Ray Mala was born Ray Wise in the small village of Candle, Alaska, to a Russian Jewish immigrant father and an Iñupiaq mother.[3] He was born during a time when Alaska was still only a territory of the United States and was viewed by most Americans as a vast, mysterious frontier. In 1921 an explorer, Captain Frank Kleinschmidt, ventured to Alaska on an expedition to produce Primitive Love, a film in which a 14-year-old Mala made his screen debut. The teenager acted in front of the camera in a minor role and at times served as a cameraman while shooting on location. Later, from 1921 to 1924, Mala also accompanied Knud Rasmussen, the Danish Arctic explorer and writer, as official cameraman on Rasmussen's trip The Great Sled Journey to collect and describe Inuit songs and legends.
Career
In 1925, Mala arrived in Hollywood and got a job as a cameraman with Fox Film Corporation (before the creation of 20th Century-Fox). Not long after, Mala landed his first lead role in the silent film Igloo for Universal Pictures. Igloo was a success and led to his being cast as the lead in MGM's Eskimo (also known as Mala the Magnificent). Louis B. Mayer sent director Woody Van Dyke to the Alaska Territory to film, with many Alaska Natives in the cast, along with Japanese actress Lotus Long (portraying one of Mala's wives) and Chinese actress Ling Wong. Eskimo was produced by Irving Thalberg and premiered at the Astor Theatre in Times Square, New York City, in 1933. The movie was billed as "the biggest picture ever made" by MGM, but after a sluggish opening, MGM quickly decided to change the title to the more sexy Eskimo Wife-Traders. Still, the movie suffered an eventual loss of $236,000 at the box office.[4] The movie's editor, Conrad A. Nervig, won the first Oscar for Best Film Editing for his work on the picture.
In 1952, Mala reappeared in front of the camera to play in Red Snow opposite Guy Madison. According to the American Film Institute, Red Snow is the first film to deal with the Cold War and the atomic bomb.
Death
Shortly after the release of Red Snow, Mala died from heart problems on the set of his last film. He was only 45.[5] His career in Hollywood spanned almost 30 years.[3] Fifty years after his death, his remains were returned to Alaska, with a reburial ceremony in 2018 inside Anchorage Memorial Park Cemetery.[6]
^Doyle, Billy H. (1999). The Ultimate Directory of Silent and Sound Era Performers: A Necrology of Actors and Actresses. Scarecrow Press. p. 358. ISBN9780810835474. Gives Mala's birth and death dates.
