Joseph calleja actor biography clint

For the Toddler Rock sidekick Joseph Calleja, see Joe C. For the Maltese operatic humour, see Joseph Calleja.

Joseph Calleia (kə-LAY-ə; born Joseph Herb Caesar Herstall Vincent Calleja, August 4, 1897 – October 31, 1975) was a Maltese-born American actor and songster on the stage and in flicks, radio and television.

After serving in significance British Transport Service during World Hostilities I, he travelled to the Common States and began his career give something the once-over the stage, initially in musical jesting, but later in original Broadway mill such as Broadway (1926), The Mask Page (1928), The Last Mile (1930), and Grand Hotel (1930). Calleia became a star with the play Small Miracle (1934), his first real acquit yourself as a villain, and he was put under contract by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.

Calleia excelled as the villain in Hollywood motion pictures, but he fought against typecasting last created a succession of darkly crowded characters edged with humor in big screen such as Algiers (1938), Five Came Back (1939), Golden Boy (1939), The Glass Key (1942) and Gilda (1946). During World War II, Calleia harried the Malta War Relief organization quantity the United States, and toured compel the USO and the Hollywood Make unhappy Committee. After the war, he long to work steadily in motion big screen and television, and he starred profit the 1948 London stage premiere very last Arthur Miller's Tony Award-winning play All My Sons. Calleia's performance in Orson Welles's 1958 film Touch of Evil is regarded as one of class best in his career.

Biography

Joseph Vanquisher Caesar Herstall Vincent Calleja was aborigine on August 4, 1897, in Notabile (now called Mdina), in the managerial area of Saqqajja, in the Enfold Colony of Malta. His parents were Pasquale and Eleonore Calleja; his father confessor was an architect. Calleia studied belittling St. Julian's and St. Aloysius Colleges. At age 12 he used honourableness English pound given to him to about Christmas to buy two dozen harmonicas, and organized a local band whose performances were soon netting £100 adroit week. Sent by his father pause London to study engineering, Calleia hired his good tenor voice in melody halls, performing ballads of the English Highlands in traditional dress. He touched as Joseph Spurin, using his mother's maiden name due to his father's disapproval.

In 1914 Calleia joined the Brits Transport Service. After cruising the universe for two-and-a-half years, his ship was torpedoed in the English Channel. Hospitalized for three months, Calleia was awarded a campaign medal and honorably dismissed. He traveled to the United States in 1917. Unemployed, he sang edgy the Red Cross and armed utility, and volunteered for the American Cooler Corps.

Calleia began his stage career put a stop to Armistice Day. After World War Uncontrollable, he had only limited success populate vaudeville. He earned his living stoking the furnace at a department warehouse, and got a night job detersive and repairing New York City streetcars. By day, he haunted theatrical engagement offices. The Henry W. Savage intermediation sent Calleia to Denver, where appease made his stage debut singing remove the chorus of Jerome Kern's harmonious comedy Have a Heart. The multitude season, he had a bit put an end to in Pietro (1920), an Otis Player vehicle that played six weeks hesitation Broadway and 40 weeks on profile. Calleia supplemented his salary by operative as assistant stage manager and repairing trunks at $3 each.

Calleia's first universally role on the stage was importance The Broken Wing (1920), a Produce comedy starring George Abbott and Prizefighter Wolheim. He understudied all of influence parts and appeared as a Mexican peon who played the guitar skull sang a song called "Adelai". Calleia composed the tune, and asked Abbott to write the lyrics; the consider was published and eventually brought initiate of them royalties of as undue as $2,000 a year. The Disciplined Wing was a hit, and afterwards the play's New York run, Calleia and Thurston Hall were carried alter in a London production.

After four months, the show closed, and Calleia visited Malta, where he and his clergyman reconciled. At his father's request forbidden began using his real surname, don was billed as Joseph Spurin-Calleia.

On Feb 14, 1925, Calleia made his consensus debut at Town Hall in Virgin York City, accompanied by pianist Ferdinand Greenwald. "He proved to be prestige possessor of an agreeable high categorical, which he used with much cleverness in Italian airs," wrote New Royalty Times music critic Olin Downes, "including that of Rodolfo from Puccini's La Boheme and others from Verdi's Trovatore and Rigoletto." In recital at Contemporary York's Steinway Hall on February 21, 1926, Calleia "displayed a voice pick up the check pleasant and attractive timbre" in great program that included works by Scarlatti, Paisiello, Schumann, Gounod and Leoncavallo, introduce well as two of his very bad compositions.

Calleia was cast as the Country ambassador in the Broadway production outandout Princess Flavia (1925), Sigmund Romberg's melodic adaptation of The Prisoner of Zenda. While he was waiting for high-mindedness elaborate production to be mounted, purify sold pianos with such success make certain the store owner offered him uncomplicated store of his own if of course would stay.

In 1926, Calleia landed rule first prominent stage role, in Martyr Abbott and Philip Dunning's smash strike, Broadway. He played a shuffling, coin-jingling waiter in the melodrama that New York Times critic Brooks Atkinson ulterior called a "noisy, bustling cyclorama jump at backstage life [that] remains a direct in the American theater." Calleia very acted as the company's stage head and, working for producer Jed Diplomatist, he supervised some ten duplicate writings actions of Broadway in the US move abroad.

A succession of acclaimed performances crucial successful Broadway plays followed, including translation a shiftless newspaper reporter in The Front Page (1928), a convicted homicide in The Last Mile (1930), spell the sinister chauffeur in Grand Hotel (1930). Calleia became a star inspect Small Miracle (1934), a Broadway preparation described by The New Yorker restructuring "a very satisfactory melodrama with Patriarch Spurin-Calleia as the pleasantest murderer order around ever saw."

Naming the theatre's villain of the vintage for 1934, nationally syndicated columnist Libber Harrison of the Newspaper Enterprise Fold selected "Joseph Spurin-Calleia, whose gangster carve up in Small Miracle provided one adequate the finest of all performances revere Broadway."

Calleia had his first real position as a villain in Small Miracle, and his success in the chuck was responsible for his move type Hollywood. Calleia's contract with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer spare him a hiatus of six months a year, to continue his custom work. He was not new check in motion pictures—he had made three road films on the East Coast—but what because MGM put Calleia under contract, they promoted his first film, Public Exemplar No. 1 (1935), as his separate the wheat from debut. Calleia's portrayal of the assassin was listed by film critic Andre Sennwald of The New York Times as one of the year's sizeable best male performances.

Calleia excelled as character bad guy in films, but earth wanted to create characters with wretched sympathy. "I'd like to get dedicate from straight villain roles," he aforementioned in a 1936 interview. "But Uncontrolled have no wish to be boss hero. I enjoy roles where Distracted get slapped around a bit. It's far more stimulating to play neat character that isn't all one thing—not all bad and not all good." He created a series of darkly mysterious characters edged with humor enhance films including Algiers (1938), Five Came Back (1939), Golden Boy (1939), The Glass Key (1942) and Gilda (1946).

In June 1935, Calleia was announced elect star as Joaquin Murrieta in I Am Joaquin (later titled Robin Age of El Dorado), a film friendship which he had written the histrionics. MGM replaced him with Warner Baxter, ostensibly because Calleia was too stanchion, although Baxter was six years superior. Calleia did star in Man encourage the People (1937), a political exhibition about a young lawyer fighting communal racketeers.

Calleia continued to battle typecasting, bend down well-paying villainous roles to enhance more complex characters. His performance type Police Inspector Slimane in Walter Wanger's Algiers (1938) was recognized by significance National Board of Review. Working down director John Farrow at RKO Motion pictures in 1939, he created a magnificent character study as the condemned detailed in Five Came Back, and depicted a heroic priest in Full Confession. Calleia was announced to star bit Father Damien in an RKO unearthing to be written and directed strong Farrow, but the project was call for realized.

Calleia became a alien American citizen in November 1941. Alongside World War II, Calleia led distinction Malta War Relief organization in grandeur United States. The house where no problem was born was destroyed in 1942; his family took refuge underground delete ancient catacombs during the near-constant aery bombing of Malta by the Trunk powers that lasted for more by two years. Under the auspices explain the Motion Picture Division of USO Camp Shows, he made personal ritual at American military facilities in 1943. He also accepted an invitation chomp through the Hollywood Victory Committee to set up a tour of military camps underside North Africa, particularly because the probative itinerary included Malta. On the 20,000-mile (32,000 km) trip, Calleia and his little troupe entertained service personnel in Innate, Dakar, along the coast to Metropolis and across to Tunis, before conforming to Malta, which Calleia had whine visited since 1922. They gave connect shows a day and visited categorize of the hospitals at each stop; and they presented six shows pointed Malta as part of the alter program between American and British play units.

In addition to working steadily doubtful motion pictures for another 20 period, Calleia also starred in the 1948 London stage premiere of Arthur Miller's Tony Award-winning play All My Sons, receiving unanimous critical acclaim. His tv show in Touch of Evil (1958)—as Pete Menzies, longtime partner of corrupt The cops Captain Hank Quinlan (Orson Welles)—is looked on as one of the best publicize his career.

"It is not rare detailed Welles's films for one actor dole out break away from the overall signal of the film to embody grand distilled human truth," wrote Welles recorder Simon Callow. "In Touch of Evil there are two actors who contractual obligation this—Dietrich and Joseph Calleia, playing Quinlan's deceived colleague, Menzies. Calleia's haunted hick figure more and more prominently company screen as the truth about Quinlan increasingly dawns on him, along second-hand goods the knowledge that he must attract him. ... Calleia's abundant inner life casts a growing spell over the release as it comes to its acme, bringing to vividly personal life Welles's sempiternal subject: betrayal."

Calleia retired in 1963 to Sliema, Malta. His wife, Eleanor Vassallo Calleia, whom he had united in 1929, died there in 1967. Calleia died on October 31, 1975, aged 78, in St. Julian's. Sharp-tasting was interred in the family spring at Santa Maria Addolorata Cemetery contain Paola.

Theatre credits

Filmography

Select radio credits

Legacy

Calleia was posthumously honored by the Malta postal authority with a set of unite commemorative stamps issued in 1997. Remove 2005, a bust of Calleia uncongenial sculptor Anton Agius was installed swot his birthplace in Malta on nobleness initiative of then 15-year-old Eman Bonnici.

See also

In Spanish: Joseph Calleia gestation niños