Karl Malden, our esteemed Star of the Month for March, proved along with such first-tier film fellows as Edward G. Robinson, Wallace Beery, George Arliss, Ernie Borgnine and (to a degree) Bogie that to enjoy a long and healthy career as a movie star during Hollywood's so-called golden years, a pretty puss wasn't a necessity. (On the female side of the ledger, that list would most likely be headed by Marie Dressler and Edna May Oliver.) It never hurt, of course, to be illegally handsome like a Tyrone Power, a Robert Taylor or an Errol Flynn--though Paul Newman often did argue that point--but for those who didn't possess a perfect profile, there are several things which were required to have a long-distance run in Hollywood: talent, tenacity and, behind the eyes, great character and humanity.

Malden had more than his share of all four, something that will be in high evidence throughout March as we celebrate the 100th anniversary of Malden's birth in Chicago on March 22, 1912 by bringing you--on Wednesdays throughout the month--25 films in which Malden starred or costarred, including the one which put an Oscar® in his hands (1951's A Streetcar Named Desire) and one which he directed (1957's Time Limit). We'll also give you ample opportunities to see what a chameleon-like career he had, and that besides being one of those actors you could always trust to deliver a performance worth seeing he was also a man of all genres.

You'll be able to see him in tales of lusty lives (1952's Ruby Gentry and 1956's Baby Doll), angst-driven dramas (1954's On the Waterfront and 1962's All Fall Down), lively Westerns (1959's The Hanging Tree and 1962's How the West Was Won), murder mysteries (1953's I Confess and 1964's Dead Ringer), James Bond-ish spy tales (1966's Murderer's Row and 1967's Billion Dollar Brain), military movies (1953's Take the High Road and 1957's Bombers B-52), light comedies (1963's Come Fly with Me and 1968's Hot Millions), a '50s horror flick (1954's Phantom of the Rue Morgue), a disaster epic (1979's Meteor) and even a rousing musical bio-pic with lyrics by Sondheim (1962's Gypsy).

The film adventures of the man born Mladen George Sekulovich (he changed that to "Karl Malden" at age 22) that we'll be offering this month on TCM also bring him in contact with such notable leading ladies as Claudette Colbert, Bette Davis, Jennifer Jones, Vivien Leigh, Eva Marie Saint, Maggie Smith (Oscar® winners all), Rosalind Russell, Angela Lansbury, Merle Oberon, Debbie Reynolds and Ann-Margret, and directors who run the gamut from Kazan to Hathaway, Hitchcock to Brooks, Jewison to Vidor and Frankenheimer. Before and after the movies, I'll also be sharing stories of many of the other Malden milestones which made him the man he was: his days as a basketball star when he twice broke his nose while playing, his years with the controversial Group Theatre in New York, his time spent with Michael Douglas on the "Streets of San Francisco," his tenure as the president of Hollywood's powerful Academy, and those American Express commercials he did in the '70s and '80s. We promise you many memorable moments with the magnificent Mr. Malden this March on TCM.

by Robert Osborne