His portrayals, such as the macho male Stanley Kowalski in "Streetcar Named Desire," the honest longshoreman Terry Malloy in "Port of Call" and mob boss Don Corleone in "The Godfather," remain unsurpassed and benchmarks in 7th Art.
Marlon Brando was born on April 3, 1924 in Omaha, Nebraska, USA. He had a difficult childhood, as both his parents, due to alcoholism, disregarded him and his two older sisters.
His namesake father, a small-time pesticide businessman in the area, was cruel and distant with his children to the point that his later famous son wrote in his autobiography: "When my father died I thought: "God, bring him back alive for eight seconds because I want to break his jaw." Dodi Penbaker's mother, a professional actress in local theatres, was perpetually daydreaming when she wasn't drunk.
A wild character from a young age, he was twice expelled from the schools he attended and was exempted from military service as a "yachtsman". He then decided to follow his two sisters to New York, where they studied drama.
Having caught the acting bug himself, he began lessons first with Stella Adler and later at Lee Strasberg's famous "Actors Studio", taught by director Elias Kazan. He quickly stood out for his ferocious talent, which was sculpted by the "method" technique practiced at the school. "He acted without really having to be taught" his first acting teacher had said of him.
He later became the best ambassador of "the method", influencing many great actors in later years, including Robert De Niro, Al Pacino and Jack Nicholson.
Marlon Brando first appeared on Broadway in 1944 in John Van Drotten's play "I Remember Mama" and was soon hailed by critics as "the most promising young actor". He would more than justify this description in 1947, as Stanley Kowalski in the famous Tennessee Williams play "Busload of Desire."
Hollywood quickly discovered him and took him from the theater, but never managed to make him exclusively their own. His film career began in 1950 with Fred Chineman's "My Body Belongs to You" and was followed by Elias Kazan's "Bus of Desire" (1951), which he had performed on stage.
This was followed by "Viva Zapata!" (1952) and "Julius Caesar" (1953), while a year later Marlon Brando became a youth idol with Laszlo Benedek's film "The Atrocity". Riding the legendary Triumph Boneville motorcycle and wearing a leather jacket, he became an integral part of rock culture in the following years.
In 1954 he won his first Academy Award for his performance in Elias Kazan's The Port of Agony. He played Terry Malloy, a longshoreman and former failed boxer who, despite pressure, does not hesitate to expose corruption in New York Harbor.
The 1660s, however, would not be as good for the great actor and the films of this period did not flatter him, and some of them were complete disasters. He was reborn cinematically in 1972 as Don Corleone in Francis Ford Coppola's The Godfather, which earned him his second Oscar the following year. The same year he starred in Bernardo Bertolozzi's much-discussed Last Tango in Paris.
Marlon Brando caused a sensation when he did not appear at the awards ceremony. He sent a native of the Apache tribe to refuse the award on his behalf, thus protesting the image Hollywood had created of Indians.
Throughout the years he was active politically and fought for the rights not only of native Indians but also of African Americans. He was an avowed supporter of the Democratic Party and participated in the campaigns of its presidential candidates.
From the mid-1970s, he began a reverse trend dominated by his brief appearances in movies just for the money. After all, as he disarmingly declared, "acting is an empty, worthless profession" as opposed to film roles "that make the big bucks". On top of that, he pursued short work so as not to be too busy. He did, however, stand out as the sinister Colonel Kurtz in Francis Ford Coppola's masterpiece "Apocalypse Now!"
Marlon Brando had a tumultuous personal life with many ups and downs.
The conviction of his son Christian for the murder of his half-sister Cheyenne's lover (1990) and her suicide in 1995 were two events that marked his life and took a psychological toll on him.
Marlon Brando died on July 1, 2004, in Los Angeles, at the age of 80. In the last period of his life he was facing serious health problems
Source: sansimera.gr
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