One American actor who passed away on July 1, 2004, was Marlon Brando Jr. Among the many honors bestowed upon Brando during his sixty-year acting career were two Oscars, three BAFTAs, a prize from the Cannes Film Festival, two Golden Globes, and a Primetime Emmy. He was generally considered one of the finest actors of the twentieth century. Brando was an early proponent of the Stanislavski and method acting systems, and he is often considered an innovator in the field.
Stella Adler and Stanislavski's method had an impact on Brando in the 1940s. His career began in the theatre, where he received rave reviews for his convincing portrayals of various roles. I Remember Mama (1944) was his Broadway debut, and in 1946, he received Theater World Awards for his performances in Candida and Truckline Cafe. He played Stanley Kowalski in the 1947 Broadway revival of A Streetcar Named Desire, based on a play by Tennessee Williams; he also appeared in Elia Kazan's 1951 film adaptation of the play.
In his first cinematic role, he played a wounded soldier. His performances as a dockworker in the crime thriller On the Waterfront (1954) and Vito Corleone in the gangster epic The Godfather (1972) earned him two Academy Awards for Best Actor, after his appearance in The Men (1950). For his roles as Stanley Kowalski in A Streetcar Named Desire (1951) and Emiliano Zapata in Viva Zapata!, he received an Academy Award nomination. in Julius Caesar (1953), Mark Antony (1952), Sayonara (1957), Last Tango in Paris (1973), an American expatriate (1973), and A Dry White Season (1989), among others.
Famous for portraying iconic characters, such as Johnny Strabler, the defiant leader of a motorcycle gang in The Wild One (1953), Brando became a symbol of the so-called "generation gap" during that time. Apocalypse Now (1979), Superman (1978), Sky Masterson (1955), Fletcher Christian (1962), and other films include his roles as Colonel Kurtz (1979), Jor-El (1978), and Sky Masterson (1955) in the musical Guys and Dolls. Despite starring in it, his directorial debut, the 1961 western drama One-Eyed Jacks, bombed at the box office.
After his 1979 Primetime Emmy win for his performance in the ABC miniseries Roots: The Next Generations, Brando took a nine-year break from acting. His previous work included films and television shows. After that, he tried his hand at film again, this time with mixed reviews and box office returns. His private struggles garnered a lot of media attention, and the last 20 years of his life were characterized by scandal. Issues with the law and emotional disorders plagued him. The Score (2001) and The Island of Dr. Moreau (1996) are among his most recent features.
Background and schooling ==
In Omaha, Nebraska, Marlon Brando Sr. and Dorothy Pennebaker welcomed their only son, Marlon Brando Jr., on April 3, 1924. His mother was a theatrical performer, and his father was a salesperson, so they were both frequently on the road. After developing feelings of attachment to the family housekeeper in his mother's absence, Brando began to struggle with feelings of abandonment when she departed to be married. His sisters Jocelyn and Frances were the older ones.
Brando did not come from an Italian family, despite the fact that his last name's spelling suggests otherwise and that he has played prominent roles in films set in Italy. Brando's family tree traced back to a mix of German, Dutch, English, and Irish veins. A patrilineal relative of his, Johann Wilhelm Brandau, emigrated to America from Germany's Palatinate region in the early eighteenth century. Additionally, he may trace his lineage back to the French Huguenot Louis DuBois, who came to New York in the 1660s. An Irish immigrant named Myles Joseph Gahan was a doctor in the American Civil War and his maternal great-grandfather was him. "I am seriously contemplating Irish citizenship. I have never felt at home in a place as I do here. I had this rush of emotion. I have never been so happy in my life." He made these remarks in a 1995 interview while in Ireland.
Brando met Wally Cox in 1930, when he was six years old, and stayed friends with him until Cox died in 1973. While in Evanston, Illinois, Brando became famous for his imitating and pranking. After his parents divorced in 1936, his mother took him and his brothers to live with her in Santa Ana, California. His father bought a farmhouse in Libertyville, Illinois, after his parents had reunited two years earlier. Although he struggled in every other class at Libertyville High School, Brando was a star on the athletic and dramatic fields. As a result, he was deficient for a year and eventually expelled in 1941 due to his behavioral issues.
After seeing that his father had also attended Shattuck Military Academy, Brando's father sent him there. Until his insubordination during maneuvers in 1943 landed him on probation, Brando continued to thrive as an actor there. He escaped from his university confinement and was apprehended after sneaking into town. Although he had the backing of students who felt punishment was excessively severe, the faculty ultimately decided to expel him. Despite an invitation to return the next year, Brando opted not to return to high school and instead dropped out. After his father arranged for him to work as a ditch-digger for the summer, he attempted to enroll in the Army. However, his regular physical revealed that he was physically unsuited for military duty because to a trick knee he had acquired in a football accident at Shattuck.
Following in his sisters' footsteps, Brando moved to New York to attend the American Theatre Wing Professional School, which is a component of the Dramatic Workshop of the New School. There, he studied under the tutelage of renowned German director Erwin Piscator. "He was in a school play and enjoyed it... So he decided he would go to New York and study acting because that was the only thing he had enjoyed. That was when he was 18." As George Englund said in the A&E Biography episode on Brando, Brando fell into acting in New York because "he was accepted there. He wasn't criticized. It was the first time in his life that he heard good things about himself." Brando spent his first few months in New York sleeping on friends' couches. Roy Somlyo, who went on to become a four-time Emmy-winning Broadway producer, was his roommate for a while.
After learning the Stanislavski style of movement from Stella Adler, Brando became a devoted student and advocate of her work. To completely embody the role, this method pushed the actor to investigate the character's inner and outer worlds. From the very beginning, Brando's extraordinary intelligence and realistic perspective were apparent. Anecdotally, Adler would say that when teaching Brando, she had the class quake with fear, as if a nuclear bomb were going to drop on them. Brando sat serenely and pretended to lay an egg while the rest of the students clucked and raced about madly. When Adler questioned him about his reaction, he responded, "I'm a chicken—what do I know about bombs?" Brando, who is often considered a method actor, disagreed. According to him, Lee Strasberg's teachings were completely repulsive:
Lee Strasberg attempted to claim credit for instructing me in acting after I achieved some success. I learned nothing from him. If he thought he could get away with it, he would have taken credit for the sun and the moon. He pretended to be an acting master and oracle while taking advantage of the students at the Actors Studio. He was a greedy, ambitious man. For some reason, I'll never understand why some people adored him. Even though Strasberg never gave me acting lessons, on Saturday mornings I would occasionally visit the Actors Studio to see Elia Kazan lecture. There were always a lot of attractive women there. Stella (Adler) and, subsequently, Kazan did.
Brando pioneered the use of a more relaxed, natural style of acting in cinema. Even after the director would order action, Dustin Hoffman claims in his online Masterclass that Brando would frequently continue chatting with cameramen and fellow performers about their weekend. After Brando was confident in his ability to deliver the lines naturally, he would begin to deliver them. He compared performers to cereal in his 2015 documentary Listen To Me Marlon; that is, they were predictable. Actors who worked under Brando claimed it was all part of his approach, but critics would later claim it was him being tough.
Work History
1944–1950: Beginning of professional life
To obtain his first summer stock parts, Brando put his Stanislavski System training to work in Sayville, Long Island, New York. In his little acting experience, Brando displayed a tendency of unpredictable and rebellious conduct. He was found in a locally produced play in Sayville shortly after being thrown out of the New School's show due to his antics. Then, in 1944, he played Mady Christians' son in the Broadway production of I Remember Mama, a melancholy drama. Even though Alfred Lunt prepared Brando for the audition, the Lunts ultimately decided against casting him as their son in O Mistress Mine because he didn't even try to read his lines. His portrayal of a troubled soldier in the financially unsuccessful play Truckline Café earned him the title of "Most Promising Young Actor" according to the New York Drama Critics. Refusing to take salaries higher than the Actors' Equity rate, he made an appearance on Broadway in 1946 as the youthful protagonist in the political play A Flag is Born. That same year, Brando re-enacted one of his iconic roles—Marchbanks—alongside Katharine Cornell in a revival of her production of Candida. In the same year, Cornell also had him play the role of the Messenger in Antigone, directed by Jean Anouilh. Another chance presented up for him to take a leading role in the Broadway debut of The Iceman Cometh, a play by Eugene O'Neill. However, he declined the position after falling asleep while trying to read the enormous script and describing the piece as "ineptly written and poorly constructed."
It was in 1945 that Brando's agent suggested he act with Tallulah Bankhead in Jack Wilson's The Eagle Has Two Heads. For the 1946–1947 season, Bankhead declined Williams' offer to play Blanche Dubois in her stage production of A Streetcar Named Desire. Despite Bankhead's (and most Broadway veterans') disgust with method acting, she consented to employ Brando despite his bad audition because she saw his potential. Bankhead, who was Brando's age and had a drinking problem, brought up memories of his mother, which exacerbated their tensions during the pre-Broadway tour. Until Brando mumbled his way through a dress rehearsal just before the November 28, 1946, opening, Wilson was mostly tolerant of his antics. Wilson yelled out, "I don't care what your grandmother did, and that Method stuff; I want to know what you're going to do!" In response, Brando responded by raising his voice and acting passionately. "It was marvelous," a member of the cast related. "Everybody hugged him and kissed him. He came ambling offstage and said to me, 'They don't think you can act unless you can yell.'"
Still, reviewers weren't very complimentary. Critics were mixed about Brando's performance in the opening; some said he was "still building his character, but at present fails to impress." In reference to his drawn-out death scene, one Boston critic said, "Brando looked like a car in midtown Manhattan searching for a parking space." Reviews improved at later tour stops, but colleagues remembered glimpses of his talent that they couldn't ignore. "There were a few instances when he was truly outstanding," Bankhead confessed to a 1962 interviewer. "He was a great young actor when he wanted to be, but most of the time I couldn't even hear him on the stage."
By displaying some startling onstage manners, Brando demonstrated his indifference for the show. Claiming to have "done everything in the world to ruin it for her," Bankhead's stage manager deposed. By the time they reached Boston after a few weeks on the road, Bankhead was prepared to fire him because "he nearly drove her crazy: scratching his crotch, picking his nose, doing anything." It was a stroke of luck that allowed him to play Stanley Kowalski in Elia Kazan's 1947 production of A Streetcar Named Desire, a play by Tennessee Williams. In her letter turning down Williams' offer to play Blanche, Bankhead offered Brando a ringing—though acid-laced—endorsement, writing, "I do have one suggestion for casting. I know of an actor who can appear as this brutish Stanley Kowalski character. I mean, a total pig of a man without sensitivity or grace of any kind. Marlon Brando would be perfect as Stanley. I have just fired the cad from my play, The Eagle Has Two Heads, and I know that he is looking for work.".
In his account, Pierpont states that the original casting option, John Garfield, "made impossible demands." Kazan ultimately decided to cast Brando, who was both technically too young and considerably less experienced, in the part. A letter from August 29, 1947, from Williams to his agent Audrey Wood, revealed the following: "It had not occurred to me before what an excellent value would come through casting a very young actor in this part. It humanizes the character of Stanley in that it becomes the brutality and callousness of youth rather than a vicious old man... A new value came out of Brando’s reading which was by far the best reading I have ever heard." Brando had studied boxing with Rocky Graziano at a local gym, and this inspired his portrayal of Kowalski. Graziano went to the play because the young guy gave him tickets, even though he had no idea who Brando was. He pointed out, "The curtain went up and on the stage is that son of a bitch from the gym, and he's playing me."
Though it was unrelated to the 1955 picture, Brando did a screen test in 1947 for a Warner Brothers script based on the 1944 book Rebel Without a Cause. The 2006 DVD edition of A Streetcar Named Desire included the screen test as an added feature. In The Men (1950), Brando made his film debut as a resentful paraplegic veteran. In preparation for the part, he slept for a month in Van Nuys's Birmingham Army Hospital. Bosley Crowther, a critic for the New York Times, praised Brando's performance as Ken, saying, "Out of stiff and frozen silences he can lash into a passionate rage with the tearful and flailing frenzy of a taut cable suddenly cut." Crowther went on to say that Brando "is so vividly real, dynamic and sensitive that his illusion is complete."
Brando claims that his draft status went from 4-F to 1-A, and he attributes the move to this picture. Since he had his trick knee operated on, it no longer posed a significant enough disability to exclude him from serving in the military. Among Brando's induction center paperwork was an assertion that he was psychoneurotic, along with the following: he was of "human" race, "Seasonal-oyster white to beige" hue, and "human" as his race. Brando described his history of expulsion from military school and his significant issues with authority when the draft board recommended he see a doctor. It just so happened that the psychiatrist had a medical acquaintance of Brando's. Although he could have served in the Korean War, Brando opted out.
Instead of committing his lines to memory, Brando started utilizing cue cards early in his career. Many of the film directors Brando collaborated with were against this, but he said it added authenticity and spontaneity to his performances. If he didn't, people would think he was paraphrasing a writer. Mark Ruffalo said in the TV documentary The Making of Superman: The Movie that when actors don't know the exact words but have a rough notion, they can use cue cards to create the illusion that the character is struggling to find the right words to say. On the other hand, some people assumed that Brando utilized the cards because he was too lazy or couldn't remember his lines. Someone once asked Brando why he wanted his lines written out when filming The Godfather. His reason for responding was: "Because I can read them that way."
During the years 1951–1954, On the Waterfront and Stardom
In A Streetcar Named Desire (1951), Brando brought his Stanley Kowalski performance to the big screen in Tennessee Williams' play. It was for this role that he received his first Best Actor nomination at the Academy Awards. Many consider this to be Brando's finest acting roles.
The following year, he was also considered for the Viva Zapata award. (1952), a fictitious biography of Emiliano Zapata, the Mexican revolutionary. The video chronicled Zapata's life, from his humble beginnings to his ascent to prominence in the early 1900s and eventual demise. Anthony Quinn and Elia Kazan were both cast members of the picture. The biopic Marlon Brando: The Wild One quotes Sam Shaw as saying, "Secretly, before the picture started, he went to Mexico to the very town where Zapata lived and was born in and it was there that he studied the speech patterns of people, their behavior, movement." Critics praised the actor more than the film, with time and newsweek publishing glowing reviews.
In his autobiography, Brando made the following comment: "Tony Quinn, whom I admired professionally and liked personally, played my brother, but he was extremely cold to me while we shot that picture. During our scenes together, I sensed a bitterness toward me. If I suggested a drink after work, he either turned me down or else was sullen and said little. Only years later did I learn why." Brando went on to explain that, in order to create onscreen tension between the two, "Gadg" (Kazan) had informed Quinn—who had taken over Brando's role as Stanley Kowalski on Broadway—that Brando had been unimpressed with his work, which had been a secretly told to Quinn by Brando himself. Kazan never admitted to Quinn that he had lied to him after he had achieved his goal. Brando and Quinn did not discover the deceit until much later, when they were exchanging notes.
The reviews for Brando's next picture, Julius Caesar (1953), were overwhelmingly positive. Cast as Mark Antony was Brando. Even while most people could see that Brando had acting chops, there were those who thought his "mumbling" and other quirks showed that he hadn't mastered the basics of the craft, thus they were skeptical of his chances of landing the role. Especially in Antony's famous "Friends, Romans, countrymen..." speech, Brando wowed audiences under Joseph L. Mankiewicz's direction and alongside British stage actor John Gielgud. Brando turned down Gielgud's invitation of a full season at the Hammersmith Theatre because he was so impressed. Stefan Kanfer writes in his biography of the actor, "Marlon's autobiography devotes one line to his work on that film: Among all those British professionals, 'for me to walk onto a movie set and play Mark Anthony was asinine'—yet another example of his persistent self-denigration, and wholly incorrect."
Filmmaker John Huston remarked after seeing the picture, "Christ! It was like a furnace door opening—the heat came off the screen. I don't know another actor who could do that." Julius Caesar was being filmed when Brando found out that Elia Kazan had cooperated with congressional investigators, naming a whole string of "subversives" to the House Committee on Un-American Activities (HUAC). Brando reportedly felt let down by his mentor's choice, but they reunited for On the Waterfront. In his memoirs, he reflected on the fact that no one is flawless and how he believed Gadg had caused harm, not just to others but mostly to himself.
While riding his own Triumph Thunderbird 6T motorbike, Brando co-starred in 1953's The Wild One. The exposure's subject matter—the takeover of a tiny town by raucous biker gangs—left Triumph's importers with mixed feelings. As Time put it: "The effect of the movie is not to throw light on the public problem, but to shoot adrenaline through the moviegoer's veins." Critics felt the film had too much gratuitous violence, and Brando allegedly had a falling out with both Hungarian director László Benedek and his costar Lee Marvin.
Despite Brando's bewilderment, the film catapulted him into stardom and served as an inspiration to the emerging rock and roll generation, including James Dean and Elvis Presley. Sales of motorbikes and leather coats surged following the film's debut. I believe I played Johnny as more sensitive and sympathetic than the script envisioned. There's a line in the picture where he snarls, 'Nobody tells me what to do.' That's exactly how I've felt all my life. Reflecting on the movie in my autobiography, Brando concluded that it had not aged very well but added, "More than most parts I've played in the movies or onstage, I related to Johnny. As a result, I believe I played him as more sensitive and sympathetic than the script envisioned."
Brando and William Redfield, both members of the Studio, appeared in a summer stock performance of Arms and the Man, a play by George Bernard Shaw, later that year.
Brando appeared in the 1954 crime thriller On the Waterfront, which dealt with the corruption and brutality inside the longshoremen's union. Karl Malden, Lee J. Cobb, Rod Steiger, and Eva Marie Saint made their film debut in Elia Kazan and Budd Schulberg's feature picture. It almost went to Frank Sinatra when Brando first turned down the character of Terry Malloy—still hurt at Kazan's testimony before HUAC. Biographer Stefan Kanfer states that the film's director had first intended for Sinatra—who was born and raised in Hoboken, the film's setting and location—to play the role of Malloy. However, producer Sam Spiegel paid $100,000 to cast Brando. "Kazan made no protest because, he subsequently confessed, 'I always preferred Brando to anybody.'"
In On the Waterfront, Brando played the part of Irish-American stevedore Terry Malloy and received the Academy Award for his performance. His chemistry with Eva Marie Saint and Kazan's direction propelled him to a spectacular performance, which garnered rave reviews. Terry persuaded Kazan that the written moment depicting his self-loathing—"I coulda been a contender"—was unrealistic. In Schulberg's original script, Brando was to play the part of a man whose brother Charlie (Rod Steiger) was holding him at gunpoint. Because Terry would never think his brother would pull the trigger and because he couldn't continue speaking with a pistol on him, Brando softly pushed the gun away. Kazan gave Brando room to improvise and went on to praise Brando's innate talent, stating:
What really stood out to me about his performance was how he managed to pull off both the tough-guy persona and the really delicate and compassionate side of his character. When his brother threatens to compel him to do something dishonorable, what other actor would place his hand on the gun and delicately push it away, like a caress? Who else could deliver "Oh, Charlie!" with a reprimand that is both compassionate and sad, implying a tremendous amount of anguish? ... I don't know of any male actor in American cinematic history who has given a more outstanding performance.
Critically acclaimed and commercially successful, On the Waterfront grossed an estimated $4.2 million in North American rentals in 1954 upon its premiere. Reviewing an article from July 29, 1954, A. According to H. Weiler, the film was "an uncommonly powerful, exciting, and imaginative use of the screen by gifted professionals." In a retrospective review, Roger Ebert praised the film, saying that it was a watershed moment for American film acting and adding it to his "Great Movies" list. "On the day Gadg showed me the complete picture, I was so depressed by my performance I got up and left the screening room... I thought I was a huge failure." Brando's autobiography reveals that he was usually critical of his performance. Tragically, the statue that Brando had won for Best Actor was stolen after his nomination. A London auction house eventually found it and called the actor to let him know where it was. This happened a long time later.
Success at the box office from 1954 to 1959
Désirée, a film from 1954, starred Brando as Napoleon.
Brando appeared in the 1955 film version of the musical Guys and Dolls. It was in Guys and Dolls that Brando would get his first and only musical part. The film was deemed by Time to be "false to the original in its feeling" and Brando was criticized for his "faraway tenor that sometimes tends to be flat." In an interview with Edward Murrow's Person to Person in early 1955, Brando confessed to having "pretty terrible" singing voice problems. In the 1965 documentary Meet Marlon Brando, Brando revealed that the final product heard in the film was the result of numerous singing takes that were combined. He later joked, saying, "I couldn't hit a note with a baseball bat; some notes I missed by extraordinary margins... They stitched my words together on one song so tightly that when I mouthed it in front of the camera, I nearly asphyxiated myself." There was tension between Brando and his co-star Frank Sinatra, as Stefan Kanfer put it: "The two men were diametrically opposites: Marlon required multiple takes; Frank detested repeating himself." At their first meeting, Sinatra allegedly scoffed, "Don't give me any of that Actors Studio shit." Brando later joked, "Frank is the kind of guy, when he dies, he's going to heaven and give God a hard time for making him bald." Frank Sinatra criticized Brando, calling him "the world's most overrated actor," and referring to him as "mumbles." Despite receiving mixed reviews, the picture was a financial success, earning $13 million off its $5.5 million production budget.
Brando portrayed Sakini, an American diplomat's Japanese translator. Japanese Army after WWII, in August Moon's Teahouse (1956). Pauline Kael didn't find the film particularly appealing, but said "Marlon Brando starved himself to play the pixie interpreter Sakini, and he looks as if he's enjoying the stunt—talking with a mad accent, grinning boyishly, bending forward, and doing tricky movements with his legs. He's harmlessly genial (and he is certainly missed when he's offscreen), though the fey, roguish role doesn't allow him to do what he's great at and it's possible that he's less effective in it than a lesser actor might have been."
The 1957 film Sayonara featured Brando in the role of an American Air Force commander. Despite Newsweek's criticism that it was a "dull tale of the meeting of the twain," the picture was a financial success. If Stefan Kanfer's biography of the actor is to be believed, Brando became a billionaire because his manager Jay Kanter struck a lucrative deal that gave him ten percent of the income. Though it received 10 Oscar nominations—including one for Best Actor—the film was a smashing success despite the backlash it received for its explicit depiction of interracial marriage. Four Academy Awards later, the picture had a successful run. In the following decade, Brando aspired to make a series of films with socially relevant messages, beginning with Teahouse and Sayonara. He partnered with Paramount to found his own production company, Pennebaker, with the stated goal of creating films with "social value that would improve the world." The name was a tribute to his mother, who had passed away in 1954. According to biographer Peter Manso, who spoke to A&E's Biography, "She was the one who could give him approval like no one else could and, after his mother died, it seems that Marlon stops caring." Brando appointed his father to manage Pennebaker, and it seems like her death crushed him. "It gave Marlon a chance to take shots at him, to demean and diminish him," according to George Englund, who asserts in the same A&E program that Brando hired his father.
Brando said afterwards that his 1958 appearance in The Young Lions, in which he wore a blonde wig and adopted a German accent, was not believable. The film's controversial portrayal of Christian Diestl, played by Marlon Brando, was based on the novel by Irwin Shaw. In a later writing, he expressed his belief that the story should show that people can be easily misled rather than being inherently evil. Shaw and Brando had a televised interview where Shaw accused Brando of not being able to play villainous roles, but Brando responded, saying, "Nobody creates a character but an actor. I play the role; now he exists. He is my creation." The Young Lions also features Brando's only appearance in a film. The Fugitive Kind (1960), which starred Brando and Anna Magnani, was the decade's last film. "Psychologically sick or just plain ugly" was how the Los Angeles Times described Williams' personae in the film adaptation of her play "A Streetcar Named Desire," while "cornpone melodrama" was how The New Yorker described it. Neither of these descriptions was very complimentary to the work of Tennessee Williams.
1961–1971. Long-term actor
The 1961 western One-Eyed Jacks was Brando's first feature film as a director. Originally, Stanley Kubrick was supposed to direct the film, but he was let go during production. After that, Paramount tapped Brando to helm the film. Karl Malden plays Rio's associate "Dad" Longworth, while Brando plays the primary role. Ben Johnson, Slim Pickens, and Katy Jurado are also part of the supporting cast. Paramount had anticipated a three-month filming schedule, but the picture ended up taking six months longer than projected and costing over six million dollars, all because Brando continued his habit of several takeovers and character exploration as an actor into his directing. Brando's lack of expertise as an editor further slowed down post-production, and Paramount ultimately acquired the film's rights. Later on, Brando wrote, "Paramount said it didn't like my version of the story; I'd had everyone lie except Karl Malden. The studio cut the movie to pieces and made him a liar, too. By then, I was bored with the whole project and walked away from it" . Reviewers had different reactions to One-Eyed Jacks.
While filming in Tahiti for his upcoming picture, a remake of Mutiny on the Bounty by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Brando allegedly lost it over the film business. The performer allegedly set out to ruin the show in every way imaginable. Bill Davidson's piece titled "Six million dollars down the drain: the mutiny of Marlon Brando" appeared in The Saturday Evening Post on June 16, 1962. While delays unrelated to Brando's actions did slow production of Mutiny on the Bounty, the film's director Lewis Milestone argued that the executives "deserve what they get when they give a ham actor, a petulant child, complete control over an expensive picture." Accusations against Brando continued for years as studios grew afraid of his troubled reputation. His weight fluctuation was another thing that critics started to notice.
After growing disillusioned with his profession and sidetracked by his personal life, Brando started to see acting only as a way to make money. His acceptance of parts that critics saw as beneath his skill or as a failure to deliver on his better roles sparked protests. Brando, who had previously only ever signed short-term deals with studios, made the uncommon decision to sign a five-picture deal with Universal Studios in 1961, which would have lasting consequences for the remainder of that decade. First in this series was 1963's The Ugly American. Pennebaker optioned the 1958 novel of the same name for the big screen. Despite receiving mostly excellent reviews, the picture bombed at the box office, even though it included Brando's sister Jocelyn. Brando received a Golden Globe nomination for his portrayal. Along with Bedtime Story(1964), The Appaloosa(1966), A Countess from Hong Kong(1967), and The Night of the Following Day (1969), all of Brando's other films released by Universal at the same time were commercial and critical duds. For Brando, the film Countess was a major letdown as he was hoping to collaborate with Charlie Chaplin, a filmmaker he really admired. Unfortunately, Brando had a terrible time due to Chaplin's dictatorial attitude and didactic directing. In 1965, Brando had another box office bomb with his appearance in the spy thriller Morituri.
"Some of the films I made during the sixties were successful; some weren't. Some, like The Night of the Following Day, I made only for the money. Others, like Candy, I did because a friend asked me to and I didn't want to turn him down... In some ways I think of my middle age as the Fuck You Years." Candy, a 1968 sex farce film directed by Christian Marquand and based on the 1958 novel by Terry Southern, satirizes pornographic stories through the adventures of its innocent heroine, Candy, played by Ewa Aulin. The consensus is that it was the lowest point in Brando's career. The Washington Post observed: "Brando's self-indulgence over a dozen years is costing him and his public his talents." In the March 1966 issue of The Atlantic, Pauline Kael wrote that in his rebellious days, Brando "was antisocial because he knew society was crap; he was a hero to youth because he was strong enough not to take the crap", but now Brando and others like him had become "buffoons, shamelessly, pathetically mocking their public reputations." In an earlier review of The Appaloosa in 1966, Kael wrote that the actor was "trapped in another dog of a movie ... Not for the first time, Mr. Brando gives us a heavy-lidded, adenoidally openmouthed caricature of the inarticulate, stalwart loner." Although he feigned indifference, Brando was hurt by the critical mauling, admitting in the 2
In John Huston's Reflections in a Golden Eye, which also starred Elizabeth Taylor, Brando played the role of a suppressed homosexual army commander. Reviewers were divided on the picture, but Stanley Crouch gushed, "Brando's main achievement was to portray the taciturn but stoic gloom of those pulverized by circumstances." The part was one of his most celebrated in recent memory. The Chase (1966) was another important picture in which the actor co-starred alongside Robert Duvall, Jane Fonda, Robert Redford, and director Arthur Penn. The film explores a range of topics, including racism, sexual revolution, corruption in small towns, and vigilantism. Viewers were overwhelmingly favourable to the picture.
Brando alludes to Burn! in his autobiography, Brando wrote: "I think I did some of the best acting I've ever done in that picture, but few people came to see it." He also devoted an entire chapter to the film in his memoir, describing Gillo Pontecorvo as the best director he had ever worked with, right up there with Kazan and Bernardo Bertolucci. Critical response for the film was negative, and Brando went into detail about his on-set conflicts with Pontecorvo, saying, "we nearly killed each other." The film was loosely based on incidents in Guadeloupe's history. He co-starred with Stephanie Beacham, Thora Hird, Harry Andrews, and Anna Palk in the 1971 British horror movie The Nightcomers, shot by Michael Winner. Originally titled The Innocents (1961), it serves as a precursor to the 1961 film The Turn of the Screw. Despite Brando's Best Actor BAFTA nomination, the picture was a financial failure.
Career renaissance and critical praise, 1970–1979
An "unbankable" Brando was the talk of the 1970s. His work was being more and more disregarded by critics, and he hadn't starred in a commercial success since 1958's The Young Lions—the same year he was nominated for an Oscar for Sayonara and the last time he was named among the Top Ten Box Office Stars. Brando's portrayal of Vito Corleone, the "Don," in Francis Ford Coppola's 1972 film The Godfather—based on Mario Puzo's 1969 best-selling novel of the same name—marked a turning point in his career, catapulting him back into the Top Ten and securing his second Best Actor Oscar.
Following the rejection of several prominent filmmakers, Paramount production head Robert Evans—who had already paid Puzo an advance to create The Godfather in order for Paramount to acquire the picture rights—hired Coppola. For the sake of cultural authenticity, Evans sought for an Italian-American filmmaker. Coppola, too, was inexpensive. The Brotherhood (1968), Paramount's last foray into the Mafia genre, was a financial disaster, and Evans knew it was in part because the film's Jewish director Martin Ritt and star Kirk Douglas, as well as its fake Italian taste, were to blame. The studio had planned to make a low-budget picture about modern times without any big names, but because to the novel's enormous popularity, Evans was able to elevate The Godfather to the status of a prestige picture.
The following actors were on Coppola's list for each part: Italian-American Frank de Kova, who played Chief Wild Eagle on the TV sitcom F-Troop; John Marley, who was nominated for Best Supporting Oscar in Paramount's 1970 hit Love Story and played the role of film producer Jack Woltz; Richard Conte, who played Don Emilio Barzini, Don Corleone's deadly rival; and Italian film producer Carlo Ponti. In a 1975 interview, Coppola said, "We finally figured we had to lure the best actor in the world. It was that simple. That boiled down to Laurence Olivier or Marlon Brando, who are the greatest actors in the world." Underlined on Coppola's hand-written cast list is Brando's name.
Evans informed Coppola that he had considered Brando for the role two years prior; Puzo had envisioned Brando in the role while penning the novel and had even communicated with him regarding the part; hence, Coppola and Evans decided that Brando was the best choice. (Just so you know, Olivier was up against Brando at the 1972 New York Film Critics Circle Awards for his performance in Sleuth, and Brando ended up winning.) Albert S. Ruddy, Paramount's pick for producer, was on board with Brando's casting. Nevertheless, studio brass at Paramount were against Brando's casting because of his troubled past and his extensive list of unsuccessful films. Paramount lost money on the 1961 release of One-Eyed Jacks, which Brando also had to contend with. The president of Paramount Pictures, Stanley Jaffe, informed an irate Francis Coppola, "As long as I'm president of this studio, Marlon Brando will not be in this picture, and I will no longer allow you to discuss it."
Jaffe ultimately insisted that Brando undergo a screen test, pay a price far lower than his usual rate, and assume full financial responsibility for any production delays caused by his actions. Coppola coerced Brando into a recorded "make-up" test, when he applied his own makeup (faking the character's puffy cheeks with cotton balls). Coppola was intrigued by Brando's portrayal of the Don despite her concerns that the actor was too young for the role. To cast the erratic performer, though, he had to go to war with the studio. In his autobiography, Brando admits, "I had never played an Italian before, and I didn't think I could do it successfully." Despite his initial reservations, Paramount parent company Gulf+Western president Charles Bluhdorn ultimately decided to cast Brando in the role. Bluhdorn was so taken aback by the screen test that he questioned, "What are we watching? Who is this old guinea?" Brando was signed for a modest $50,000 fee, but his contract included a sliding scale for his percentage of the gross. Specifically, he would receive 1% of the gross for every $10 million over a $10 million threshold, and 5% if the picture earned more than $60 million. Brando reportedly needed money badly, so he gave back his acting rights to the film for $100,000, according to Evans. ("That $100,000 cost him $11 million," Evans asserted).
Cast members such as Diane Keaton, Robert Duvall, James Caan, and Al Pacino helped keep Brando in check while filming. He played the part of the "head of the family" on set, using his position as the most experienced actor to rally the creatives behind the project. In a 1994 interview, Coppola emphasized that The Godfather was "a very unappreciated picture when we were making it. They were very unhappy with it. They didn't like the cast. They didn't like the way I was shooting it. I was always on the verge of getting fired." When word of this executive interference reached Brando, he threatened to walk off the set, writing in his memoir: "I strongly believe that directors are entitled to independence and freedom to realize their vision." Similarly, in a 2010 interview, Al Pacino talked about how Brando's support kept him in the role of Michael Corleone, even though Coppola wanted to fire him due to pressure from studio executives who were confused by Pacino's performance.
Critics were quite complimentary of Brando's performance. "I thought it would be interesting to play a gangster, maybe for the first time in the movies, who wasn't like those bad guys Edward G. Robinson played, but who is kind of a hero, a man to be respected," in his memoirs, Brando said. "Also, because he had so much power and unquestioned authority, I thought it would be an interesting contrast to play him as a gentle man, unlike Al Capone, who beat up people with baseball bats." Duvall later marveled to A&E's Biography, "He minimized the sense of beginning. In other words he, like, deemphasized the word action. He would go in front of that camera just like he was before. Cut! It was all the same. There really was no beginning. I learned a lot from watching that." Brando won the Academy Award for Best Actor for his performance, but he declined, becoming the second actor to refuse a Best Actor award (after George C. Scott for Patton). Rather than accept the Oscar himself, Brando had actress Sacheen Littlefeather—dressed in traditional Plains Indian garb—accept it on his place. Following her refusal to touch the statue atop the podium, she informed the audience that Brando was withholding the award as a protest against "the treatment of American Indians today by the film industry... and on television and movie reruns and also with recent happenings at Wounded Knee." It was during this period in 1973 that the Wounded Knee Occupation was taking place. Due to time restrictions, Brando was unable to read her the full speech he had prepared. The written speech by Brando further expressed his hope that the public would perceive his refusal of the Oscar as "an earnest effort to focus attention on an issue that might very well determine whether or not this country has the right to say from this point forward we believe in the inalienable rights of all people to remain free and independent on lands that have supported their life beyond living memory."
The Godfather was the actor's second feature film; he starred alongside Maria Schneider in Bernardo Bertolucci's 1972 picture Last Tango in Paris. However, controversy surrounding the film's sexual nature almost detracted from Brando's already stellar performance. A young American widower called Paul, played by Brando, has an anonymous sexual affair with a young, betrothed Parisian lady named Jeanne. Brando, like in earlier films, refused to learn his lines for several sequences, opting instead to write them down on cue cards and display them around the set for convenient reference; this presented Bertolucci with the challenge of ensuring that these cards remained out of shot. Among the many violent and brutal scenes starring Brando is the one in which Paul allegedly rapes Jeanne anally while she is using butter as a lubricant. There was no actual intercourse, the actress said, but she was upset because she didn't find out about the scene's contents until right before filming started.
Bertolucci revealed in 1973, "I had so identified myself with Brando that I cut it out of shame for myself. To show him naked would have been like showing me naked." In an interview, Schneider stated, "Marlon said he felt raped and manipulated by it and he was 48. And he was Marlon Brando!" in reference to the scene where Brando's genitalia were in view. Brando, like Schneider, verified that the intercourse was fictional. Brando was "a monster as an actor and a darling as a human being," Bertolucci remarked. Brando remained silent toward Bertolucci for fifteen years following the film's completion. Bernardo said:
He seemed to be addressing my queries in a roundabout way, and I kept believing it was a conversation. I found out he understood what we were doing and was imparting a lot of his own experience when he viewed the finished film. After I informed him, "Listen, you are a grown-up. Older than me. Didn't you realize what you were doing?" to his irate expression, he stopped communicating with me for a long time.
But; "I called him one day in '93, I think, I was in LA and my wife was shooting a movie. First of all, he answered the phone, and he was talking to me like we had seen each other a day earlier. He said," Come here. "I said," When?On Mulholland Drive on the way to his house, I vividly recall thinking, "I don't think I'll make it. I think I will crash before [I get there]. I was so emotional." The film also depicts Paul's furious and emotionally charged last encounter with the body of his late wife. Despite the backlash, the film was a financial success, and Brando finally cracked the top ten at the box office. He made $3 million from his gross participation arrangement. For the eighth time, Brando received a Best Actor nomination from the voting members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences. The New York Film Critics Circle Best Actor Award went to Brando in 1973.
Brando admitted in his autobiography, "To this day I can't say what Last Tango in Paris was about," and went on to say that the film "required me to do a lot of emotional arm wrestling with myself. When it was finished, I decided that I wasn't ever again going to destroy myself emotionally to make a movie." Pauline Kael wrote in The New Yorker review that Bertolucci and Brando had changed the face of an art form, and the movie breakthrough had finally arrived. The loss of Brando's boyhood closest buddy Wally Cox in 1973 was a devastating blow to him. While Brando's widow was planning to suit to get her husband's ashes returned to her, he took them away and explained, "Marlon needed the ashes more than I did."
Brando co-starred with Jack Nicholson in 1976's The Missouri Breaks. Director Arthur Penn was also back on set with the actor in this film. As biographer Stefan Kanfer describes, Penn had difficulty controlling Brando, who seemed intent on going over the top with his border-ruffian-turned-contract-killer Robert E. Lee Clayton: "Marlon made him a cross-dressing psychopath. Absent for the first hour of the movie, Clayton enters on horseback, dangling upside down, caparisoned in white buckskin, Littlefeather-style. He speaks in an Irish accent for no apparent reason. Over the next hour, also for no apparent reason, Clayton assumes the intonation of a British upper-class twit and an elderly frontier woman, complete with a granny dress and matching bonnet. Penn, who believed in letting actors do their thing, indulged Marlon all the way." Critics were unkind, with The Observer calling Brando's performance "one of the most extravagant displays of grandedamerie since Sarah Bernhardt", while The Sun complained, "Marlon Brando at fifty-two has the sloppy belly of a sixty-two-year-old, the white hair of a seventy-two-year-old, and the lack of discipline of a precocious twelve-year-old." However, Kanfer noted: "Even though his late work was met with disapproval, a re-examination shows that often, in the middle of the most pedestrian scene, there would be a sudden, luminous occurrence, a flash of the old Marlon that showed how capable he remained."
French-Belgian filmmakers Jean-Pierre Dutilleux and Luiz Carlos Saldanha documented the Indigenous peoples of north central Brazil and their struggles for survival in their 1978 documentary Raoni, which Brando narrated in English. The film followed Raoni Metuktire's life. Brando played the role of Jor-El, Superman's dad, in the 1978 picture Superman. He consented to the part after receiving guarantees of a substantial money for what seemed like a minor role, the freedom from reading the screenplay in advance, and the placement of his lines off-camera. For just two weeks of labor, he made $3.7 million, according to a documentary that included with the 2001 DVD release of Superman. Brando also shot parts for Superman II, but he refused to let the filmmakers use the material since they didn't give him the same proportion as the previous picture. "I asked for my usual percentage," he recalled in his memoir, "but they refused, and so did I." Nevertheless, following Brando's passing, the footage was reused in the 2006 recut of Superman II: The Richard Donner Cut and in the 2006 "loose sequel" Superman Returns. In the latter, Brando's voice-overs were utilized continuously, and both used and unused archive footage of him as Jor-El from the first two Superman films was remastered for a scene in the Fortress of Solitude. His portrayal of George Lincoln Rockwell in the 1979 miniseries Roots: The Next Generations earned him a Primetime Emmy for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Miniseries or a Movie, and it was a rare television appearance for him.
Apocalypse Now, Francis Ford Coppola's 1979 Vietnam epic, starring Brando as Colonel Walter E. Kurtz... He portrays an American hero with several decorations. U.S. and Vietnamese forces alike mistrust this former Army Special Forces soldier after he renounces his allegiance and sets up shop in Cambodia. For this three-week engagement, Brando received $1 million weekly. Eleanor Coppola's documentary Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker's Apocalypse describes the film's long and tumultuous development, which brought attention to the project. Martin Sheen had a heart attack, Brando arrived on site overweight, and severe weather damaged many expensive sets. Coppola also had many postponements in the release of the picture while she processed millions of feet of material. In the documentary, Coppola talks about how astonished he was when an overweight Brando turned up for his scenes and, feeling desperate, decided to portray Kurtz, who appears emaciated in the original story, as a man who had indulged every aspect of himself, with Coppola commentating that "He was already heavy when I hired him and he promised me that he was going to get in shape and I imagined that I would, if he were heavy, I could use that. But he was so fat, he was very, very shy about it ... He was very, very adamant about how he didn't want to portray himself that way." Brando admitted to Coppola that he had not read the book, Heart of Darkness, as the director had asked him to, and the pair spent days exploring the story and the character of Kurtz, much to the actor's financial benefit, according to producer Fred Roos: "The clock was ticking on this deal he had and we had to finish him within three weeks or we'd go into this very expensive overage ... And Francis and Marlon would be talking about the character and whole days would go by. And this is at Marlon's urging—and yet he's getting paid for it."
Both the film and Brando's performance in it were well-received by critics upon their respective releases. His rendition of Kurtz's last words, "The horror! The horror!" in a whisper, has gained great fame. In a piece for the Chicago Sun-Times, Roger Ebert defended the film's controversial denouement, saying that the ending "with Brando's fuzzy, brooding monologues and the final violence, feels much more satisfactory than any conventional ending possibly could." Brando made around $9 million, including a $2 million fee, 10% of the gross theatrical rental, and 10% of the TV sale rights.
1980–2001: Post-employment and final positions ===
Brando proclaimed his retirement from acting following his appearance in the critically panned 1980 film The Formula, in which he played oil billionaire Adam Steiffel. with 1989, nevertheless, he made a triumphant return with A Dry White Season, adapted from the anti-apartheid book by André Brink. Despite agreeing to star in the film without compensation, Brando had a falling out with director Euzhan Palcy over the editing choices. Brando even made an unusual television appearance, speaking out against the editing in an interview with Connie Chung. Brando was nominated for an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor and won the Best Actor Award at the Tokyo Film Festival; in his memoir, he claimed that Palcy "had cut the picture so poorly, I thought, that the inherent drama of this conflict was vague at best." After the film, he received praise for his performance.
Carmine Sabatini, Brando's portrayal of Vito Corleone in the 1990 film The Freshman, received rave praise for its parody. "There have been a lot of movies where stars have repeated the triumphs of their parts—but has any star ever done it more triumphantly than Marlon Brando does in The Freshman?" Roger Ebert wrote in his original review, while Variety lauded Brando's performance as Sabatini and said, "Marlon Brando's sublime comedy performance elevates The Freshman from screwball comedy to a quirky niche in film history." Brando previously appeared in Don Juan DeMarco (1995), a box office hit, and in Depp's controversial but never released in the United States, The Brave (1997).
Some of his worst reviews came from his later performances, like in Christopher Columbus: The Discovery (1992), The Island of Dr. Moreau (1996), and Free Money (1998), all of which earned him Raspberry nominations and wins for "Worst Supporting Actor." According to Ron Hutchinson's biography, Clinging to the Iceberg: Writing for a Living on the Stage and in Hollywood (2017), the screenwriter of The Island of Dr. Moreau said that Brando ruined the film's production by getting into fights with his coworkers and the crew and not cooperating when asked to complete his part.
In contrast to its direct predecessors, Brando's most recent finished feature, The Score (2001), was well-received by audiences. Alongside Robert De Niro, he played the role of a fence in the film. Publication of Fan-Tan occurred after to Brando's demise. Although Brando and director Donald Cammell had the idea for the book in 1979, it wasn't until 2005 that it finally saw the light of day.
**Later in life**
His latter acting career took a back seat to Brando's fame, his tumultuous personal life, and his weight. In the 1970s, he put on a lot of weight; by the early to mid-1990s, he had Type 2 diabetes and weighed more than 300 pounds (140 kg). Throughout his career, he fluctuated in weight, which he mostly blamed on years of stress-related overeating and subsequent compensatory dieting. Additionally, he was known for being a pain to work with due to his inability or unwillingness to learn lines and his preference for making strange demands of the film director rather than following directions. In his later years, he also experimented with new ideas. He was the beneficiary of many U.S. patents. United States Patent and Trademark Office, spanning from June 2002 to November 2004 (for instance, refer to U.S. patent 6,812,392). His quirky and unpredictable conduct caused his assistant, Alice Marchak, to depart from her position. As a pastime, Brando would often create drawings and paintings.
For the unrealized animated feature Big Bug Man, Brando recorded the vocal parts of Mrs. Sour in 2004. His sole appearance as a female character occurred in this, his final role. Brando was a personal friend of Michael Jackson's for a long time, and he sometimes spent weeks at a time relaxing at Jackson's Neverland Ranch. Along with starring in the singer's 13-minute music video for "You Rock My World" that same year, Brando took part in the singer's two-day solo career 30th-anniversary commemoration performances in 2001.
Miko, son of Brando, was friends with and served as bodyguard and aide to pop star Michael Jackson for a number of years. "The last time my father left his house to go anywhere, to spend any kind of time, it was with Michael Jackson" , said Miko. "He loved it ... He had a 24-hour chef, 24-hour security, 24-hour help, 24-hour kitchen, 24-hour maid service. Just carte blanche." "Michael was instrumental helping my father through the last few years of his life. For that I will always be indebted to him. Dad had a hard time breathing in his final days and he was on oxygen much of the time. He loved the outdoors, so Michael would invite him over to Neverland. Dad could name all the trees there and the flowers, but being on oxygen it was hard for him to get around and see them all, it's such a big place. So Michael got Dad a golf cart with a portable oxygen tank so he could go around and enjoy Neverland. They'd just drive around—Michael Jackson, Marlon Brando, with an oxygen tank in a golf cart." In 2001, Brando was admitted to the hospital with pneumonia. Brando started preproduction on a film with the working title Brando & Brando in 2004 after signing with filmmaker Ridha Behi. He was still revising the script for a July/August 2004 premiere as of the week before he passed away. After Brando passed away in July 2004, production halted. Behi then said that he would carry on with the picture as a tribute to Brando, renaming it Citizen Brando, which later became Always Brando.
The end of life
After a tough battle with congestive heart failure and pulmonary fibrosis, Brando passed away on July 1, 2004, at UCLA Medical Center. At first, his counsel claimed privacy concerns as the reason for withholding the cause of death. Diabetes and liver cancer were further health issues he faced. Despite his respiratory issues, he managed to record his voice for an appearance in The Godfather: The Game, reprising his role as Don Vito Corleone, just before he passed away. Brando became sick and could only record one line, so they hired an impostor to finish his lines. The final game includes his one recorded phrase as a memorial to the actor. He also stole a few lines from the movie to use in his role. Karl Malden, who co-starred with Brando in three films—A Streetcar Named Desire, On the Waterfront, and One-Eyed Jacks—discussed a phone call that Brando had with Malden just before Brando passed away in a documentary that accompanied the DVD of A Streetcar Named Desire. A visibly worried Brando confided in Malden about his frequent falls. Brando discouraged Malden from coming over by telling him there was no use. After a span of three weeks, Brando passed away. The only option to prolong his life, according to those who told him, was to place tubes transporting oxygen into his lungs, but he allegedly rejected permission just before he passed away.
Wally Cox and Brando's ashes were mixed together after their cremation. Part of them ended up in Tahiti, while others ended themselves in Death Valley.
="life outside of work"
The many lovers and children that Brando had, as well as his violent behavior toward women, made him notorious for his troubled private life. Including three adoptive children, he fathered a total of eleven. In 1976, a French reporter asked him, "Homosexuality is so much in fashion, it no longer makes news. Like a large number of men, I, too, have had homosexual experiences, and I am not ashamed. I have never paid much attention to what people think about me. But if there is someone who is convinced that Jack Nicholson and I are lovers, may they continue to do so. I find it amusing."
Sandy Campbell, who portrayed the young collector in the 1947 version of A Streetcar Named Desire, became Brando's obsession. Brando frequently stood in the wings with Campbell, clutching his hand, and had begged her to have an affair with him. Campbell and Brando both admitted to Truman Capote that they had been in a sexual relationship. For his 1957 interview with The New Yorker, Capote asserted that he had initially encountered Brando during a rehearsal for A Streetcar Named Desire, when Brando was slumbering on a table onstage in an empty auditorium. "I asked Marlon, and he admitted it. He said he went to bed with lots of other men, too, but that he didn't consider himself a homosexual. He said they were all so attracted to him. 'I just thought that I was doing them a favor,' he said." But Sandy Campbell's colleague Donald Windham verified that the story was stolen from Campbell.
Brando recounted in Songs My Mother Taught Me his meeting with Marilyn Monroe at a gathering where she played the piano inaudibly, their romance that lasted many years, their sporadic friendship, and the phone call she gave him just days before she passed away. Although he avoided talking about his marriages, wives, and children in his book, he claimed to have had a plethora of additional affairs.
He crossed paths with Reiko Sato, a nisei dancer and actor, in the early 1950s. Even though their romance fizzled out, Sato and Teti were friends throughout her life. She split her time between the two cities.throughout her twilight years. Dorothy Kilgallen revealed their relationship status in 1954. Ariane "Pat" Quinn was another actress whom Brando dated.
After witnessing Mexican actress Katy Jurado in High Noon, Brando fell head over heels for her. On the set of Viva Zapata!, they crossed paths with Brando. in Mexico. For Joseph L. Mankiewicz, Brando cited "her enigmatic eyes, black as hell, pointing at you like fiery arrows" as the reason for his attraction to the actress. Starring opposite each other in Brando's 1961 picture One-Eyed Jacks, their long-term relationship began on their first date and continued for years.
In 1954, Brando began an affair with actress Rita Moreno. Brando arranged for an abortion when Moreno fell pregnant with his child, as she disclosed in her biography. Moreno tried to take his own life by overdosing on Brando's sleeping medication when the abortion went wrong and he fell in love with Tarita Teriipaia. Moreno portrayed his ex-lover in the movie The Night of the Following Day, which came out years after they broke up. She said that she had dated Elvis Presley before their relationship ended, and Brando allegedly threw a chair at her and subjected her to severe emotional abuse.
Shortly after meeting the 19-year-old French actress Josanne Mariani in 1954, Brando became engaged to her. Brando learned that his other fiancée, Anna Kashfi, was pregnant, and the couple ended their engagement. In 1957, Brando instead married Kashfi. Christian Brando was born to Brando and Kashfi on May 11, 1958. The couple separated in 1959.
An annulment was issued in 1968 upon the discovery that Mexican-American actress Movita Castaneda was still legally wed to her first husband, Jack Doyle, after Brando wed her in 1960. Even though Brando starred as Fletcher Christian in the 1962 remake, Castaneda had already made an appearance in the 1935 original. Miko Castaneda Brando was born in 1961 and Rebecca Brando was born in 1966; they were married for a long time.
Performing the role of Brando's romantic interest in Mutiny on the Bounty, French actress Tarita Teriipaia became his third wife on August 10, 1962. Brando allegedly took joy in her innocence, despite the fact that she was 18 years younger than him, at the age of twenty. Because Teriipaia was born and raised speaking French, Brando spent a lot of time interviewing in French and eventually became proficient. Tarita Cheyenne Brando (1970–1995) and Simon Teihotu Brando (born 1963) were Brando and Teriipaia's children. Brando took in Raiatua Brando, a niece, and Maimiti Brando, a daughter of Teriipaia, when they were born in 1982 and 1977, respectively. The year 1972 marked the end of Brando and Teriipaia's marriage.
Actress Cynthia Lynn's daughter made allegations after her father's death that Brando had an affair with her mother—who co-starred with Brando in Bedtime Story—and that this affair gave birth to Cynthia Lynn in 1964. He was in a tumultuous relationship with actress Jill Banner from the late '60s until the '80s.
There are three Brando children from his connection with his housekeeper Maria Cristina Ruiz: Ninna Priscilla (born May 13, 1989), Myles Jonathan (born January 16, 1992), and Timothy Gahan (born January 6, 1994). The daughter of Brando's aide Caroline Barrett and author James Clavell, Petra Brando-Corval was born in 1972, and Brando also adopted her.
There were whispers that Brando and Wally Cox were quite close. While under the influence of marijuana, Brando told writer-editor Beauregard Houston-Montgomery, "If Wally had been a woman, I would have married him and we would have lived happily ever after." According to Houston-Montgomery, Brando also told Cox that he loved him dearly. Both Patricia Cox Shapiro (Cox's third wife) and Milagros Tirado "Millie" Beck (Cox's second wife) denied any romantic involvement between their husbands. Following Cox's death in 1973, Brando approached Shapiro, who was Cox's widow, and begged for authorization to spread Cox's ashes at the hiking areas they had formerly enjoyed together. Shapiro granted Brando's request. But twenty years later, much to her sorrow, she found that Brando had not scattered the ashes but had instead kept them close by. After Brando passed away, his family followed his wishes and spread his and his friend's ashes in Death Valley, the same spot they loved to go rock hunting.
According to Quincy Jones's 2018 allegations, Brando had sex with Richard Pryor, James Baldwin, and Marvin Gaye. Rain Pryor denied her father's relationship with Brando, however Jennifer Lee, Pryor's widow, confirmed it. During a party at Brando's house in February 2024, actor Billy Dee Williams said that Brando had proposed to him, but he turned him down.
Tuki Brando is a fashion model and the grandson of Brando and Cheyenne. He was born in 1990. Prudence and Shane Brando, the Brando children of Miko C. and Rebecca, as well as the Brando children of Teihotu, are among his many grandkids.
Despite claims to the contrary, Stephen Blackehart is not the son of Brando.
The way of life
Brando became known as a "bad boy" due to his wild actions and public outbursts. The Los Angeles Times reported that "Brando was rock and roll before anybody knew what rock and roll was." His antics on set of Mutiny on the Bounty (1962) only served to solidify his image as a troublesome actor. A change in directors and an escalating budget were both attributed to him, even though he denied any involvement in either. Brando shattered the jaw of paparazzi Ron Galella on June 12, 1973. While Brando was in the company of talk show host Dick Cavett during a New York City recording of The Dick Cavett Show, Galella had trailed behind. He ended up with an infected hand and had to pay a $40,000 settlement out of court. When Galella shot Brando again in 1974, this time at a banquet for the American Indians Development Association, he was sporting a football helmet.
Brando fell deeply in love with Tahiti and its people during production of Mutiny on the Bounty, which had a major impact on his life. He acquired the Tetiaroa atoll, which consists of twelve islands, in 1970 and enlisted the services of Bernard Judge, an architect based in Los Angeles, to construct his house and eco-community there in a way that would minimize environmental degradation. For a long time, student groups visited an environmental lab that protected sea turtles and birds. His resort was among the numerous buildings leveled by the storm of 1983. The Brando Resort, a hotel bearing Brando's name, first opened to the public in 2014. Brando often used the amateur radio frequencies KE6PZH and FO5GJ, the latter of which he used from his island. So that he could maintain his anonymity, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) identified him as Martin Brandeaux.
In the A&E Biography episode on Brando, biographer Peter Manso says: "On the one hand, being a celebrity allowed Marlon to take his revenge on the world that had so deeply hurt him, so deeply scarred him. On the other hand, he hated it because he knew it was false and ephemeral." In the same program, another biographer, David Thomson, says: "Many, many people who worked with him, and came to work with him with the best intentions, went away in despair saying he's a spoiled kid." He insists on getting his way no matter the cost, and I believe this feeds into his underlying psychological pattern of being a victimized child.
Taking a stand
A Flag Is Born, a Zionist drama by Ben Hecht, featured Brando in 1946. During the 1960 presidential campaign, he went to a few John F. Kennedy fundraisers. Along with Sidney Poitier, Charlton Heston, James Garner, Burt Lancaster, and Harry Belafonte, he marched in the 1963 March on Washington. Brando was a Freedom Rides participant, just like Paul Newman. When it came time to choose a president in 1964, Brando backed Lyndon B. Johnson.
Brando made a stop in Helsinki, Finland in the fall of 1967 to attend a UNICEF-sponsored benefit at the Helsinki City Theatre. Thirteen nations had television coverage of the gala. In response to the starvation he witnessed in Bihar, India, Brando brought the video he had filmed there to the attention of the media and extended invitations to those in attendance. Child rights and development assistance for poor nations were two of his main points of contention.
Brando was one of the most vocal advocates for continuing King's work in the years following his 1968 killing. As filming was about to commence on a big picture, The Arrangement (1969), starring King, he stated shortly after King's death that he was stepping out from the part in order to focus on the civil rights cause. During an appearance on the late-night ABC-TV chat show Joey Bishop Show, Brando expressed the need to understand "where it is," "what it is to be Black in this country," and the source of all this anger. In the episode of A&E's Biography on Brando, Martin says: "I'll never forget the night that Reverend King was shot and I turned on the news and Marlon was walking through Harlem with Mayor Lindsay. And there were snipers and there was a lot of unrest and he kept walking and talking through those neighborhoods with Mayor Lindsay. It was one of the most incredible acts of courage I ever saw, and it meant a lot and did a lot."
Brando's involvement with the civil rights struggle predates King's assassination. He sent thousands of dollars to the S.C.L.C. and a scholarship fund for the children of Medgar Evers, a murdered N.A.A.C.P. leader from Mississippi, in the early 1960s. A "fish-in" protesting the dissolution of a treaty guaranteeing Native Americans fishing rights in Puget Sound led to Brando's 1964 arrest. Sayonara, about interracial romance, and The Ugly American, concerning the harmful actions of U.S. officials overseas and their impact on foreign residents, were two of Brando's earlier works that included human rights implications. He also thought of himself as a buddy of Black Panther Party founder Bobby Seale and was a financial supporter of the party for a while. The eulogy he delivered following Bobby Hutton's shooting by police was equally moving. Brando severed ties with the Panthers after seeing a line in an Eldridge Cleaver booklet calling for indiscriminate violence "for the Revolution." This text prompted Brando to conclude that the group was becoming more radicalized and thus to stop his financial support.
The American Indian Movement and Native American rights were causes that Brando strongly believed in. A member of the Puyallup tribe reportedly called the site of his arrest during the fish-in protest near Tacoma, Washington, in March 1964 "Brando's Landing." At the 1973 Academy Awards ceremony, Brando declined to accept the Oscar for his career-reviving performance in The Godfather. His actions earned him respect from the Puyallup people. At the ceremony, Sacheen Littlefeather stood in his place. She said that Brando would not be accepting the prize because of the "poor treatment of Native Americans in the film industry" while dressed as an Apache. This happened during the protracted standoff at Wounded Knee. The United States and international media paid close attention to the occurrence. All parties involved saw this as a watershed moment and a triumph for the cause.
In 1963, Brando did more than just act in films; he also testified in favor of a fair housing bill before the California Assembly and stood on picket lines to oppose housing discrimination.
Additionally, he battled apartheid as an activist. Abolition of his films' distribution to a segregated South African audience was what he advocated for in 1964. Protesting U.S. involvement in South Africa and calling for Nelson Mandela's release, he was a participant in a 1975 demonstration. Brando has a starring role in the 1989 film adaptation of André Brink's book A Dry White Season.
Statements Regarding Jews in Hollywood ===
In a 1979 interview with Playboy, Brando pointed out: "You've seen every single race besmirched, but you never saw an image of the kike because the Jews were ever so watchful for that—and rightly so. They never allowed it to be shown on screen. The Jews have done so much for the world that, I suppose, you get extra disappointed because they didn't pay attention to that."
The same sentiment was expressed by Brando in April 1996 during an appearance on Larry King Live, when he said: The Jewish people own and rule Hollywood, and they need to be more sensitive to the plight of those who are suffering. Because they've taken advantage of everyone from the nigger and greaseball to the chink, the dangerous jap with the slit eyes, the cunning Filipino, and every other type of person we've seen so far, but the kike has eluded us. For the simple reason that they were fully aware of where to turn the wagons.
Larry King, a Jewish man, responded: "When you say—when you say something like that, you are playing right in, though, to anti-Semitic people who say the Jews are—" Brando said: "No, no, because I will be the first one who will appraise the Jews honestly and say 'Thank God for the Jews'."
The actor's friend, agent, and producer Jay Kanter defended him in a Daily Variety article, writing, "Marlon has spoken to me for hours about his fondness for the Jewish people, and he is a well-known supporter of Israel" (Kanter was Jewish). The following is an excerpt from an essay by Louie Kemp published in the Jewish Journal: "You might remember him as Don Vito Corleone, Stanley Kowalski or the eerie Col. Walter E. Kurtz in 'Apocalypse Now', but I remember Marlon Brando as a mensch and a personal friend of the Jewish people when they needed it most."
Following WWII, Brando rose to prominence as one of Hollywood's most revered performers. The American Film Institute ranks him as the fourth-greatest male star whose movie debut was in 1950 or earlier. His captivating onscreen persona and great performances garnered him critical acclaim. 'Method acting' became more popularized thanks to him. Many consider him to be the finest actor of the twentieth century. In addition, Time magazine included him in its 1999 list of the 100 Most Important People of the Century, making him one of just six actors to get that honor. Time also included Brando as their "Actor of the Century" in this list.
The Britannica calls him "the most celebrated of the method actors, and his slurred, mumbling delivery marked his rejection of classical dramatic training. His true and passionate performances proved him one of the greatest actors of his generation." It also points out the apparent contradiction of his abilities: "He is regarded as the most influential actor of his generation, yet his open disdain for the acting profession ... often manifested itself in the form of questionable choices and uninspired performances. Nevertheless, he remains a riveting screen presence with a vast emotional range and an endless array of compulsively watchable idiosyncrasies."
The impact of culture
A cultural icon, Marlon Brando's fame will never fade. His meteoric ascent to fame in the 1950s shaped popular culture in the United States. Pauline Kael, a film critic, said "Brando represented a reaction against the post-war mania for security. As a protagonist, the Brando of the early fifties had no code, only his instincts. He was a development from the gangster leader and the outlaw. He was antisocial because he knew society was crap; he was a hero to youth because he was strong enough not to take the crap ... Brando represented a contemporary version of the free American ... Brando is still the most exciting American actor on the screen."
According to sociology professor Suzanne McDonald-Walker: "Marlon Brando, sporting leather jacket, jeans, and moody glare, became a cultural icon summing up 'the road' in all its maverick glory." Brando's depiction of gang leader Johnny Strabler in The Wild One has become a lasting image, worn as a fashion accessory with a Perfecto-style motorcycle jacket, a tilted cap, jeans, and sunglasses, symbolized both rebellion and fashion. A number of famous people, like James Dean and Elvis Presley, had sideburns after Johnny's haircut. Presley modeled his Jailhouse Rock character after Brando, while Dean lavishly replicated Brando's acting approach. According to Martin H. Levinson, author of Brooklyn Boomer, the "I coulda been a contender" scene from On the Waterfront is "one of the most famous scenes in motion picture history, and the line itself has become part of America's cultural lexicon." The 2009 release of replicas of the leather jacket worn by Brando's Johnny Strabler character is an example of how Brando's popular "Wild One" image has endured. Using a legal permission from Brando's estate, Triumph—the maker of the Triumph Thunderbird motorbikes seen in The Wild One—marketed the jackets.
A masculine sex symbol, Brando was also. Writes Linda Williams: "Marlon Brando [was] the quintessential American male sex symbol of the late fifties and early sixties" . Brando, along with James Dean, was a pioneering lesbian figure who shaped the butch aesthetic and self-perception of the 1950s and beyond.
Among Brando's musical immortalizations are Bruce Springsteen's "It's Hard to Be a Saint in the City" (where the opening line reads "I could walk like Brando right into the sun") and Neil Young's "Pocahontas" (a tribute to Brando's lifetime support of Native Americans), where Brando sits by a fire alongside Young and Pocahontas. A few other songs that made reference to Brando include "Vogue" by Madonna, "Is This What You Wanted" by Leonard Cohen on his album New Skin for the Old Ceremony, "Eyeless" by Slipknot on their self-titled album, and, most recently, "Marlon Brando" on the 2017 album Forced Witness by Australian singer Alex Cameron. Bob Dylan's 2020 single "My Own Version of You" alludes to one of his most iconic performances with the following line: "I'll take the Scarface Pacino and the Godfather Brando / Mix 'em up in a tank and get a robot commando."
Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, the 1967 album by the Beatles, features Brando among a montage of famous people and historical figures.
After seeing films starring Brando and James Dean, Honda took action with its "You Meet the Nicest People on a Honda" commercials to dispel the stereotype that motorbikes were associated with criminals and rebels.
Opinions about performing
Brando made the following observation in his memoir Songs My Mother Taught Me:
For as long as I can remember, one of the things I've liked about acting is that it allows performers to let their guard down and show the world how they really feel. If you're a psychodrama practitioner, I think it can be useful for your pent-up emotions to explode. I suppose my childhood emotional insecurity—the hurts of not being accepted for who I was, of yearning for love but not receiving it, of coming to terms with the fact that I was useless—may have aided me, even if only little, in my acting career. It likely imbued me with a level of intensity that the majority of people lack.
Although he had a lot of respect for the theater, he admitted that the main reason he didn't go back after his first breakthrough was the emotional toll it took on him:
The emotional rigors of performing in A Streetcar Named Desire for six nights and two afternoons are what I will remember most about the play. Just try to put yourself in my shoes for a second: at 8:30 every night, you step onto the stage to attempt to elicit in the audience the same powerful, ripping feelings I felt—emotions that I yelled, screamed, cried, broke dishes, kicked furniture, and punched walls. It wore me down.
Bringing realism to American cinema, Brando acknowledged Stella Adler for her mastery of the Stanislavski acting style. However, he also added:
The American theater and cinema benefited from this acting school, but it was limiting. Shakespeare and other forms of classical play have never been well-received by American theatergoers. We really don't possess the requisite flair, sensitivity to the language, or cultural bent... Shakespeare does not permit mumbling. You must follow the text to the letter; no room for improvisation. Our linguistic skills are woefully inadequate when it comes to the English theater. The English spoken in the US has become nearly patois-like.
Brando said in the 2015 documentary Listen to Me Marlon, "That's a tough scene to play. You have to make 'em believe that you are dying... Try to think of the most intimate moment you've ever had in your life." Actors like Spencer Tracy, John Barrymore, Fredric March, James Cagney, and Paul Muni were his top choices. He was also quite complimentary of Johnny Depp, Daniel Day-Lewis, Jack Nicholson, and Sean Penn.