Marlon Brando
was quite simply the most celebrated and influential screen and stage actor
of the postwar era; he rewrote the rules of performing, and nothing was
ever the same again. Brooding, lusty and intense, his greatest contribution
was popularizing Method acting, a highly interpretive performance style
which brought unforeseen dimensions of power and depth to the craft; in
comparison, most other screen icons appeared shallow, even a little silly.
A combative and often contradictory man, Brando refused to play by the
rules of the Hollywood game, openly expressing his loathing for the film
industry and for the very nature of celebrity, yet often exploiting his
fame to bring attention to political causes and later accepting any role
offered him as long as the price was right. He was the screen's greatest
enigma, and there will never be another like him. Born April 3, 1924 in
Omaha, Nebraska, Brando's rebellious streak manifested itself early, resulting
in his expulsion from military school. His first career was as a ditch
digger, but his father ultimately grew so frustrated with his son's seeming
lack of ambition that he offered to finance whatever more meaningful path
the young man chose to pursue. Brando opted to become an actor -- his mother
operated a local theatrical group -- and he soon relocated to New York
City to study the Stanislavsky method under Stella Adler. He later worked
at the Actors Studio under the tutelage of Lee Strasberg, and his dedication
to the principles of Method acting was to become absolute. After making
his professional debut in 1943's Bobino, Brando bowed on Broadway a year
later in I Remember Mama; for 1946's Truckline Cafe, the critics voted
him "Broadway's Most Promising Actor."Brando's groundbreaking star turn
in the 1947 production of Tennessee Williams' A Streetcar Named Desire
delivered on all of that promise and much, much more; as the inarticulate
brute Stanley Kowalski, Brando stunned audiences with a performance of
remarkable honesty, sexuality and intensity, and overnight he became the
rage of Broadway. Hollywood quickly came calling, but he resisted the studios'
overtures with characteristic contempt -- he was a new breed of star, an
anti-star really, and he refused to play ball, dismissing influential critics
and making no concessions towards glamour or decorum. It all only served
to make Hollywood want him more, of course, and in 1950 Brando agreed to
star in the independent Stanley Kramer production The Men as a paraplegic
war victim; in typical Method fashion, he spent a month in an actual veteran's
hospital in preparation for the role.While The Men was not a commercial
hit, critics tripped over themselves in their attempts to praise Brando's
performance, and in 1951 it was announced that he and director Elia Kazan
were set to reprise their earlier work for a screen adaptation of Streetcar.
The results were hugely successful, winning an Academy Award for "Best
Film"; Brando earned his first "Best Actor" nomination, but lost despite
Oscars for his co-stars Vivian Leigh, Karl Malden and Kim Hunter. Again
with Kazan, he next starred in the title role of 1952's Viva Zapata! After
walking out of the French production Le Rouge et le Noir over a dispute
with director Claude Autant-Lara, Brando portrayed Mark Antony in the 1953
MGM production of Julius Caesar, sparking considerable controversy over
his idiosyncratic approach to the Bard and earning a third consecutive
Oscar bid. In 1954 The Wild One was another curve ball, casting Brando
as the rebellious leader of a motorcycle gang and forever establishing
him as a poster boy for attitude, angst and anomie. That same year, he
delivered perhaps his definitive screen performance as a washed-up boxer
in Kazan's visceral On the Waterfront. On his fourth attempt, Brando finally
won an Academy Award, and the film itself also garnered "Best Picture"
honors. However, his next picture, Desiree, was his first disappointment.
Despite gaining much publicity for his portrayal of Napoleon, the project
made a subpar showing both artistically and financially. Brando continued
to prove his versatility by co-starring with Frank Sinatra in a film adaptation
of the hit Broadway musical Guys and Dolls. Another Broadway-to-screen
adaptation, The Teahouse of the August Moon, followed in 1956 before he
began work on the following year's Sayonara, for which he garnered yet
another Oscar nomination.In 1958's The Young Lions, Brando co-starred for
the first and only time with Montgomery Clift, the other great actor of
his generation; it was a hit, but his next project, 1960's The Fugitive
Kind, was a financial disaster. He then announced plans to mount his own
independent production. After both Stanley Kubrick and Sam Peckinpah both
walked off the project, Brando himself grabbed the directorial reins. The
result, the idiosyncratic 1961 western One-Eyed Jacks, performed respectably
at the box office, but was such a costly proposition that it could hardly
be expected ever to earn a profit. In 1962, Mutiny on the Bounty underwent
a similarly troubled birthing process -- Brando rejected numerous screenplay
revisions, and MGM spent a record $19 million to bring the picture to the
screen; when it too failed, his diminishing box office stature, combined
with his increasingly temperamental behavior, made him a target of scorn
for the first time in his career. The downward spiral continued: Brando
himself remained compulsively watchable, but suddenly the material itself,
like 1963's The Ugly American, 1966's The Chase and 1967's A Countess From
Hong Kong, was self-indulgent and far beneath his abilities. His mysterious
career choices, as well as his often inscrutable personal and professional
behavior -- he was quoted as declaring acting a "neurotic, unimportant
job" -- became the topic of much discussion throughout the industry. He
continued to push himself in risky projects like 1967's Reflections of
a Golden Eye, an adaptation of a Carson McCullers novel in which he portrayed
a closeted homosexual, but the end result lacked the old magic. While Brando
still commanded respect from the media and his fellow performers, much
of Hollywood began to perceive him as a bad and unnecessary risk, a perception
which features like 1968's Candy, 1969's Queimada! and 1971's The Nightcomers
did little to alter. The Brando renaissance began with 1972's The Godfather;
against the objections of Paramount, director Francis Ford Coppola cast
him to play the aging head of a Mafia crime family, and according to most
reports his on-set behavior was impeccable. On-screen, Brando was brilliant,
delivering his best performance in well over a decade. He won his second
Academy Award, but became the subject of much controversy when he refused
the honor, instead sending one Sacheen Littlefeather -- supposedly a Native
American spokeswoman, but later revealed to be a Hispanic actress -- to
the Oscar telecast podium to deliver a speech attacking the U.S. government's
history of crimes against the native population. Controversy continued
to dog Brando upon the release of 1973's Last Tango in Paris, Bernardo
Bertolucci's masterful examination of a sexual liaison between an American
widower and a young Frenchwoman -- though critically-acclaimed, the picture
was denounced as obscene in many quarters.Despite his resurrection, Brando
did not reappear on screen for three years, finally resurfacing in The
Missouri Breaks opposite Jack Nicholson. Although he had by now long maintained
that he continued to act only for the money, the eccentricity of his career
choices allowed many fans to shrug off such assertions; however, never
before had Brando appeared in so blatantly commercial a project as 1978's
Superman, earning an unprecedented $3.7 million for what essentially amounted
to a cameo performance. His next appearance, in Coppola's 1979 Vietnam
epic Apocalypse Now, was largely incoherent, while for 1980's The Formula
he appeared in only three scenes. And for a decade, that was it: Brando
vanished, living in self-imposed exile on his island in the Pacific, growing
obese and refusing the few overtures producers made for him to come back
to Hollywood. Only in 1989 did a project appeal to Brando's deep political
convictions, and he co-starred in the anti-Apartheid drama A Dry White
Season, earning an Academy Award nomination for his supporting role as
an attorney. A year later, he headlined The Freshman, gracefully parodying
his Godfather performance. Tragedy struck in 1990 when his son Christian
killed the lover of Brando's pregnant daughter, Cheyenne; a long legal
battle ensued, and Christian was found guilty of murder and imprisoned.
Even more tragically, Cheyenne later committed suicide. The trial placed
a severe strain on Brando's finances, and he reluctantly returned to performing,
appearing in the atrocious Christopher Columbus: The Discovery in 1992.
He also wrote an autobiography, Songs My Mother Taught Me. Don Juan DeMarco,
co-starring Johnny Depp, followed in 1995, and after 1996's The Island
of Dr. Moreau, Brando starred in Depp's directorial debut The Brave the
next year.
