American actor of great note whose charisma, both off- and on-screen, made him an artistic and social force. With his raw passion and emotional truth, so evident in his peak years from 1947 to 1954, some say that he changed forever the way we look at acting.
Brando was the only son of a limestone products salesman. His mom, Dodie, was a gifted local actress with a bohemian disposition. Both parents were alcoholics and both were promiscuous. Marlon, Sr. was also something of a bully, and his son, called “Bud,” hated him. Bud was difficult in high school in Libertyville, IL, and his folks shipped him off to a military academy in Shattuck, MN, his dad’s old school. Though the school was strict, the boy spent his time in pranks and chasing girls, catching more than a few. According to some reports, he also caught some action with some of the male cadets. Expelled in 1943, he ended up in New York.
At age 18, he was ineligible for the military due to a football knee injury, and other than some applause for school plays, had no skills or training. His sister Jocelyn was an actress, so Marlon enrolled at Erwin Piscator’s Dramatic Workshop at the New School. The grand dame, Stella Adler, spotted his awareness, his empathy and his erotic appeal and took him under her wing and into her private circle. Adler’s method emphasized that authenticity in acting is achieved by drawing on inner reality to expose deep emotional experience. Brando mastered The Method from the start. He made his Broadway debut in “I Remember Mama” in 1944. Two years later, he exploded into stage fame with his powerful portrayal of Kowalski in “A Streetcar Named Desire.”
He never did another play but Brando brought his magnetic presence to the screen in 1950 with his first film, “The Men.” He was nominated for the Best Actor award for four years in a row for “A Streetcar Named Desire,” 1951 “Viva Zapata,” 1952 “Julius Caesar,” 1953 and “On the Waterfront,” 1954, the performance which garnered his Oscar. He collected another Oscar for Best Actor in 1972 for “The Godfather.”
Brando spent the next 18 years making uneven movies, some commercially successful, some not. He began walking through his roles, no longer drawing on his own inner reality and angst. He was capricious on the set, refusing to adhere to schedules or scripts. His behavior was blamed for ruinous cost overruns and delays on “Mutiny on the Bounty.” The picture was shot in Tahiti and he fell in love with Polynesia, eventually buying the atoll of Teti-aroa, which became his refuge. In 1959, Brando formed his own production company to produce, direct and star in “One-Eyed Jacks,” 1961. He played in a series of disappointing films in the ’60s, at one point with 14 flops in a row. As his career drifted, he became known for his politics. He donated money to the Palestine Jews and later, was active in the civil rights movement.
In the early ’70s, he had two memorable films that represented a powerful comeback. “The Godfather” was a great popular epic of America, and Brando portrayed a master Mafioso. He won an Oscar but refused it in protest of the plight of the American Indian, a long-time cause. His “Last Tango in Paris” was a controversial effort and his last important starring role. Brando began to gain an immense amount weight and was up to 300 pounds in the ’80s. After “Tango” there were only a few stabs at acting or vignette roles, with no films at all from 1980 to 1989. The man whom many regarded as the greatest actor the American screen has ever known retreated to Tahiti or stayed in his house on Mulholland Drive. After a long absence, he appeared in “A Dry White Season,” 1989, which earned him another Oscar nomination.
Brando’s personal life might be described as dysfunctional. From the age of 19, when he lost his virginity, there were always women. Sex was a dominant and compelling force, and he even mentioned in an interview “an adventure with a goat.” His broken marriages include one to Anna Kashfi from 1957-1959 and a second to Movita Castenada from 1960-1968. With his former housekeeper, Christina Ruiz, he had children in 1990, March 1992 and 1994, bringing his total number of children to nine, perhaps ten or eleven, with four different women. In 1990, his son Christian was accused of killing his sister Cheyenne’s boyfriend who happened to be the son of a prominent Tahitian banker and politician. Christian’s defense was that the man had been abusing his sister. Brando testified in tears: “I tried to be a good father.” Christian pleaded guilty to involuntary manslaughter and served a jail sentence of nearly five years.
On April 16, 1995, Brando’s daughter Cheyenne committed suicide. That year, Brando emerged for his fans to play the role of a lovelorn psychiatrist in “Don Juan DeMarco,” starring the new generation’s heart-throb Johnny Depp. And in 2001, with his supporting role in “The Score,” Brando showed that he was still a fine actor.
On April 10, 2001, Brando was admitted to a Los Angeles hospital with pneumonia and a pending movie role was cancelled for illness. Brando lived with his ever-increasing family until December 2001, and on April 18, 2002, Ruiz filed suit asking for $100 million for support and property rights. He battled congestive heart failure for several years.
On June 30, 2004 he was admitted to the UCLA Medical Center where the great actor died the next day on July 1, 2004 of pulmonary fibrosis. Some news reports gave a time of death of 6:20 PM. Four days later in a private service that had been a tightly guarded secret, his body was cremated.
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