Joseph Calleia (August 4, 1897 – October 31, 1975), was a Maltese singer, composer, and actor, both on Broadway and in film. Calleia played against some Hollywood greats, including John Wayne, William Holden, Errol Flynn, Rita Hayworth, Mae West, Bette Davis, Jane Russell, Mario Lanza, Charlton Heston, Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis, Orson Welles, Tyrone Power, Alan Ladd and Anthony Quinn.
Joseph Calleia was born at Saqqajja Square, Rabat, Malta, to Pasquale and Elena Calleja. He left Malta in 1914, and began his career touring Europe as a teenage singer with a harmonica band, appearing in the cafés and music halls of many war-torn and weary capital cities.
Although Calleia made over 50 films, he always claimed to enjoy stage performance to film acting. He was considered a "bright light" on Broadway between 1926 and 1945, and appeared in several hit plays, including:
By 1931, Calleia had landed an MGM contract in Hollywood, where he successfully pursued a career in the film industry, appearing in a total of 57 movies between then and 1955, frequently playing cops or villains in gangster and western films. He made his screen debut in 1935 with appearances in two B-films: His Woman (1931) and The Girl in the Cab (1933). He very quickly made his mark, playing the role of a criminal in Public Hero No. 1, followed by Riff Raff (1935) in which he played a womanizer, co-starring with Jean Harlow, Spencer Tracy and Mickey Rooney.
In 1936, Calleia wrote the screenplay for the western take on Robin Hood with The Robin Hood of El Dorado.
Calleia received the Critics' Award for his performance in the 1938 John Cromwell film Algiers.
He retired in 1963 in Malta, died in Sliema on October 31, 1975, and was buried in the family vault at Santa Maria Addolorata Cemetery in Paola, Malta. He was posthumously honoured by the Malta postal authority with a set of two commemorative stamps issued in his memory in 1997. In October 2005, a monument consisting of a bust of Joseph Calleia on the initiative of Eman Bonnici, aged 17, was erected in front of the house where Calleia was born, in Rabat. The work was done gratis by sculptor Anton Agius.
