Wait til the media frenzy gets cranked up on this one...

Another son of Gary, Indiana - the second famous Gary native to die in a week - is gone.

Karl Malden, the Academy Award-winning actor whose intelligent characterizations on stage and screen made him a star despite his plain looks, died Wednesday, his family said. He was 97.

Malden died of natural causes surrounded by his family at his Brentwood home, they told the Academy of Motion Picture Arts &  Sciences. He served as the academy's president from 1989-92.

While he tackled a variety of characters over the years, he was often seen in working-class garb or military uniform. His authenticity in grittier roles came naturally: He was the son of a Czech mother and a Serbian father, and worked for a time in the steel mills of Gary, Indiana, after dropping out of college.

So far as anyone knows, Malden was not a child molester, a recluse, an eccentric, the King of Anything, or addicted to drugs or plastic surgery. He died with the nose he was born with.

He will be remembered as a good man, unlike a certain celebrated pedophile.