Academy Award winner and Hollywood legend Karl Malden died last week of natural causes at the age of 97. He has had one of the longest and most successful careers of any American actor and starred in some of the most Iconic films of all time (On the Waterfront, A Streetcar Named Desire, The Birdman of Alcatraz, Patton) and the 1970s TV drama The Streets of San Francisco. But what made Malden a household name were the American Express commercials he made in the '70s and '80s with the catchphrase “Don’t leave home without it.”
This article appears in Jul 1-7, 2009.