Marlon Brando
- "Brando" redirects here.
| Marlon Brando | |
 Marlon Brando at the 1963 Civil Rights March on Washington, D.C. | |
| Birth name: | Marlon Brando Jr. |
|---|---|
| Date of birth: | April 3, 1924 |
| Birth location: | Omaha, Nebraska, USA |
| Date of death: | July 1, 2004 (Age 80) |
| Death location: | Los Angeles, California, USA |
| Height: | 5 ft 9 in / 1.75 m |
| Academy Awards: | Best Actor 1955 On the Waterfront 1973 The Godfather |
Marlon Brando, Jr. (April 3, 1924 – July 1, 2004) was a prominent American actor. Brando won two Academy Awards and is known as one of the world's greatest actors.
-winning American actor who is widely regarded as one of the greatest film actors of the 20th century. He brought the techniques of method acting to prominence in the films A Streetcar Named Desire and On the Waterfront, both directed by Elia Kazan in the early 1950s. His probably most remembered role was as Mafia godfather Vito Corleone in the 1972 film The Godfather. His acting style, combined with his public persona as an outsider uninterested in the Hollywood of the early 1950s, had a profound effect on a generation of actors that would come after him. Brando was also an activist, lending his presence to many issues, including the American Indian Movement.
He was named the fourth Greatest Male Star of All Time by the American Film Institute.
Early life
Marlon Brando was the youngest of three children born to Marlon Brando Sr. (1895–1965) and Dorothy Pennebaker Brando (1897-1954). His elder sister were Jocelyn Brando (1919–2005) and Frances Brando (b. 1922). Marlon Brando's childhood was spent in Omaha, Nebraska until 1935. At the young age of 11, Brando's parents decided to separate, Dorothy keeping all three children, and taking them to live with her mother Santa Ana, California. After two brief years in California, Marlon Sr. and Dorthoy reconciled and reunited the family, making a home in a small town close to Chicago called Libertyville, Illinois. During Brando's life, there was speculation on his ancestry, Brando providing often false details about his heritage. Brando's grandparents are now know to be Eugene Brando and Marie Holloway. The couple married and had one son, Marlon Brando, Sr. When Marlon Sr. was five years old, Marie Holloway abandoned her husband and child forever.
Brando's early life was neither stable nor particularly easy. His mother, though known as a talented and kindhearted person, suffered greatly from the effects of alcoholism. She also worked long hours and was often gone from home, not being invovled in Brando's early life as he might wish her to be. Dorothy Brando worked at the local theater and is known for helping Henry Fonda to begin his acting career. Brando and his sister, Jocelyn, learned a lot from early days spent at the theater, and his mother encouraged her children's interest in stage acting. From the very beginning, Marlon Brando had an amazing talent, he was able tomimic many different people and he started to developed his rare and characteristic ability to assimilate the tics and mannerisms of the characters he was portraying. He could perform these traits very dramatically and believably.
Brando's childhood was marked by a rebellious nature and he experienced several tumultuous events. He was held back in school for a year, and later he was expelled from his high school in Liberty. Hoping that military school would help him, Marlon Sr. sent Brando to the Shattuck Military Academy in Fairbault, Minnesota when Brando was just 16 years old. Marlon Sr. had attented this same school when he was younger. It was at Shattuck that Marlon truly flourished in theater, he also performed well in school, the rigorous structure proving to be just what he needed. The final year of high school for Marlon was 1943, and again, his rebellious attitude got the better of him. He was put on probation for talking back to an officer, and then finally expelled for breaking his probation. The students, who loved Brando, were angered and fought for him to come back. The school finally invited him back for the end of his education, but Brando decided not to finish.
Brando wanted to follow his heart and his passion. He left Illinois and moved to New York City. Both of his sisters were living in New York, and Jocelyn had already performed on Broadway. Upon arrival in New York, Brando took his acting studies seriously, enrolling and studying at the American Theatre Wing Professional School, New School Dramatic Workshop, and the Actors' Studio. While at the New School's Dramatic Workshop, Brando had an experience that would change his life, he was taught by Stella Adler and he studied the methods of the Stanislavski System.
Career
With dedicaiton to method acting and the skills he learned through the Stanislavski System Brando received a role that had him performing on Broadway in the 1944 drama I Remember Mama. It was a bittersweet role that won Brando much acclaim. He followed up that performance by starring in Truckline Café, where he portrayed a disheartened, paraplegic veteran, and although the play was a financial failure, critics rightly voted him "Broadway's Most Promising Actor." Yet, it will always be Marlon Brando's role as Stanley Kowalski in Tennessee Williams' play A Streetcar Named Desire that gave Brando star-power. The play opened in 1947 and was directed by the famed Elia Kazan. Bradno did not casually happen upon this role, he sought it out. Brando even drove out to Provincetown, Massachusetts to give an audition for Williams himself. Williams said that as soon as he opened the door, he knew he had his ideal Stanley.
After the success of his play, Hollywood came calling at Brando's door. They asked him to do a screen test for Warner Brothers studio, and when the results came in, Warner Brothers offered Brando a contract for six years. Brando was sceptical to sign a contract for that duration of time, and he turned it down. To many, that move seemed faulty, but Brando never regreted it. [1] The screen test can be seen on the 2006 DVD release of Streetcar as a special feature. In 1950, Brando prepared for his first onscreen role in the style that became characteristic of him. When he won the role of a bitter and crippled war veteran, Brando immeditaly started preparing by spending a month in bed at a veteran's hospital. The film, Then Men released in 1950.
However, Brando would impress the cinema-going public the same wa he made an impression on the audience who watched him nightly in A Streetcar Named Desire. He won the film role of Stanley Kowalski, and worked with director Elia Kazan for his second time. When the film premiered in 1951, Brando became a star, and he received his first nomination for an Academy Award for Best Actor. Brando followed that first success with many. He went on to receive nominations for his next three roles: and Viva Zapata! in 1952, Julius Caesar in 1953 as Marc Antony, and On the Waterfront in 1954. It was in 1954 that he won his first oscar under the direction of Kazan once again. With each performance of these first five films, Marlon Brando became a household star, but more than that, he became respected and treated with a sense of awe for his amazing talent. His performances were nothing less than genius, and Brando became what future actors aspired to be. He raised the bar in acting, so much so, that even he felt pressure to better himself. Brando finished up the year 1953 by appearing in the last stage play he would ever do. He worked for $500 per week (compared to the $10,000 per week he was offered to act on Broadway again) in Lee Falk's play Arms and the Man that opened in Boston.
When Marlon Brando signed on for the role of Johnny Strabler in The Wild One, he likely had no idea just what an impact he would have on the younger generation and fellow performers. In The Wild One Brando portrayed a motocycle rebel as no one had ever played a rebel before, and with this new character, Brando found an eager audience with the nation's teenagers. They idolized his rebellion and it helped to spurr forward the new rock-and-roll era. From his image in the film came the teenage fascination with motorcycles, leather jackets, and jeans. He inspired Elvis, who imitated Brando's look and character in his rock and roll performances, and then copied the character of Johnny for his character as Vince in the 1957 film Jailhouse Rock. But, the actor considered Marlon Brando his hero, who wanted to be like him in every way, was a young man named James Dean. When Dean won the role of Jim Stark in Rebel Without a Cause, he studied Brando's work, especially that in The Wild One intently, and then he emphasized certain points just enough to make the role uniquely his own.
Winning an oscar for Brando, however, was not a crowning achievement. His desire to push himself in his craft became evident in his next roles. In the musical Guys and Dolls Marlon surprised everyone with his singing voice. In The Teahouse of the August Moon, he played a Japanese interpreter named Sakini in postwar Japan. Then he played an Air Force officer in Sayonara and won his sixth oscar nomination. To finish off the 1950's, Brando played a Nazi officer in The Young Lions, but something was happening to him. There was that loss of energy and spark for the characters he played in that later half of the 1950s compared with his earlier roles.
During the 1960s many fans believed he was finished as an actor. His performances in Mutiny on the Bounty and other films were uninspirering and disappointing. There were only a few that could be deemed exceptional, including One-Eyed Jacksin 1961 (his one and only time playing director), Relections in a Golden Eye (1967) and Burn! (1969)—which Brando claimed was his favorite film to do. Because of his reputation as being difficult, and the amount of commercial failures that Brando starred in, by the end of the decade, he was almost out of work.
The Godfather
His performance as Vito Corleone in The Godfather in 1972 changed Brando's disappearance and lack of success in the film world. It was director Francis Ford Coppola who convinced Brando to submit to a "make-up" test for a role in his film, a role that he new Brando was meant to play. Brando did submit a make-up test, and it was make-up he had applied himself. He even thought to use little cotton balls to puff his cheeks out for the memorable Vito character. Coppola was mesmerized by the performance and begged the studio to allow the casting of Brando as the head of the famous crim family. Brando's improvisation gave humanity to Vito Corleone, a role that easily could have been trite and cliche. The academy recognized his work by the nomination and subsequent win of his second Academy Award for Best Actor. However, Brando was not the new actor he had been for his first win, he was a man dedicated to many causes and reliefs. He had been angered for a long time at Hollywood's depiction of Native Americans in film and television. For this reason, he decided to boycott the ceremong, and he send actress Sacheen Littlefeather to refuse the award on his behalf and to state the reasons why.
The actor followed the Godfather series with perhaps his greatest performances in Last Tango in Paris, directed by controversial Bernardo Bertolucci. Despite Brando's refusal of his last win at the Academy Awards, he was again nominated for best actor for his performance.
Brando slowly started to gain weight around the time he appeared as Colonel Kurtz in Apocalypse Now. As his health continued to decline and his weight increased, he wasn't as sought after for the roles he usually played.
Superman
Brando demanded a large sum of money for a very small part as Jor-El in the first Superman movie. His conditions were many, he didn't want to read the script beforehand or audition for anyone, and he wanted his lines written down and displayed on cards offscreen. Brando filmed scenes for Superman II, but hwne the studio refused to pay him what he asked, he refused permission to use the footage in the film. Thus the world had to wait until Brando's death to see the film as intended by Richard Donner in the 2006 re-cut, Superman II: The Richard Donner Cut. That same footage was also used in the newer version made in 2006 Superman Returns. In additon to the footage used, Brando's recorded voice-overs were used throughout the film.
Despite announcing his retirement from acting in 1980, he decided to play supporting roles A Dry White Season (for which he was again nominated for an Oscar in 1989), The Freshman in 1990 and Don Juan DeMarco in 1995 (during which time he met and befriended Johnny Depp). In his final film, The Score (2001), he starred with Robert De Niro.
Personal life
Brando was a fighter and a crusader for the things he believed in, namely the civil rightsmovement, Native American rights and other political causes. He was passionate for these causes, often participating in marches and boycotts to make his points known.
In addition to this, he was also known as a Hollywood "bad boy" for his behavior. Often he was seen have public outbursts and antics, in 1973, he even broke the jaw of Ron Galella, a member of the Paparazzi. Brando gained an even more reckless reputation, along with an infected hand. Whenever Galella would photograph Brando after that incident, he wore a football helmet.
To add to the "bad boy" reputation, Brando dished on his major love affairs in his autobiography, Songs My Mother Taught Me. In his book, Brando claimed he showed up one night at Marilyn Monroe's apartment and they started an affair that lasted many years. He also claimed numerous other romances, although he did not discuss his marriages, his wives, or his children in his autobiography.
In his 1976 biography The Only Contender by Gary Carey, Brando was quoted as saying, "Like a large number of men, I, too, have had homosexual experiences, and I am not ashamed." Photographs circulate on the Internet that appear to confirm this. A 2006 book, Brando Unzipped by Darwin Porter alleges affairs with Rock Hudson and Cary Grant. An alleged long time lover was Wally Cox. Brando is quoted as saying: "If Wally had been a woman, I would have married him and we would have lived happily ever after." [1] After Cox died, Brando kept his ashes for 30 years, and they were eventually scattered with his own. Cox's third wife only discovered he possessed them after reading an interview in Time where Brando is quoted as saying: "I have Wally's ashes in my house. I talk to him all the time." She wanted to sue, but her lawyers would not accept the case.[2]
He married actress Anna Kashfi in 1957, mistakenly believing her to be of Asian Indian descent when she was in fact from Wales and of Irish Roman Catholic extraction: Her real name was Joan O'Callaghan. O'Callaghan did not discourage Brando's mistake; in fact, she dressed and made herself up as an Indian beauty after learning that Brando gravitated toward exotic women. They divorced in 1959 after having one son, Christian Brando, together.
In 1960, Brando married Movita Castaneda, a Mexican actress seven years his senior who had appeared in the first Mutiny on the Bounty film in 1935, some 27 years before Brando's own version was released. A remake of Mutiny on the Bounty in 1962, with Brando as Fletcher Christian, seemed to bolster his reputation as a difficult star. He was blamed for a change in directors and a runaway budget, though he disclaimed responsibility for either.
The Bounty experience affected Brando's life in a profound way: He fell in love with Tahiti and its people. He took a 99-year lease on part of an atoll island, Tetiaroa, which he intended to make part environmental laboratory and part resort. Tahitian beauty Tarita Teriipia, who played Fletcher Christian's love interest, became Brando's third wife. A 1961 article on Teriipia in the fan magazine Motion Picture described Brando's delight at how naïve and unsophisticated she was. Teriipia became the mother of two of his children. The hotel on Tetiaroa was eventually built; it went through many redesigns due to changes demanded by Brando over the years, but it is now closed. A new hotel consisting of 30 deluxe villas is due to open in 2008.
Children
All three of Brando's wives were pregnant when he married them. The number of children he had is still in dispute, although he recognized 11 children in his will; they were (ages as given in 2004):
- by his marriage to actress Anna Kashfi:
- Christian Brando (46)
- by his marriage to actress Movita Castaneda:
- Miko Brando (43)
- Rebecca Brando Kotlinzky (38)
- by his marriage to Tarita Teriipia:
- Simon Teihotu Brando (43) - the only inhabitant of Tetiaroa
- Cheyenne (committed suicide in 1995 at the age of 25)
- by adoption:
- Petra Brando-Corval (32), daughter of Brando's assistant Caroline Barrett
- Maimiti Brando (28)
- Raiatua Brando (23)
Brando married his maid Christina Maria Ruiz and had the following children with her:
- Ninna Priscilla Brando (born: 1989)
- Myles Brando (born: 1992 as Myles Jonathan Brando)
- Timothy Brando (born: 1994 as Timothy Gahan Brando)
In May 1990, Christian shot and killed Dag Drollet, the Tahitian lover of Christian's half-sister Cheyenne, at the family's hilltop home above Beverly Hills. Christian, then 31, claimed the shooting was accidental.
After a heavily publicized trial, Christian was found guilty of voluntary manslaughter and use of a gun. He was sentenced to 10 years. Before the sentencing, Brando delivered an hour of rambling testimony in which he said he and his ex-wife had failed Christian. He commented softly to members of the Drollet family: "I'm sorry... If I could trade places with Dag, I would. I'm prepared for the consequences." Afterward, Drollet's father said he thought Brando was acting and his son was "getting away with murder." The tragedy was compounded in 1995, when Cheyenne, said to still be depressed over Drollet's death, committed suicide by hanging herself in Tahiti at the age of 25. Only months after Marlon Brando's death, Brando's ex-wife Tarita Teriipia wrote her memoires entitled Marlon, My Love and My Torment in which she says that Brando had sexually abused their daughter Cheyenne [2].
Final years and death
Brando's notoriety, his family's troubled lives, his self-exile from Hollywood, and his obesity attracted more attention than his late acting career. He also earned a reputation for being difficult on the set, often unwilling or unable to memorize his lines and less interested in taking direction than in confronting the film director with odd and childish demands. On the other hand, most other actors found him generous, funny and supportive. Although more and more reclusive in his declining years, Brando was by nature a casual and friendly man.
He dabbled with some innovation in his last years. Brando has several patents issued in his name from the US Patent and Trademark Office, all of which are directed to a drumhead tensioning device and method, between June 2002 and November 2004. For example see U.S. Patent 6812392 (PDF) and its equivalents.
The actor was a long-time close friend of the entertainer Michael Jackson and paid regular visits to his Neverland Ranch, resting there for weeks. Brando also participated in the singer's solo career 30th anniversary celebration concerts in 2001, as well as starring in his 15-minute-long music video You Rock My World the same year. The actor's son Miko was Jackson's bodyguard for several years, and is also a friend of the singer.
On July 1, 2004, at 6:30 p.m. local time, Brando died at the age of 80. The cause of his death was intentionally withheld, with his lawyer citing privacy concerns. It was later revealed that he died at UCLA Medical Center of respiratory failure brought on by pulmonary fibrosis. He had also been suffering from congestive heart failure and, had also recently been diagnosed with liver cancer. It was revealed in 2006 that Brando had suffered from dementia in the final years of his life.
Brando was cremated and his ashes were scattered in two places. Part of his ashes were scattered in Tahiti and part of his ashes were scattered in Death Valley.
Trivia
Template:Toomuchtrivia
- Despite his later obesity, Brando was very health conscience in his early and mid career. He often dieted, ran, and lifted weights.
- Brando turned down the title role in Lawrence of Arabia (1962), starring Peter O'Toole.
- He also turned down Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969) in order to make Burn! (1969).
- Until The Godfather was released in 1972, Brando has 11 straight commercial film failures.
- Brando was listed as one of the "Top 10 Stars of the Year" five times: 1954, 1955, 1958, 1972, and 1973.
- When making Superman, Brando agreed on a salary of $3.7 million, plus 16.86% of the gross. When the film grossed over $300 million worldwide, Brando's earnings figured at $14 million for 12 days' work.
- In Superman, Brando came up with the idea for Jor-El, father of Superman, to wear the "S" symbol on his chest as a sort of family shield.
- Brando's role of Don Corleone in The Godfather garnered him such respect and admiration from various mafiosi, that he said he never had to pay for another meal in Little Italy again.
- For most of Brando's career, his height was reported as being 5'10" (178 cm). However, many people say he was closer to 5'8" (173 cm). In a few of his later films, he was known to wear elevator shoes.
- Brando refused to memorize his lines, and thus often used cue cards during the shooting of his films. During the filming of The Island of Dr. Moreau, Brando wore a very small radio receiver to help him with his lines.
- Marlon Brando was paid $1 million to appear briefly at the Michael Jackson 30th anniversary concert a few days before the September 11 terrorist attacks in 2001.
- Brando is mentioned in the songs "Pocahontas", by Neil Young, "China Girl", by David Bowie and Iggy Pop, "We Didn't Start the Fire", by Billy Joel, "Vogue", by Madonna, "Advertising Space", by Robbie Williams, "Eyeless", by Slipknot, "Sly", by The Cat Empire, "Karen By Night", by Jill Sobule, "It's So Hard to Be a Saint In the City", by Bruce Springsteen, "Clown Prince", by Hilltop Hoods, "The Ballad of Michael Valentine", by The Killers, "Back to Tupelo", by Mark Knopfler, "Close but no Cigar", by "Weird Al" Yankovic, "¿Para Qué?", by Andrés Calamaro and "Let It Roll", by Andrew Morris. Songs directly about him are "I'm Stuck In a Condo (With Marlon Brando)", by The Dickies, and "I Wanna Be Marlon Brando", by Russell Crowe.
- On the set of Guys and Dolls there was endless friction between Brando and Frank Sinatra. Sinatra hated Brando for taking the main role of Sky Masterson, especially as Brando had never done any singing before. Sinatra dubbed Brando "Mumbles", claiming that Brando could never be heard or understood. Their personalities clashed over shooting scenes as well. Sinatra was impatient and prefered one-take to many. Brando on the other hand, was a perfectionist and preferred mulitiple takes of each scene. Often, Brando would purposefully make mistakes, thus causing them to have to do the scene over and over again.
- He only made two television appearances in his career: 1979's Roots: The Next Generations for which he won an Emmy and in 1949 on "Actor's Studio" in the episode "I'm No Hero".
- In a vote by fellow actors, Brando was named the "World's Greatest Actor".
- In the 2006 film Superman Returns, Brando is credited with reprising his role as Jor-El from Superman even though he passed away in 2004. This was accomplished by digitally re-creating an image of Brando using footage from the original film as a reference[3], and matching it with lines spoken by Brando in both the original movie and those shot for Superman II (later removed from the latter film).
- After the 1988 suicide of Gloria Vanderbilt's son, Brando telephoned her to offer his condolences. He hadn't spoken to her since 1954.
Filmography
- The Men (1950)
- A Streetcar Named Desire (1951)
- Viva Zapata! (1952)
- Julius Caesar (1953)
- The Wild One (1953)
- On the Waterfront (1954)
- Désirée (1954)
- Guys and Dolls (1955)
- Operation Teahouse (1956) (short subject)
- The Teahouse of the August Moon (1956)
- Sayonara (1957)
- The Young Lions (1958)
- The Fugitive Kind (1959)
- One-Eyed Jacks (1961) (also director)
- Mutiny on the Bounty (1962)
- The Ugly American (1963)
- Bedtime Story (1964)
- Morituri (1965)
- The Chase (1966)
- The Appaloosa (1966)
- Meet Marlon Brando (1966) (short subject)
- A Countess from Hong Kong (1967)
- Reflections in a Golden Eye (1967)
- Candy (1968)
- The Night of the Following Day (1968)
- Burn! (1969)
- King: A Filmed Record... Montgomery to Memphis (1970) (documentary)
- The Nightcomers (1972)
- The Godfather (1972)
- Last Tango in Paris (1972)
- The Missouri Breaks (1976)
- Raoni (1978) (documentary) (narrator)
- Superman: The Movie (1978)
- Apocalypse Now (1979)
- The Formula (1980)
- A Dry White Season (1989)
- The Freshman (1990)
- Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker's Apocalypse (1991) (documentary)
- Christopher Columbus: The Discovery (1992)
- Don Juan DeMarco (1995)
- The Island of Dr Moreau (1996)
- The Brave (1997)
- Free Money (1998)
- The Score (2001)
- Superman Returns (2006) - Posthumous appearance, appears in archive footage as Jor-El
- Superman II: The Richard Donner Cut (2006)
Upcoming:
- Big Bug Man (2008) (voice)
| Awards | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by: William Holden for Stalag 17 |
Academy Award for Best Actor 1954 for On the Waterfront |
Succeeded by: Ernest Borgnine for Marty |
| Preceded by: Gene Hackman for The French Connection |
Academy Award for Best Actor 1972 for The Godfather |
Succeeded by: Jack Lemmon for Save the Tiger |
Notes
See also
- Songs My Mother Taught Me, his autobiography. ISBN 10 0679410139
- Marlon Brando by Patricia Bosworth (2001). First published by Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2001 - republished by Phoenix, 2002. ISBN 0-7538-1379-3
External links
- Marlon Brando at the Internet Movie Database
- Marlon Brando at the TCM Movie Database
- Marlon Brando at the Internet Broadway Database
- Marlon Brando: Contender, Champ, Bum
- Brando Tribute Site
- The Oddfather, Rolling Stone, Jod Kaftan, April 25, 2002
- Brando's Early Career
- Brandoland
- Marlon Brando: The Actor's Actor
- Quotes from an interview with Newsweek March 13,1972
- Court TV: Christian Brando: A Hollywood Family Tragedy
- Brando bio at Lenin imports
- Premiere: Remembering Brando
Obituaries
- Obituary from The Washington Post
- Obituary at Slate
- MSNBC: Marlon Brando dies in Los Angeles hospital
- Long article on auction of Brando's possessions at The Observer (UK)
| Persondata | |
|---|---|
| NAME | Brando, Marlon |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Brando, Marlon, Jr. (full name) |
| SHORT DESCRIPTION | Actor |
| DATE OF BIRTH | April 3, 1924 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Omaha, Nebraska, USA |
| DATE OF DEATH | July 1, 2004 |
| PLACE OF DEATH | Los Angeles, California, USA |
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