After the war, he continued to work steadily in motion pictures and television, and starred in the 1948 London stage premiere of Arthur Miller's Tony Award-winning play All My Sons.

Joseph Alexander Caesar Herstall Vincent Calleja[1][2][a] was born on August 4, 1897,[4] in Notabile (now called Mdina),[4][5] in the administrative area of Saqqajja,[b] in the Crown Colony of Malta.

At age 12, he used the English pound given to him for Christmas to buy two dozen harmonicas, and organized a local band whose performances were soon netting £100 a week.

Sent by his father to London to study engineering, Calleia employed his good tenor voice in music halls, performing ballads of the Scottish Highlands in traditional dress.

[12] The Henry W. Savage agency sent Calleia to Denver, where he made his stage debut singing in the chorus of Jerome Kern's musical comedy Have a Heart.

"He proved to be the possessor of an agreeable high voice, which he used with much skill in Italian airs," wrote New York Times music critic Olin Downes, "including that of Rodolfo from Puccini's La Boheme and others from Verdi's Trovatore and Rigoletto.

"[15] In recital at New York's Steinway Hall on February 21, 1926, Calleia "displayed a voice of pleasant and attractive timbre" in a program that included works by Scarlatti, Paisiello, Schumann, Gounod and Leoncavallo, as well as two of his own compositions.

[16] Calleia was cast as the Spanish ambassador in the Broadway production of Princess Flavia (1925),[1] Sigmund Romberg's musical adaptation of The Prisoner of Zenda.

[12][17] He played a shuffling, coin-jingling waiter[18] in the melodrama that New York Times critic Brooks Atkinson later called a "noisy, bustling cyclorama of backstage life [that] remains a landmark in the American theater.

"[19] Calleia also acted as the company's stage manager and, working for producer Jed Harris, he supervised some 10 duplicate productions of Broadway in the U.S. and abroad.

[23]: 298 Naming the theatre's villain of the year for 1934, nationally syndicated columnist Paul Harrison of the Newspaper Enterprise Association selected "Joseph Spurin-Calleia, whose gangster role in Small Miracle provided one of the finest of all performances on Broadway.

"[25] He created a series of darkly mysterious characters edged with humor in films including Algiers (1938), Five Came Back (1939), Golden Boy (1939), The Glass Key (1942) and Gilda (1946).

[22] Working with director John Farrow at RKO Pictures in 1939, he created a fine character study as the condemned anarchist in Five Came Back,[36] and a heroic priest in Full Confession.

The house where he was born was destroyed in 1942; his family took refuge underground in ancient catacombs during the near-constant aerial bombing of Malta by the Axis powers that lasted for more than two years.

[39] He also accepted an invitation from the Hollywood Victory Committee to make a tour of military camps in North Africa, particularly because the tentative itinerary included Malta.

[40][d] In addition to working steadily in motion pictures for another 20 years,[27] Calleia also starred in the 1948 London stage premiere of Arthur Miller's Tony Award-winning play All My Sons, receiving unanimous critical acclaim.

[41] His performance in Touch of Evil (1958)—as Pete Menzies, longtime partner of corrupt Police Captain Hank Quinlan (Orson Welles)—is regarded as one of the best of his career.