justified this accolade; but horror movie fans enjoyed his roles as the vampire hippie guru Khorda in Deathmaster (1972); as the scientist Darius Biederbeck in Dr Phibes Rises Again (1972), opposite Vincent Price; and as the evil mob boss Morgan in the “zombie flick” Sugar Hill (1974).

On television Quarry appeared in The Lone Ranger, The Rockford Files, Perry Mason and Ironside.

In 1980 he was run down by an uninsured lorry driver, and the resulting medical bills left him broke. Soon afterwards he was mugged in Hollywood and left for dead on the street. Quarry then became something of a recluse, until the film director Fred Olen Ray – an admirer of his work – successfully persuaded him to return to the screen in Cyclone (1987). He subsequently made a string of horror films for Ray, including Mind Twister (1994), with Telly Savalas, and The Prophet (1999).

Robert Quarry was a highly proficient bridge player and a Cordon Bleu-trained cook – he wrote a best-selling cookbook entitled Wonderfully Simple Recipes for Simply Wonderful Food.

Source - http://www.telegraph.co.uk

(March 4) - Robert Quarry, a prolific actor best known for playing iconic B-movie vampires like the charming Count Yorga and the sinister Khorda during the 1970s, died Feb. 20 at the Motion Picture and Television Fund Hospital in California, a hospital spokesperson said. He was 83.
The beloved actor had been in declining health in recent years after suffering from heart trouble.

After decades of toiling in small roles all around Hollywood, Quarry landed the title role in ‘Count Yorga, Vampire’ in 1970. The actor played the séance-giving bloodsucker again a year later in the sequel, ‘The Return of Count Yorga.’ He then followed up Yorga by playing the vampire Khorda in ‘The Deathmaster,’ in 1972. Horror icons converged that same year when he starred opposite Vincent Price in ‘Dr. Phibes Rises Again.’

Former LA Times film writer Kevin Thomas described Quarry as an actor “in the suavely sinister tradition of Bela Lugosi.”

The studios billed Quarry as “Dashing, Dark and Deadly”, and he relished in the description.

“Actors always wanted to play the good guys first,” he once reflected. “I was different, and, boy, I did have a lot of fun drinking the blood of the lovely DJ Anderson. I always tried to play villains like the heroes. Vincent Price always over-egged the pudding. I played Count Yorga straight.”

Quarry’s TV credits include roles on ‘The Rockford Files,’ ‘Perry Mason’ and ‘The Lone Ranger.’

His fortunes sunk, however, in 1980 when he was hit by an uninsured driver in a car accident, leaving him to foot the bill for his recovery. Facial injuries sidelined him from acting for around seven years. Later, he was mugged in Hollywood.

In 1987, Quarry returned to acting, mostly in B-movies such as ‘Beverly Hills Vamp’ and ‘Teenage Exorcist,’ playing mostly priests or doctors. According to IMDB, he was cast in the upcoming film ‘The Tell-Tale Heart,’ based on the Edgar Allan Poe short story.

Source - http://www.popeater.com