Marlon Brando-the American Heavy weight actor

Brando was born to Marlon Brando Sr. (1895–1965) and Dorothy Pennebaker Brando (1897–1954) in Omaha, Nebraska. In 1935, when he was eleven years old, his parents separated. His mother briefly took her three children Marlon, Jocelyn (1919–2005) and Frances Brando (1922–1994) to live with her mother in Santa Ana, California until 1937, when the parents reconciled and moved to Libertyville, Illinois, a village north of Chicago. The family was of mixed Dutch, Irish, German, Huguenot, and English descent. Contrary to what is stated in some biographies, Brando's grandfather Eugene E. Brando was not French but was born in New York state. Brando's grandmother Marie Holloway abandoned Eugene and their son Marlon Brando Sr. when he was five years old. The Brando family had been long settled in New York state. The family name was earlier spelled Brandow and originated with a German immigrant, Johann Wilhelm Brandau, who settled in America in the early 1700s.Brando's mother, Dodie, was an unconventional but intelligent and talented woman. She smoked, wore trousers and drove automobiles at a time when it was unusual for women to do so. However, she suffered from alcoholism and often had to be retrieved from Chicago bars by Brando's father. She later became a leader of Alcoholics Anonymous. Dodie was an actress and administrator in local theater and was written about for her theatrical work by the Omaha newspapers. She helped a young Henry Fonda to begin his own acting career, and fueled Brando's interest in stage acting. His father, Marlon Sr., was a gifted amateur photographer. Brando's maternal grandmother, Bessie Gahan Pennebaker Meyers, to whom Brando was perhaps closer than his own mother, was also unconventional. Widowed at a young age, she worked to support herself as a secretary and later as a Christian Science healer, and was well known in Omaha. Her father, Myles Gahan, was a doctor from Ireland and her mother, Julia Watts, was from England. 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. His sister, Jocelyn Brando, however, was the first to pursue a career in acting, going to New York to study at the American Academy of Dramatic Art. She later appeared on Broadway, in movies and on television. Next, Marlon's sister Frannie left college in California to study art in New York. Marlon followed.
Brando had a tumultuous childhood. He was held back a year in school and was later expelled from Libertyville High School. At the age of 16, he was sent to Shattuck Military Academy in Faribault, Minnesota, where his father had gone before him. At Shattuck, he excelled at theater and got along well within the structure of the school. In his final year (1943), he was put on probation for talking back to an officer during maneuvers. A part of his probation was that he be confined to the school campus, but he eventually tried sneaking off campus into town and was caught. The faculty voted to expel him. He received support from his fellow students who thought the punishment too harsh. He was later invited back for the next year, but decided not to finish school.
He worked as a ditch-digger in his hometown as a summer job arranged by his father, but had decided to follow his sisters to New York. One sister was trying to be a painter and the other had already appeared on Broadway. He visited his sister Frances in New York at Christmas 1942 and liked the experience. Brando was given six months of support from his father, after which his father offered to help him get a job as a salesman. 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 techniques of the Stanislavski System. There is a possibly apocryphal story in which Adler spoke about teaching Brando, saying that she had instructed the class to act like chickens, then adding that a bomb was about to fall on them. Most of the class clucked and ran around wildly, but Brando sat calmly and pretended to lay an egg. When Adler asked Brando to explain his actions, he replied, "I'm a chicken - What do I know from a bomb?"
Brando used his Stanislavski System skills for his first summer-stock roles in Sayville, New York on Long Island. His behavior got him kicked out of the cast of the New School's production in Sayville, but he was discovered in a locally produced 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 veteran in Truckline Café, although the play was a commercial failure. In 1946 he appeared on Broadway as the young hero in the political drama A Flag Is Born, refusing to accept wages above the Actor's Equity rate because of his commitment to the cause of Israeli independence. Brando achieved stardom, however, as Stanley Kowalski in Tennessee Williams' 1947 play A Streetcar Named Desire, 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. Brando's performance revolutionized acting technique and set the model for the American form of method acting. This approach to a role was never seen before and all similar roles mirror Brando's.
Afterward, Brando was asked to do a screen test for Warner Brothers studio for the film Rebel Without A Cause, which James Dean was later cast in. The screen test appears as an extra in the 2006 DVD release of A Streetcar Named Desire.
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.
He made a strong impression in 1951 when he brought his performance as Stanley Kowalski to the screen in Kazan's adaptation of Tennessee Williams' A Streetcar Named Desire. 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 as Mark Antony, and On the Waterfront in 1954. These first five films of his career established Brando as perhaps the premier acting talent in the world, as evidenced in his winning the BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role three consecutive years, 1951 to 1953.
In 1953, he also starred in Lee Falk's play Arms and the Man. Falk was proud to tell people that Marlon Brando turned down an offer of $10,000 per week on Broadway, in favor of working on Falk's play in Boston. His Boston contract was less than $500 per week. It would be the last time he ever acted in a stage play.
Brando became a hero for the younger generation by playing motorcycle rebel Johnny Strabler in 1953's The Wild One. He created the rebel image for the rock-and-roll era[citation needed]. Brando's explosive screen presence exuded a raw sexuality that drew repeat ticket purchases among female theater goers of all ages. Theater managers related accounts of sold out weekday matiness where small children ran up and down the aisle making motorcycle noises while their mothers sat transfixed.
Director Nick Ray took the gang image from the movie The Wild One and brought it to his movie, Rebel Without A Cause, and thus emphasized Brando's effect on youth.
Aspects of the rebel culture that included motorcycles, leather jackets, jeans and the rebel image, which inspired generations of rebels, came thanks to that film and Brando's own unique image and character. The sales of motorcycle related paraphernalia, leather jackets, jeans, boots and t-shirts skyrocketed throughout the country.The film had a similar effect on overseas audiences. Local authorities and religious figures lamented the effect it was having on the youth of their respective countries.
Under Kazan's direction, and with a talented ensemble around him, Brando won the Oscar for his role of Terry Malloy in On the Waterfront. For the famous I coulda' been a contender scene, Brando convinced Kazan that the scripted scene was unrealistic, and with Rod Steiger, improvised the final product.
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. Although 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.
In the 1960s Brando starred in films such as Mutiny on the Bounty (1962); One-Eyed Jacks (1961), a western that would be the only film Brando would ever direct; a star-studded but unsuccessful potboiler The Chase (1966), in which he played an uncorrupted Texas sheriff; Reflections in a Golden Eye (1967), portraying a repressed gay army officer, and Burn! (1969), which Brando would later claim as his personal favorite, although it was a commercial failure. Nonetheless, his career had gone into almost complete eclipse by the end of the decade, some say, thanks to his reputation as a difficult star and his record in overbudget or marginal movies.
However, in truth, his reputation as a "difficult star", no matter how justifiably earned, was not the real reason for the downslide in his career. The fact is, as noted progressive writer Dave Zirin points out, Hollywood created what became known as the "Brando Blacklist" that shut him out of many big time roles. The reason for that blacklist was his growing activism, and his financial and moral support of the Black Panthers, Native American Rights groups and other progressive causes.
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.
Eventually, Charles Bludhorn, the president of Paramount parent Gulf + Western, was won over to letting Brando have the role; when he saw the screen test, he asked in amazement, "What are we watching? Who is this old guinea?"
Brando won the Academy Award for Best Actor for his performance, but turned it down, becoming the second actor to refuse a Best Actor award (the first being George C. Scott for Patton). Brando boycotted the award ceremony, sending Native American Rights activist Sacheen Littlefeather to state his reasons, which were based on his objections to the depiction of Native Americans by Hollywood and television.
The actor followed with one of his greatest performances in Bernardo Bertolucci's 1973 film, Last Tango in Paris, but the performance was overshadowed by an uproar over the erotic nature of the film. Despite the controversies which attended both the film and the man, the Academy once again nominated Brando for the Best Actor.
His career afterward was uneven. He was paid one million dollars a week to play the iconic Colonel Kurtz in 1979's Apocalypse Now. He was supposed to show up slim, fit, and to have read the book Heart of Darkness. He showed up weighing around 220 pounds and hadn't read Heart of Darkness. This is why his character was shot mostly in the shadows and most of his dialogue was improvised. After his week was over, director Francis Ford Coppola asked him to stay an extra hour so that he could shoot a close up of Brando saying, "The horror, the horror." Brando agreed for an extra $75,000. After this film his weight began to limit the roles he could play.
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 all of Brando's changes, which gave the film the focus and narrative continuity it had previously lacked.
Brando then portrayed Superman's father Jor-El in the 1978 Superman: The Movie. 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. It was revealed in a documentary contained in the 2001 DVD release of Superman, that he was paid $3.7 million for just two weeks of work.
Brando also filmed scenes for the movie's sequel, Superman II, but after producers refused to pay him the same percentage he received for the first movie, he denied them permission to use the footage. However, after Brando's death the footage was re-incorporated into the 2006 re-cut of the film, Superman II: The Richard Donner Cut.
Two years after his death, he "reprised" the role of Jor-El in the 2006 "loose sequel" Superman Returns, in which both used and unused archive footage of Brando as Jor-El from the first two Superman films was remastered for a scene in the Fortress of Solitude, as well as Brando's voice-overs being used throughout the film.
Some later performances, such as The Island of Dr Moreau, earned him some of the most uncomplimentary reviews of his career. Despite announcing his retirement from acting in 1980, 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. In his last film, The Score (2001), he starred with fellow method actor Robert De Niro.
Brando conceived the idea of a novel called Fan-Tan with director Donald Cammell in 1979, which was not released until 2005. Cammell dated and eventually married actor China Kong, the daughter of Anita Loo, with whom Brando had an affair.
Brando became known as much for his crusades for civil rights, Native American rights and other political causes as he was for his acting. He also earned a "bad boy" reputation for his public outbursts and antics. In June 1973, Brando broke paparazzo Ron Galella's jaw. His hand became infected as a result. In the following year, Galella wore a football helmet when snapping photos of Brando.
In Songs My Mother Taught Me, Brando claimed he met Marilyn Monroe at a party as she played piano, unnoticed by anybody else there, and they started an affair that lasted many years up until her death, receiving a phone call from her several days before she died. 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. Kashfi was born in Calcutta and moved to Wales at the end of the British Raj in 1947. She is said to have been the daughter of a Welsh steel worker of Irish descent, William O'Callaghan, who had been superintendent on the Indian State railways. However, in her book, Brando for Breakfast, she claimed that she really is half-Indian and that the press incorrectly thought that her stepfather, O'Callaghan, was her real father. She said her real father was Indian and that she was the result of an "unregistered alliance" between her parents. In 1959, Brando and Kashfi divorced following the birth of their son, Christian Brando, on May 11, 1958.
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.
The Bounty experience affected Brando's life in a profound way. He fell in love with Tahiti and its people. He bought a twelve island atoll, 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 on August 10, 1962. At just 20 years old, Tarita was 18 years younger than Brando. 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. They divorced in July 1972. Brando eventually had a hotel built on Tetiaroa. 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.