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Marlon
Brando, Jr. (April 3, 1924 – July 1, 2004) was an
American actor who is widely regarded as one of the
greatest film actors of the twentieth century. He
brought the techniques of the Stanislavski System to
prominence in the films A Streetcar Named Desire and
On the Waterfront, both directed by Elia Kazan in
the early 1950s. 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, including James Dean and
Paul Newman, and later stars, including Robert De
Niro and Al Pacino.
Biography
Youth and early acting career
Brando
was born in Omaha, Nebraska. In 1935 his parents
separated, and his mother moved with her three
children to Santa Ana, California. In 1937 his
parents reconciled, and the family moved to
Libertyville, Illinois, north of Chicago. He was of
Dutch, French and Irish stock; the original family
name was Brandeau. His mother, a kind and talented
woman with a drinking problem, was involved in local
theater, and this first interested him in stage
acting. Brando was a gifted mimic from early
childhood and developed a rare ability to absorb the
tics and mannerisms of people he played and to
display those traits dramatically while staying in
character.
Brando
had a tumultuous childhood, in which he was expelled
from several schools. His father was largely
critical of his son, but encouraged him to seek his
own direction. Brando left Illinois for New York
City, where he studied at the American Theatre Wing
Professional School, New School Dramatic Workshop,
and the Actors' Studio. It was at the New School's
Dramatic Workshop that he studied with Stella Adler
and learned the revolutionary techniques of the
Stanislavski System.
Brando
used his Stanislavski System skills in summer-stock
roles in Sayville, New York. His behavior got him
kicked out of the cast of the New School's
production in Sayville, but he was discovered in
another play there and then made it to Broadway in
the bittersweet drama, I Remember Mama, in 1944.
Critics voted him "Broadway's Most Promising Actor"
for his role as an anguished, paraplegic veteran in
Truckline Café, although the play was a commercial
failure. He achieved real stardom, however, as
Stanley Kowalski in Tennessee Williams' play A
Streetcar Named Desire in 1947, directed by Elia
Kazan. Brando sought out that role, driving out to
Provincetown, Massachusetts where Williams was
spending the summer to audition for the part.
Williams recalled that he opened the screen door and
knew, instantly, that he had his Stanley Kowalski.
On the screen
Brando's first screen role was the bitter crippled
veteran in The Men in 1950. True to his method,
Brando spent a month in bed at a veterans' hospital
to prepare for the role.
He made
a much larger impression the following year when he
brought his performance as Stanley Kowalski to the
screen in Kazan's adaptation of "Streetcar" in 1951.
He was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actor
for that role, and again in each of the next three
years for his roles in Viva Zapata! in 1952, Julius
Caesar in 1953 and On the Waterfront in 1954.
Brando
finally won the Oscar for his role of Terry Malloy
in On The Waterfront. Under Kazan's direction, and
with a talented ensemble around him, Brando used his
Stanislavski System training and improvisational
skills to produce a performance that continues to
display new facets on each viewing. Brando claimed
that he improvised much of his dialogue with Rod
Steiger in the famous, much-quoted scene with him in
the back of a taxicab (Kazan disputed this).
Brando
followed that triumph by a variety of roles in the
1950s that defied expectations: as Sky Masterson in
Guys and Dolls, where he managed to carry off a
singing role; as Sakini, a Japanese interpreter for
the U.S. Army in postwar Japan in The Teahouse of
the August Moon; as an Air Force officer in
Sayonara, and a Nazi officer in The Young Lions.
While he won an Oscar nomination for his acting in
Sayonara, his acting had lost much of its energy and
direction by the end of the 1950s.
Brando's star sank even further in the 1960s as he
turned in increasingly uninspired performances in
Mutiny on the Bounty and several other forgettable
films. Though even at this professional low point,
Brando still managed to produce a few exceptional
films; such as One-Eyed Jacks, a western that would
be the only film Brando would ever direct as well as
Burn! which Brando would later claim as his personal
favourite of his movies. Nonetheless, his career had
gone into almost complete eclipse by the end of the
decade thanks to his reputation as a difficult star
and his record in overbudget or marginal movies.
The Godfather
Marlon
Brando as Don Corleone in The Godfather, from
Paramount Pictures via the Canadian PressHis
performance as Vito Corleone in The Godfather in
1972 changed this. Brando once again had to beg for
a part, forcing a screen test in which he did his
own makeup. Francis Ford Coppola was electrified by
Brando's characterization as the head of a crime
family, but had to fight the studio in order to cast
him. Brando was voted the Academy Award for Best
Actor for his intelligent performance; once again,
he improvised important details that lent more
humanity to what could otherwise have been a clichéd
role.
Brando
turned down the Academy Award, the second actor to
refuse an Oscar (the first being George C. Scott for
Patton.) Brando boycotted the award ceremony,
sending Native American actress Sacheen
Littlefeather (nee Maria Cruz) to state his
objections. She was booed as she denounced
Hollywood's portrayal of her people. The actor
followed with one of his greatest performances in
Last Tango in Paris, but it was overshadowed by an
uproar over the erotic nature of the Bernardo
Bertolucci film. Despite the controversies which
attended both the film and the man, the Academy once
again nominated Brando for the Best Actor.
Late career
His
career afterwards was uneven: in addition to his
iconic performance as Colonel Kurtz in Apocalypse
Now and his intensely personal performance in Last
Tango in Paris, Brando has also played Jor-El,
Superman's father, in the first Superman movie—a
role he agreed to only on condition that he did not
have to read the script beforehand and his lines
would be displayed somewhere offscreen. Other later
performances, such as "The Island of Dr. Moreau",
earned him some of his most uncomplimentary reviews
of his career. Despite announcing plans to
retire—which he made good on for most of the
1980s—he subsequently gave interesting supporting
performances in movies such as 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.
Off screen
Brando's crusades for civil rights, the American
Indian and other causes kept him in the public eye
throughout his career. So did his romances and
marriages. He married actress Anna Kashfi in 1957,
believing her to be East Indian. She was revealed to
be Welsh, and they separated a year later.
In 1960
he married a Mexican actress, Maria "Movita"
Castaneda, at least 16 years his senior, who had
appeared in the first Mutiny on the Bounty 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 had appeared in the film as Fletcher
Christian's love interest, became his third wife
after he and Castaneda were divorced. Teriipia
became the mother of three of his children (of which
one died, see below). The hotel on Tetiaroa was
eventually built; it went through many redesigns due
to changes demanded by Brando over the years, but is
now closed. A new hotel consisting of 30 deluxe
villas is due to open in 2008.
All
three 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:
by his
marriage to actress Anna Kashfi:
-
Christian (46)
-
by his
marriage to actress Movita Castaneda:
-
Miko
(43)
-
by his
marriage to Tarita Teriipia:
-
Simon
Teihotu (41) - the only inhabitant of Tetiaroa
-
Rebecca
Brando Kotlinzky (38)
-
Cheyenne (died 1995 at the age of 25)
-
by
adoption:
-
Petra
Brando-Corval (32), daughter of Brando's assistant
Caroline Barrett
-
mother
not publicly known:
-
Maimiti
(28)
-
Raiatua
(23)
-
by his
maid Christina Maria Ruiz:
-
Nina
Priscilla (15)
-
Myles
(12)
-
Timothy
(10)
In May
1990, Brando's first son, Christian, shot and killed
Dag Drollet, 26, the Tahitian lover of Christian's
half-sister Cheyenne, at the family's hilltop home
above Beverly Hills. Christian, 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, Marlon
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 Marlon
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. She
was only 25 years old.
Brando's notoriety, his family's troubled lives, his
self-exile from Hollywood, and his obesity,
unfortunately 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.
On July
1, 2004 Brando died, at age 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 lung failure
brought on by pulmonary fibrosis. He had also been
suffering from congestive heart failure and
diabetes, which was causing his eyesight to fail.
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