Marlon Brando
The actor who brought naturalism to film and defied convention.
Marlon Brando Jr., born on April 3, 1924, in Omaha, Nebraska, and dying on July 1, 2004, was an American actor. He is considered one of cinema’s finest and most influential performers, earning two Academy Awards, two Golden Globes, three BAFTAs, a Cannes Film Festival prize, and a Primetime Emmy. Brando helped introduce the Stanislavski system and method acting to a wide audience.
In the 1940s, he studied under Stella Adler and absorbed Stanislavski’s techniques. Starting on stage, he earned praise for his character work. His Broadway debut came in *I Remember Mama* (1944), and he won Theater World Awards for *Candida* and *Truckline Cafe* (1946). He returned to Broadway as Stanley Kowalski in Tennessee Williams’s *A Streetcar Named Desire* (1947), a role he later played in Elia Kazan’s 1951 film.
His first film role was a wounded soldier in *The Men* (1950). He won Best Actor Oscars for playing dockworker Terry Malloy in *On the Waterfront* (1954) and crime boss Vito Corleone in *The Godfather* (1972). He also received Oscar nominations for Stanley Kowalski in *A Streetcar Named Desire* (1951), Emiliano Zapata in *Viva Zapata!* (1952), Mark Antony in *Julius Caesar* (1953), an air force pilot in *Sayonara* (1957), an American expatriate in *Last Tango in Paris* (1973), and a lawyer in *A Dry White Season* (1989).
Brando became known for playing rebellious figures who turned into cultural icons, like Johnny Strabler in *The Wild One* (1953), and he symbolized the era’s “generation gap.” His other films include *Guys and Dolls* (1955), *The Young Lions* (1958), *The Fugitive Kind* (1960), *The Chase* (1966), *Burn!* (1969), *The Missouri Breaks* (1976), *Superman* (1978), *Apocalypse Now* (1979), and *The Freshman* (1990). He directed and starred in the western *One-Eyed Jacks* (1961), which flopped at the box office.
On television, he won a Primetime Emmy for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Limited Series or Movie for the ABC miniseries *Roots: The Next Generations* (1979). After that, he took a nine-year break from acting. He returned to film with mixed commercial and critical results. His final two decades were troubled, marked by public controversy, mood disorders, and legal problems. His last movies were *The Island of Dr. Moreau* (1996) and *The Score* (2001).
Brando was born the only son of Marlon Brando Sr., a traveling salesman, and Dorothy Pennebaker, a stage actress often away from home. Her absences made him cling to the family housekeeper, who later left to marry, giving him abandonment issues. He had two older sisters, Jocelyn and Frances. Despite iconic Italian roles, he had no Italian ancestry; his background was mostly German, Dutch, English, and Irish. His patrilineal ancestor, Johann Wilhelm Brandau, came from Germany’s Palatinate to New York in the early 1700s. He also descended from French Huguenot Louis DuBois, who arrived around 1660, and Irish immigrant Myles Joseph Gahan, a Civil War medic. In 1995, while visiting Ireland, he said he had never been so happy and seriously considered Irish citizenship.
In 1930, the family moved to Evanston, Illinois, where Brando mimicked people, pulled pranks, and befriended Wally Cox (a friend until Cox’s 1973 death). His parents separated in 1936, and he and his siblings moved with their mother to Santa Ana, California. They reconciled two years later, and his father bought a farmhouse in Libertyville, Illinois. Brando attended Libertyville High School, excelling in sports and drama but failing everything else. He was held back a year and, due to misbehavior, expelled in 1941.
His father sent him to Shattuck Military Academy, where his father had studied. Brando kept acting until 1943, when he was put on probation for insubordination during maneuvers. Confined to campus, he sneaked into town and got caught. Faculty voted to expel him, though students thought it too harsh. He was invited back but chose to drop out. He worked as a ditch-digger that summer and tried to enlist in the Army, but a football injury from Shattuck gave him a trick knee, classifying him as unfit.
He followed his sisters to New York, studying at the American Theatre Wing Professional School, part of the Dramatic Workshop of the New School, under German director Erwin Piscator. In a 1988 documentary, his sister Jocelyn recalled that after enjoying a school play, he decided at 18 to study acting in New York because it was the only thing he liked. George Englund later said Brando fell into acting because he was accepted.
- born
- April 3, 1924, Omaha, Nebraska
- died
- July 1, 2004
- field
- Acting
- nationality
- American
- known_for
- Bringing Stanislavski system and method acting to mainstream audiences; roles in On the Waterfront, The Godfather, A Streetcar Named Desire
Quick Facts
- Birth Name
- Marlon Brando Jr.
- Birth Date
- 1924-04-03
- Birth Place
- Omaha, Nebraska, U.S.
- Death Date
- 2004-07-01
- Death Place
- Los Angeles, California, U.S.
- Occupation
- Actor
- Years Active
- 1944–2004
- Works
- Full list
- Spouse
- Anna Kashfi · 1957 · 1959 · end=div / Movita Castaneda · 1960 · 1968 · end=annulled
- Partner
- Tarita Teriipaia (1962–1972)
- Children
- 11, including Christian and Cheyenne
- Relatives
- Jocelyn Brando (sister)
Facts from the source article.
Lore & Background
Brando came under the influence of Stella Adler and Stanislavski's system in the 1940s. He began his career on stage, where he was lauded for adeptly interpreting his characters. He made his Broadway debut in the play I Remember Mama (1944) and won Theater World Awards for his performances in Candida and Truckline Cafe (1946). He returned to Broadway as Stanley Kowalski in the Tennessee Williams play A Streetcar Named Desire (1947), a role he reprised in the 1951 film adaptation directed by Elia Kazan. He made his film debut playing a wounded G.I. in The Men (1950) and won two Academy Awards for Best Actor for his performances as dockworker Terry Malloy in On the Waterfront (1954) and crime boss Vito Corleone in The Godfather (1972). He was also Oscar-nominated for playing Stanley Kowalski in A Streetcar Named Desire (1951), Emiliano Zapata in Viva Zapata! (1952), Mark Antony in Julius Caesar (1953), an air force pilot in Sayonara (1957), an American expatriate in Last Tango in Paris (1973), and a lawyer in A Dry White Season (1989). Brando was known for portraying rebellious characters who later became popular icons, such as Johnny Strabler in The Wild One (1953), and he came to be seen as an emblem of the era's 'generation gap'. He also starred in films such as Guys and Dolls (1955), The Young Lions (1958), The Fugitive Kind (1960), The Chase (1966), Burn! (1969), The Missouri Breaks (1976), Superman (1978), Apocalypse Now (1979), and The Freshman (1990). He made his directorial debut with, and also starred in, the western drama One-Eyed Jacks (1961), which performed poorly at the box office. On television, Brando won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Limited Series or Movie for his role in the ABC miniseries Roots: The Next Generations (1979), after which he took a nine-year hiatus from acting. He later returned to film with varying degrees of commercial and critical success. The last two decades of his life were marked by controversy, and his troubled private life received significant public attention, including struggles with mood disorders and legal issues. His final films included The Island of Dr. Moreau (1996) and The Score (2001).
Reader's Guide
Brando was an avid student and proponent of Stella Adler, from whom he learned the techniques of the Stanislavski system. This technique encouraged the actor to explore both internal and external aspects to fully realize the character being portrayed. Brando's remarkable insight and sense of realism were evident early on. Adler used to recount that, when teaching Brando, she had instructed the class to act like chickens, and added that a nuclear 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. Asked by Adler why he had chosen to react this way, he said, 'I'm a chicken—what do I know about bombs?' Despite being commonly regarded as a method actor, Brando disagreed. He claimed to have abhorred Lee Strasberg's teachings. Brando was the first to bring a natural approach to acting on film. According to Dustin Hoffman in his online Masterclass, Brando would often talk to cameramen and fellow actors about their weekend even after the director would call action. Once Brando felt he could deliver the dialogue as naturally as that conversation, he would start the dialogue. In his 2015 documentary, Listen to Me Marlon, he said that prior to that, actors were like breakfast cereals, meaning they were predictable. Critics would later say that this was Brando being difficult, but actors who worked opposite him said it was just all part of his technique.
Did You Know?
- Brando did not have Italian ancestry; his ancestry was mostly German, Dutch, English, and Irish.
- He was a descendant of Louis DuBois, a French Huguenot who arrived in New York around 1660.
- Brando was expelled from Shattuck Military Academy after sneaking into town while on probation.
- He was classified physically unfit for military service due to a trick knee from a football injury.
- Brando won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Limited Series or Movie for his role in the ABC miniseries Roots: The Next Generations (1979).
Notable Quotes (Wikiquote)
"An actor's a guy, who if you ain't talking about him, ain't listening." — Marlon Brando "That scene. Let me see. There were seven takes because Rod Steiger couldn't stop crying. He's one of those actors who loves to cry. We did it over and over again." — Marlon Brando "Privacy is not something that I’m merely entitled to, it’s an absolute prerequisite." — Marlon Brando "Said in 1960, quoted in Marlon Brando, Ch. 11 (1974, rev. 1989), by David Shipman." — Marlon Brando
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