Brando, Marlon, Jr.

▪ American actor

born April 3, 1924, Omaha, Nebraska, U.S.

died July 1, 2004, Los Angeles, California

 American motion picture and stage actor known for his visceral, brooding characterizations. Brando was the most celebrated of the method (Stanislavsky 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.

      Brando, the son of a salesman and an actress, grew up in Nebraska, California, and Illinois. After he was expelled from the Shattuck Military Academy in Faribault, Minnesota, for insubordination, he moved in 1943 to New York City, where he studied acting under Stella Adler (Adler, Stella) at the Dramatic Workshop. He made his stage debut in 1944 as Jesus Christ in the Workshop production of Gerhart Hauptmann (Hauptmann, Gerhart)'s Hannele, and in that same year he first appeared on Broadway in I Remember Mama. After that play's successful two-year run, Brando appeared in Maxwell Anderson (Anderson, Maxwell)'s Truckline Cafe, George Bernard Shaw (Shaw, George Bernard)'s Candida, and Ben Hecht (Hecht, Ben)'s A Flag Is Born (all 1946) and was voted “Broadway's most promising actor” by New York critics. In 1947 he attained stage stardom with his astonishingly brutal, emotionally charged performance as Stanley Kowalski in the Elia Kazan (Kazan, Elia)-directed production of Tennessee Williams (Williams, Tennessee)'s A Streetcar Named Desire (1947).

  Brando made his motion picture debut in The Men (1950), a powerfully realistic study of disabled World War II veterans. In preparation for his role, he spent a month in a hospital paraplegic ward. He received his first Oscar nomination for his performance in A Streetcar Named Desire (1951), Kazan's highly praised screen adaptation of the play, and went on to receive nominations for his performances in Viva Zapata! (1952) and Julius Caesar (1953). Also from this period is The Wild One (1953), a low-budget drama in which he played the leader of an outlaw motorcycle gang. The film became one of Brando's most famous and served to enhance his iconoclastic image. It also contains one of Brando's most oft-quoted lines; when asked what it is he is rebelling against, his character responds, “Whaddya got?”

      Brando's sensitive portrayal of a union muscleman who testifies against his gangster boss in Kazan's On the Waterfront (1954) won for him the best-actor Oscar and firmly established him as one of Hollywood's most admired actors. In 1954 he also portrayed Napoleon Bonaparte in Desiree, and in 1955 he sang and danced in the musical comedy Guys and Dolls. He had continued success with such films as The Teahouse of the August Moon (1956), Sayonara (1957; Oscar nomination), and The Young Lions (1958). In the 1960s, however, his career went into a long period of decline. He starred in the only film he ever directed, the western One-Eyed Jacks (1961); now a cult favourite, it was notorious at the time for Brando's excessive expenditure of time and money. A lavish remake of Mutiny on the Bounty (1962) was another expensive flop, and Brando's recalcitrant behaviour during its filming added to his growing reputation as a troublesome and demanding actor. Most of his remaining films of the '60s, including Charlie Chaplin (Chaplin, Charlie)'s final film, A Countess from Hong Kong (1967), are forgettable.

      Francis Ford Coppola (Coppola, Francis Ford)'s The Godfather (1972) rejuvenated Brando's career. As organized-crime boss Don Vito Corleone, Brando created one of the most memorable—and most imitated—film characters of all time. His performance earned him another best-actor Oscar (Academy Award), but he refused the award in protest against the stereotypical portrayals of Native Americans throughout motion picture history. Brando was further vindicated as an actor by his leading role in Bernardo Bertolucci (Bertolucci, Bernardo)'s sexually explicit L'ultimo tango a Parigi (1972; Last Tango in Paris). He appeared in only five more films during the remainder of the decade—including noted supporting roles in Superman (1978) and Apocalypse Now (1979)—whereupon he retreated to his private Polynesian atoll.

      Brando reemerged nine years later to play a crusading antiapartheid attorney in A Dry White Season (1989) and received his eighth Oscar nomination—his first for best supporting actor—for the role. He appeared in six films during the 1990s, highlighted by a send-up of his Godfather character in The Freshman (1990) and by his sensitive portrayal of an aging psychiatrist in Don Juan DeMarco (1995). He also received good notices for his role as a corrupt prison warden in the comedy Free Money (1998), though the film was not widely distributed. In 2001 he appeared in the heist thriller The Score (2001).

      Brando was something of a paradox: he is regarded as the most influential actor of his generation, yet his open disdain for the acting profession—as detailed in his autobiography, Songs My Mother Taught Me (1994)—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.

Additional Reading

Gary Carey, Marlon Brando: The Only Contender (1985); Peter Manso, Brando: The Biography (1994); Lawrence Grobel, Conversations with Brando (1991, reissued 1999; also published as Conversations with Marlon Brando, 1991).

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