Tragic Details About Malcolm In The Middle's Bryan Cranston

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Bryan Cranston has starred in some major shows, displaying an impressive range of comedy and dramatic acting. He was the ruthless, desperate, meth-making chemistry teacher with cancer, Walter White, for all five seasons of "Breaking Bad." Before that, he played pretty much the opposite in the character of Hal, Malcolm's dad, on seven seasons of "Malcolm in the Middle." Cranston, along with nearly all the rest of the "Malcolm in the Middle" cast, will be reprising their roles in a limited series on Hulu in 2026. But despite his major career successes, Cranston has faced his share of tragic events, like many in the "Malcolm in the Middle" cast. From being suspected in a murder to health concerns to family abandonment, Cranston's life has definitely not been smooth sailing.

On the comparatively lighter side of tragedy, Cranston caught COVID-19 in 2020. Thankfully, his health didn't suffer the way that some people's did, but Cranston did have some lingering effects of COVID-19. He'd lost his sense of taste and smell, and it took months to get it back. That's not all he's had to cope with, though.

One of the things that you might not know about Bryan Cranston is that he had a difficult childhood. He's talked about how he grew up poor, and that his parents weren't always there for him. Bryan wrote about his childhood in his book "A Life in Parts." His parents, Joseph "Joe" Cranston and Annalisa "Peggy" Sell, met in acting class, got married, and started a family near Hollywood. Joe attempted to make it as an actor, but despite scoring a few jobs, the family finances were rarely secure for very long. Joe ending up leaving the family when Bryan was just 11, and he cheated on Peggy. In response, Peggy turned to alcohol to cope as the couple divorced.

Bryan wasn't told why his father had left, and it would be years before Bryan saw his father again. Having his family fall apart clearly (and reasonably) had quite the impact on Bryan. On "The Howard Stern Show," Bryan said that he thought his father was having "a massive mid life crisis ... [and] alcohol and drug abuse." He also confirmed that his father did apologize to him before Joe's death in 2014. When cleaning out his house, Bryan said they found something that Joe had written, "the happiest day of my life is when my children forgave me for the worst period of my life."

As for why that challenging upbringing is a part of what he's grateful for, Bryan told The Telegraph: "when you go through an experience like that as a boy, you respect it more. So [now] I don't expect any special treatment, I'm just a working actor who's grateful."

Beyond a challenging childhood with his parents, Bryan Cranston also had to deal with his mother Peggy being diagnosed with Alzheimer's in her later years. He spoke about her diagnosis at the 2019 Women in the World Summit, and explained that he underestimated how significant it was. "I was starting to get a little irritated that she would forget things," he said. "I just assumed that she wasn't writing things down; that she was being careless."

Facing the reality that the parent you once knew is no longer there and isn't going to come back is quite the adjustment to have to make, especially when you overlooked the signs the way Cranston did — and the way so many others have. Cranston also confirmed that he had to work to make a new relationship with his mom after her diagnosis.

He was able to see a silver lining in his mother's disease; she was able to forget the painful moments of her past, like his father leaving. Peggy died from Alzheimer's in 2004. Given the genetic component to Alzheimer's disease, there's a chance that Cranston may get it as well.

In the 1970s, Bryan Cranston and his brother Kyle Cranston were road tripping on motorcycles, and they stopped in Florida to make some money as waiters. Bryan told the story on the podcast "Dinner's On Me with Jesse Tyler Ferguson," and he explained how they were working at Hawaiian Inn, a restaurant in Daytona Beach. One of the chefs there was named Peter Wong, and Bryan described him as "rotten and mean ... and we'd all discuss if one were to do away with Peter Wong, how would ... one do it." Those innocent musings would come back to haunt them.

Bryan and Kyle left Florida, and it just so happened that around the same time, Wong went missing. It turns out that Wong was murdered and robbed, and when the police asked if anyone at Hawaiian Inn had talked about getting rid of him, the kitchen staff admitted that they had, including Bryan and Kyle.

And since they had recently left town, the police were interested in talking to them, potentially viewing them as suspects. An alert went out for the brothers, but thankfully, some witnesses were able to confirm what actually happened to Wong, and Bryan and Kyle were off the hook.

Before Bryan Cranston married Robin Dearden in 1989, he was married to Micky Middleton from 1977 to 1982. Between the two marriages, Cranston dated a woman that he told Jesse Tyler Ferguson about on the podcast "Dinner's On Me." He called her "assertive and in command, beautiful." Things got intense between them pretty quickly, but seemingly just as quickly, Cranston realized that the two of them weren't a good fit, and they broke up. 

Cranston then got a job on the ABC soap opera "Loving" in 1983, which filmed in New York City. The woman who Cranston had spurned a few months before was visiting New York City, and he agreed to hang out with her as a friend. She apparently didn't see them as just friends; apparently thinking that the meet up meant they were back together. He shut that down again. But not long after that disastrous date that wasn't a date for Cranston, the woman actually showed up at the "Loving" set to confront him about leaving her. Nothing like showing up at someone's workplace to confront them over a romantic entanglement.

Cranston gave more details on what happened next, and it sounds pretty bad. "I'm freaking out; [the relationship] devolved from there. ... to a point, I had this vision of killing her. I went to a different place; they used to call it 'seeing red.' ... I was so afraid of myself at that moment." We're glad Cranston was able to find Dearden after that kind of drama!