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| Birth Name(s) : Marlon Brando |
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Full Marlon Brando Biography
Brando was also an activist, lending his presence to many issues, including the American Civil Rights and American Indian Movements. He was named the fourth Greatest Male Star of All Time by the American Film Institute.
Brando's first screen role was as the bitter paraplegic 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.
Marlon Brando was purported to be a hero for James Dean, who was said to have idolized him and copied his acting and persona. Brando claimed in his autobiography Songs My Mother Taught Me that when Elia Kazan introduced him to James Dean on the set of East of Eden, he remarked that 'He was nervous when we met and made it clear that he was not only mimicking my acting but also what he believed was my lifestyle. He said he was learning to play the conga drums and had taken up motorcycling, and he obviously wanted my approval of his work.' He later remarked in his book that 'In retrospect, I realize it's not unusual for people to borrow someone else's form until they find their own, and in time Jimmy did.' William Bast, a famous screen writer at that time, compared Marlon's acting style to be "heavy as lead" while James was more "mercurial and light".
His performance as Vito Corleone in 1972's The Godfather was a mid-career turning point. Director Francis Ford Coppola convinced Brando to submit to a "make-up" test, in which Brando did his own makeup (he used cotton balls to simulate the puffed-cheek look). Coppola was electrified by Brando's characterization as the head of a crime family, but had to fight the studio in order to cast the temperamental Brando whose reputation for difficult behavior and demands was the stuff of backlot legend. However, Paramount studio heads wanted to give the role to Danny Thomas in the hope that Thomas would have his own production company throw in its lot with Paramount. Thomas declined the role and actually urged the studio to cast Brando at the behest of Coppola and others who had witnessed the screen test. Brando's "sit down" scene between rival mobsters is generally described as one of the greatest moments in film history. Brando won the Academy Award for Best Actor for his performance.
In his autobiography Songs My Mother Taught Me, Brando describes his participation in Apocalypse Now very differently. According to Brando, the script had deviated from the book and made Kurtz a much more visible character. To restore the character's mystery (and to cut down on the amount of work he'd be required to do), Brando suggested to Coppola that Kurtz be returned in the movie to the mythological figure he was in the book. Coppola agreed to allow Brando to rewrite the script, which he did over the course of ten days. Brando also shaved his head without telling Coppola, and worked with the crew to devise lighting techniques which would emphasize his bald pate and deep set eyes, to evoke a sense of palpable danger in the character. Coppola approved of all of Brando's changes, which gave the film the focus and narrative continuity it had previously lacked.
Brando played Jor-El, Superman's father, in Superman. He agreed to the role only on assurance that he was paid a large sum for what amounted to a small part, that he did not have to read the script beforehand and his lines would be displayed somewhere off-camera.
Brando conceived the idea of a novel called Fan-Tan with director Donald Cammell in 1979, which was not released until 2005. Donald Cammell dated and eventually married the daughter of one of Brando's girlfriends, Anita Loo (aka Anita Kong), China Kong.
In his autobiography Songs My Mother Taught Me, 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.
He married actress Anna Kashfi in 1957, mistakenly believing her to be of 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 together, Christian Brando.
In 1960, Brando married Movita Castaneda, a Mexican actress seven years his senior; they were divorced in 1962. Castaneda had appeared in the first Mutiny on the Bounty film in 1935, some 27 years before the 1962 remake with Brando as Fletcher Christian. Brando's behavior during the filming of Bounty seemed to bolster his reputation as a difficult star. He was blamed for a change in director and a runaway budget, though he disclaimed responsibility for either.
In May 1990, Dag Drollet, the Tahitian lover of Brando's daughter and Christian's half-sister, Cheyenne, died of a gunshot wound, after a confrontation with Christian at the family's hilltop home above Beverly Hills. Christian, then 31, claimed the shooting was accidental.
Abraham Foxman, head of the ADL, responded by indicating that Brando "should know that what he said is utterly false, extremely offensive and plays into the hands of anti-Semites and bigots. His comments raise the centuries-old canard of Jewish control and conspiracy, and his use of an anti-Semitic epithet is hurtful to Jews everywhere." |
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