A durable character actor with a big schnozz and a heart to match died today in Los Angeles. Karl Malden was 97, and leaves a tremendous legacy of stage, film and small-screen work.

Classic film buffs remember him as the tough-talking priest in On the Waterfront, as likeable General Omar Bradley in Patton, and of course as Stanley's best friend Mitch in A Streetcar Named Desire -- a role he originated on Broadway, and which brought him an Oscar as Best Supporting Actor. (TV viewers may know him best as the savvy cop in the successful crime show Streets of San Francisco, in which he costarred with a young Michael Douglas. And even more people will remember him as the pitchman for American Express, warning unwary travelers: "Don't leave home without it."

Born to a Serbian immigrant family in Gary, Indiana, on March 22, 1912, he started his formal training as a stage actor in Chicago. That's where he met his actress wife, Mona Greenberg. They married in 1938, and their union is one of the longest and strongest in Hollywood history.

Malden's real name was Mladen Sekulovich, and even though he changed it to Karl Malden when he was 22, he would find ways to say "Sekulovich" on screen -- in a list of prisoners in Birdman of Alcatraz, or as the name of a soldier helping him out in Patton. I loved catching those little references.

His nose was broken twice when he played sports as a kid. He didn't have a handsome, leading man's kind of face, but he brought heart and depth to every role. Here's the LA Times obit.

Malden in 2005, by Frazer Harrison/Getty Images

Film historians agree that 1939 was the greatest single year for classic movies in all of Hollywood's Golden Age.

Turner Classic Movies celebrates that amazing year this month, running classics from 1939 every Thursday night in July. They kick it off with the children's classic, The Wizard Of Oz, on July 2, and a rerun of a 1990 documentary on the film.

In addition to Wizard, each of the ten films nominated for Best Picture that year will be featured:
Gone With the Wind (the winning film, on July 30)
Dark Victory (July 23)
Goodbye, Mr. Chips (July 23)
Love Affair (July 30)
Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (July 23)
Ninotchka (July 2)
Of Mice and Men (July 23)
Stagecoach (July 9)
Wuthering Heights (July 30).

Also on July 2, TCM will premiere a new documentary, 1939, an all-new documentary narrated by actor/filmmaker Kenneth Branagh. Sounds fascinating - new interviews with film scholars/critics Leonard Maltin, Daniel Selznick and Molly Haskell, plus archival interviews with Claire Trevor, Douglas Fairbanks Jr., Francis Lederer, Maureen O'Hara, Ann Rutherford, George Cukor and Howard Hawks.

Here's an anniversary: Today, June 30, marks the 73rd anniversary of the publishing of Gone With the Wind, one of the most successful novels of all time. Came out in 1936.

Which of course, spawned one of the most successful films of all time. 1939's Gone With the Wind held its box office record for years (maybe still does, if you adjust the dollars for inflation), and wininng ten Academy Awards, the record at the time. (Bested by Ben Hur in 1959 with eleven Oscars).

Well, fiddle-dee-dee!

I'm actually praying for rain this weekend, because with the lineup on Turner Classic Movies, I'd love an excuse to stay indoors.

As the June salute to great directors continues, Friday brings us David Lean and Norman Jewison. I'm going for Dr. Zhivago at 1:30 Eastern, and Bridge on the River Kwai at 5:00 p.m. from Lean. Dessert will be Jewsion's Fiddler on the Roof at 1 a.m. Saturday. (I cried so hard when I saw this as a kid that a complete stranger sitting next to me patted me on the shoulder, and said, "Oh. honey don't cry. It's only a movie.")

Then Saturday is a complete Alfred Hitchcock festival, from Suspicion at 6 a.m. to The 39 Steps at 4:30 a.m. Sunday morning. I'll probably sleep through most of the Geroge Cukor movies Sunday, but I hope I can wake up in time for Born Yesterday at 6 p.m., and maybe My Fair Lady at 12:20 a.m. Monday morning.

It's a tough job, but someone's got to do it.