Arthur Malet

Born Vivian Arthur Rivers Malet on 24 September 1927 in Lee-on-the-Solent, Hampshire, England, Arthur Malet was a stage and screen actor whose career spanned decades across theater, film, and television. The son of Henry Guy Rivers Malet and Olga Muriel Balfour, he was a scion of the Malet baronets. He emigrated to the United States in the 1950s, adopting the forename Arthur, and established himself first as a stage performer, winning two Drama Desk Awards in 1957. He died on 18 May 2013 in Santa Monica, California, at the age of 85.

Malet's Broadway career ran from 1958 to 1959 and encompassed three productions: the comedy Moonbirds, the comedy Look After Lulu, and the play The Shadow of a Gunman. His stage work preceded a transition to film and television work for which he became widely recognized.

On screen, Malet frequently portrayed characters older than his actual age. He appeared as Mr. Dawes, Jr., in Disney's Mary Poppins in 1964, and as King Eidilleg in Disney's animated feature The Black Cauldron in 1985. His other film roles included undertaker Ted Ulam in Norman Jewison's In the Heat of the Night in 1967, a village elder in Mel Brooks's Young Frankenstein in 1974, the graveyard keeper in John Carpenter's Halloween in 1978, a houseman in Oh God, You Devil in 1984, Tootles in Hook in 1991, and Owen Owens in Toys in 1992. He voiced Mr. Ages in The Secret of NIMH in 1982 and reprised that role in The Secret of NIMH 2: Timmy to the Rescue in 1998, which served as his final film credit. He also provided voice work in the 1997 animated film Anastasia and appeared as Charles Randolph in A Little Princess in 1995.

Malet's television work was extensive. His credits included episodes of The Donna Reed Show, The Rifleman, Adventures in Paradise, Gunsmoke, Bewitched, Wonder Woman, and Dallas. He appeared as murder victim Ralph Day in the Perry Mason episode "The Case of the Golden Venom" in 1965, played a vagrant on The Andy Griffith Show in 1966, and portrayed Joe Fenwick in the Columbo episode "Dagger of the Mind" in 1972. He appeared as the night clerk in a 1969 episode of The Virginian titled "Journey to Scathelock," and in "The McGregor Affair" episode of The Alfred Hitchcock Hour, which originally aired on 23 November 1964. Malet held a regular role in the short-lived 1983 television adaptation of Casablanca.