Joseph Calleia ( ; born Joseph Alexander Caesar Herstall Vincent Calleja, August 4, 1897 – October 31, 1975) was a Maltese-born American actor and singer on the stage and in films, radio and television. After serving in the British Transport Service during World War I, he travelled to the United States and began his career on the stage, initially in musical comedy, but later in original Broadway productions such as Broadway (1926), The Front Page (1928), The Last Mile (1930), and Grand Hotel (1930). Calleia became a star with the play Small Miracle (1934), his first real role as a villain, and he was put under contract by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.
Calleia excelled as the villain in Hollywood films, but he fought against typecasting and created a succession of darkly mysterious characters edged with humor in films such as Algiers (1938), Five Came Back (1939), Golden Boy (1939), The Glass Key (1942) and Gilda (1946). During World War II, Calleia led the Malta War Relief organization in the United States, and toured for the USO and the Hollywood Victory Committee. After the war, he continued to work steadily in motion pictures and television, and starred in the 1948 London stage premiere of 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 the best in his career.
Early life
thumb|left|Calleia in the Broadway stage production [[Small Miracle (1934–1935)]]
Joseph Alexander Caesar Herstall Vincent Calleja was born on August 4, 1897, in Notabile<!---Notabile is his correct birthplace per two sources, one of them Calleia's own naturalization application---> (now called Mdina), in the administrative area of Saqqajja, in the Crown Colony of Malta. His parents were Pasquale and Eleonore Calleja; Calleia studied at St. Julian's and St. Aloysius Colleges. At age 12, he used the English pound given to him for Christmas to buy two dozen harmonicas, and organized a local band whose performances were soon netting £100 a week. Sent by his father to London to study engineering, Calleia employed his good tenor voice in music halls, performing ballads of the Scottish Highlands in traditional dress. He worked as Joseph Spurin, using his mother's maiden name due to his father's disapproval. Calleia was awarded a campaign medal and honorably discharged. He traveled to the United States in 1917. he sang for the Red Cross and armed services, and volunteered for the Tank Corps. After World War I, he had only limited success in vaudeville. He earned his living stoking the furnace at a department store, and got a night job washing and repairing New York City streetcars. By day, he haunted theatrical booking offices. The Henry W. Savage agency sent Calleia to Denver, where he made his stage debut singing in the chorus of Jerome Kern's musical comedy Have a Heart. The Broken Wing was a hit,
On February 14, 1925, Calleia made his concert debut at Town Hall in New York City, accompanied by pianist Ferdinand Greenwald. "He proved to be the possessor of an agreeable high voice, which he used with much skill in Italian airs," wrote New York 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 New York's Steinway Hall on February 21, 1926, Calleia "displayed a voice of pleasant and attractive timbre" in a program that included works by Scarlatti, Paisiello, Schumann, Gounod and Leoncavallo, as well as two of his own compositions.
Calleia was cast as the Spanish ambassador in the Broadway production of Princess Flavia (1925), He played a shuffling, coin-jingling waiter Calleia also acted as the company's stage manager and, working for producer Jed Harris, he supervised some 10 duplicate productions of Broadway in the U.S. and abroad.
thumb|thumbtime=0:27|[[Public Hero No. 1 trailer (1935)]]
thumb|right|Calleia received the [[National Board of Review Awards 1938|1938 National Board of Review Award for his performance as Inspector Slimane in Algiers (1938).</blockquote>
Naming the theatre's villain of the year for 1934, nationally syndicated columnist Paul Harrison of the Newspaper Enterprise Association selected "Joseph Spurin-Calleia, whose gangster role in Small Miracle provided one of the finest of all performances on Broadway."
Film career
Calleia had his first real role as a villain in Small Miracle, and his success in the play was responsible for his move to Hollywood. He was not new to motion pictures—he had made three feature films on the East Coast Calleia's portrayal of the gunman was listed by The New York Times film critic Andre Sennwald as one of the year's 10 best male performances.
Calleia excelled as the bad guy in films, but he wanted to create characters with some sympathy. "I'd like to get away from straight villain roles," he said in a 1936 interview. "But I have no wish to be a hero. I enjoy roles where I get slapped around a bit. It's far more stimulating to play a 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 in films including Algiers (1938), Five Came Back (1939), Golden Boy (1939), The Glass Key (1942) and Gilda (1946).
In June 1935, Calleia was announced to star as Joaquin Murrieta in I Am Joaquin (later titled Robin Hood of El Dorado), a film for which he had written the screenplay. MGM replaced him with Warner Baxter, ostensibly because Calleia was too old, although Baxter was six years older. Calleia did star in Man of the People (1937), a political drama about a young lawyer fighting corporate racketeers.
Calleia continued to battle typecasting, turning down well-paying villainous roles to develop more complex characters. His performance as Police Inspector Slimane in Walter Wanger's Algiers (1938) was recognized by the National Board of Review. and a heroic priest in Full Confession. Calleia was announced to star as Father Damien in an RKO picture to be written and directed by Farrow, but the project was not realized.
thumb|left|upright|Calleia as Pete Menzies in Orson Welles's [[Touch of Evil (1958), considered to be one of the best performances of his career]]
Calleia became a naturalized American citizen in November 1941. He also accepted an invitation from the Hollywood Victory Committee to make a tour of military camps in North Africa, particularly because the tentative itinerary included Malta. On the trip, Calleia and his small troupe entertained service personnel in Natal, Dakar, along the coast to Casablanca and across to Tunis, then went to Malta, which Calleia had not visited since 1922. They gave two shows per day and visited all of the hospitals at each stop; and they presented six shows in Malta as part of the exchange program between American and British entertainment units.