Arthur Malet

Who was Arthur Malet?

Arthur Malet was a United States-based English stage, film and television actor.

Vivian R. Malet was born in Lee-on-the-Solent, Hampshire, England. He emigrated to the United States in the 1950s, changed his forename to Arthur, began acting onstage, and won two Drama Desk Awards in 1957. He came to some prominence in 1960s fims, often playing characters much older than his real age, such as Mr. Dawes, Jr., in Disney's Mary Poppins.

He played undertaker Ted Ulam in Norman Jewison's 1967 film In the Heat of the Night, and Joe Fenwick in a 1972 episode of Columbo, "Dagger of the Mind". He went on to play a village elder in Mel Brooks's Young Frankenstein in 1974, the graveyard keeper in John Carpenter's Halloween in 1978, and Tootles in Hook in 1991.

His appearances on television included episodes of The Donna Reed Show, The Rifleman, Adventures in Paradise, The Alfred Hitchcock Hour, and Bewitched. In 1965 he appeared as murder victim Ralph Day in the Perry Mason episode, "The Case of the Golden Venom." He voiced the character of "Mr. Ages" in The Secret of NIMH in 1982. He died on 18 May 2013 from Natural Causes at the age of 85.