Joseph Calleia

His full name was Joseph Alexander Caesar Herstall Vincent Calleja - but he was better
known as Joseph or Joe Calleia, one of Hollywood's most recognized bad
guys. But Calleia's roots and talents ran much deeper than character
actor. He was Maltese, born on that barren but historically important
island of Malta between Italy and Africa in the Mediterranean. The
Maltese culture was a crossroads of peoples (partially Arabic) but as
intrepid fisherman, navigators, and warriors-as they proved to the 16th
century Turks - it was a proud one. But it could not hold Calleia, who,
blessed with a good singing voice and a talent for composing, joined a
harmonica band that left for the Continent in 1914. This was a Europe
feeling the initial blows of World War I, and Calleia's band toured the
length and breadth of it in music halls and cafes. He went to Paris and
eventually came to London to perform some concert singing engagements.
And from there the lure of the New World brought him to New York by
1926.It was a natural enough transition for a talented singing performer to
acting. Calleia did his first play on Broadway in an original drama
suitably called "Broadway" for a long run from late 1926 early 1928.
This was the first of seven plays he did into early 1935. He took a
double role as actor and stage manager for the 1930-31 run of "Grand
Hotel". He received good reviews (once called him a "bright light" on
Broadway) and later recalled that his treading the boards were his best
years as an actor. By 1931 he had yet another course to steer.
Hollywood had noticed him, for his constrained intensity as an actor
was matched by a singular visage - heavy-lidded eyes and dark features
that gave him a disquieting and menacing appearance. Yet the sometime
telltale lilt in his voice betrayed the fine singer. He had just enough
accent to make him Latin or Greek or Middle Eastern - or indigenous
sorts. Of course, his look meant early heavy roles as he went under
contract to MGM, doing his first two films in that year of 1931.By 1935 his looks landed him the role of Sonny Black, a mob boss with
many facets, and with a characteristic clenched-teeth delivery, Calleia
acquitted himself in fine fashion. Through the 1930s he was pretty much
typed-cast as a mobster-with variations. Always with the lean and
hungry look, he was a club owner in
After the Thin Man (1936) and
played a government cop in the atmospheric
Algiers (1938). He even had time to help
write a screenplay for the film
Robin Hood of El Dorado (1936)
with veteran Warner Baxter. Calleia ended
the decade with roles at opposite ends of the character acting
spectrum-somewhat center stage as a priest in the sometimes
heavy-handed
Full Confession (1939) and most
memorable as Vasquez, the brought-to-justice criminal on the ill-fated
DC-3 that crash lands in headhunter-infested Amazon highlands in
Five Came Back (1939). This is a
classic adventure drama -- remade with
Rod Steiger -- with a great supporting cast
that included everyone's favorite wisecracking redhead,
Lucille Ball.Into the 1940s, Calleia was cast in more ethnic roles - particularly as
Hispanics of various sorts. But his roles were memorable nonetheless,
as El Sordo in
For Whom the Bell Tolls (1943)
and Rodriguez in
The Cross of Lorraine (1943).
But two roles stand out. His Buldeo in the
Alexander Korda classic production of
The Jungle Book (1942) was a personal
favorite, a double role, as trouble-making villager and the selfsame
man now old and wise telling the story to the village children as
narrator. The makeup is so good-and Calleia enjoyed character
makeup-that most viewers are surprised when the old man reveals his
identity. More mainstream Hollywood was his intriguing role as
Detective Obregon in Gilda (1946). He's the
good guy-right? - but he comes off so sly with his sidelong looks and
the way he bates the principals -
Glenn Ford and
Rita Hayworth - that you just don't know.
In the end he has the task, like the chorus in a Shakespearean play, to
explain and summarize-perhaps not the best means of getting to the
point - but that was the director's choice. His secondary parts receded
a bit into the later 1940s and further into the 1950s with Calleia
typed to retrace former roles but giving them new nuance just the same.
He has little more than a cameo as Indian chief Cuyloga-Native American
chiefs being the lot of no few elder actors in 1950s Hollywood - in the
otherwise worthwhile Disney adaptation of
The Light in the Forest (1958).
Calleia ventured into the TV briefly about that time.But also from that year was another of his favorite roles. Without
doubt Touch of Evil (1958) is one
of the strangest of Orson Welles later
efforts as director/star. It borders on the uneven but is so
off-the-wall that one cannot help watching and thoroughly enjoying all
the antics of Welles still brilliant film techniques: shadow and light,
wild camera angles, gringos playing
Mexicans-Charlton Heston is a wow and
stained darker than necessary-and over-the-top performances with
veteran dramatis personae like
Marlene Dietrich,
Akim Tamiroff, Calleia, of course, and
Welles himself looking like a police captain from skid row and using
that funny character voice of his that pops up in his films as an
aside. Calleia, with white hair, is tired old cop Sergeant Menzies,
long associate of Welles' seedy character. Doing what he has always
done, covering up and running interference, in the end Menzies has to
face the truth about his crooked captain. Calleia enjoyed the role as
going so against his usual type - showing a man harried by his past and
haunted by dirty secrets - vulnerable - and very human. It's a great
part.By 1963 Calleia walked away - or, that is - sailed away from Hollywood.
He returned to his native Malta for a well deserved retirement. The
Maltese had followed the career of their native son, and he had made
several visits during his film career. Not surprisingly his biggest fan
club was right at home. He was a kind and generous man and very
appreciative of his fans wherever they were - quick to read all their
letters and quick to send autographed pictures. It was strictly
tongue-in-cheek when he supposedly quipped: "Everyone recognizes my
face, but no one knows my name." After his passing, the government of
the island state of Malta issued two commemorative stamps (1997) to
honor him. A bust was erected before the house in which he was born as
a further memorial to this Maltese VIP who had made good.