Marlon brando biography best actor the godfather

Despite the marriages, Brando's relationships were often tumultuous and reflected his struggles with intimacy and self-discipline. In addition to his marriages, Brando fathered at least 11 children, creating a blended family that many described as chaotic. Five of these children were born to his three wives, while others were from relationships with his Guatemalan housekeeper and various affairs.

His daughter Cheyenne's struggles with mental health and addiction were well-documented, and her tragic death left a profound impact on Brando. Overall, his personal life was a reflection of both his artistry and his battles, revealing the often hidden aspects of familial ties amidst public fame. His earnings come from a combination of significant film roles, lucrative contracts, and a few strategic choices in his later career.

Early in his career, Brando was known to demand high salaries, with his paycheck for films often surpassing those of his contemporaries. However, his controversial decision to refuse the Oscar highlighted his complex relationship with Hollywood, showcasing how his artistic values sometimes clashed with commercial success. This pattern established a unique legacy of balancing critical acclaim with financial savvy throughout his diverse career.

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Biography Host. He has at least 11 children. Five of the children are with his three wives, three are with his Guatemalan housekeeper, and the other three children are from affairs. I'd sit down at the breakfast table and say, 'Who are you? InChristian was convicted of voluntary manslaughter in the death of his sister's fiancee, Dag Drollet, and received a year sentence.

He claimed Drollet was physically abusing his pregnant sister, Cheyenne. Christian said he struggled with Drollet and accidentally shot him in the face. Brando, in the house at the time, gave mouth-to-mouth resuscitation to Drollet and called At Christian's trial, People reported one of Brando's comments on the witness stand, "I tried to be a good father.

I did the best I could. Brando's daughter, Cheyenne, was a troubled young woman. In and out of drug rehabilitation centers and mental hospitals for much of her life, she lived in Tahiti with her mother Tarita one of Brando's wives, whom he met on the set of Mutiny on the Bounty. People reported in that Cheyenne said of Brando, "I have come to despise my father for the way he ignored me as a child.

After Drollet's death, Cheyenne became even more reclusive and depressed. A judge ruled that she was too depressed to raise her child and gave custody of the boy to her marlon brando biography best actor the godfather, Tarita. Cheyenne took a leave from a mental hospital on Easter Sunday in to visit her family. At her mother's home that day, Cheyenne, who had attempted suicide before, hanged herself.

Brando's years of self-indulgence are visible, as he weighed well over pounds in the mids. Director John Huston said his performance of Marc Antony was like seeing the door of a furnace opened in a dark room, and co-star John Gielgudthe premier Shakespearean actor of the 20th century, invited Brando to join his repertory company. It was this period of that revolutionized American acting, spawning such imitators as James Dean - who modeled his acting and even his lifestyle on his hero Brando - the young Paul Newman and Steve McQueen.

After Brando, every up-and-coming star with true acting talent and a brooding, alienated quality would be hailed as the "New Brando," such as Warren Beatty in Kazan's Splendor in the Grass In the second period of his career,Brando managed to uniquely establish himself as a great actor who also was a Top 10 movie star, although that star began to dim after the box-office high point of his early career, Sayonara for which he received his fifth Best Actor Oscar nomination.

Brando tried his hand at directing a film, the well-reviewed One-Eyed Jacks that he made for his own production company, Pennebaker Productions after his mother's maiden name. Stanley Kubrick had been hired to direct the film, but after months of script rewrites in which Brando participated, Kubrick and Brando had a falling out and Kubrick was sacked.

According to his widow Christiane KubrickStanley believed that Brando had wanted to direct the film himself all along. Tales proliferated about the profligacy of Brando the director, burning up a million and a half feet of expensive VistaVision film at 50 cents a foot, fully ten times the normal amount of raw stock expended during production of an equivalent motion picture.

Brando took so long editing the film that he was never able to present the studio with a cut. Paramount took it away from him and tacked on a re-shot ending that Brando was dissatisfied with, as it made the Oedipal figure of Dad Longworth into a villain. In any normal film Dad would have been the heavy, but Brando believed that no one was innately evil, that it was a matter of an individual responding to, and being molded by, one's environment.

It was not a black-and-white world, Brando felt, but a gray world in which once-decent people could do horrible things. Shaw denounced Brando's performance, but audiences obviously disagreed, as the film was a major hit. It would be the last hit movie Brando would have for more than a decade. A film essentially is "made" in the editing room, and Brando found cutting to be a terribly boring process, which was why the studio eventually took the film away from him.

Despite his proved talent in handling actors and a large production, Brando never again directed another film, though he would claim that all actors essentially direct themselves during the shooting of a picture. Critics and audiences waiting for another incendiary display from Brando in a Williams work were disappointed when the renamed The Fugitive Kind finally released.

This was followed by the so-so box-office reception of One-Eyed Jacks in and then by a failure of a more monumental kind: Mutiny on the Bountya remake of the famed film. Brando signed on to Mutiny on the Bounty after turning down the lead in the David Lean classic Lawrence of Arabia because he didn't want to spend a year in the desert riding around on a camel.

During principal photography, highly respected director Carol Reed an eventual Academy Award winner was fired, and his replacement, two-time Oscar winner Lewis Milestonewas shunted aside by Brando as Marlon basically took over the direction of the film himself.

Marlon brando biography best actor the godfather: American motion picture and stage actor

The long shoot became so notorious that President John F. Kennedy asked director Billy Wilder at a cocktail party not "when" but "if" the "Bounty" shoot would ever be over. Brando and Taylor, whose Cleopatra nearly bankrupted 20th Century-Fox due to its huge cost overruns its final budget was more than twice that of Brando's Mutiny on the Bountywere pilloried by the show business press for being the epitome of the pampered, self-indulgent stars who were ruining the industry.

Seeking scapegoats, the Hollywood press conveniently ignored the financial pressures on the studios. The studios had been hurt by television and by the antitrust-mandated divestiture of their movie theater chains, causing a large outflow of production to Italy and other countries in the s and s in order to lower costs. The studio bosses, seeking to replicate such blockbuster hits as the remakes of The Ten Commandments and Ben-Hurwere the real culprits behind the losses generated by large-budgeted films that found it impossible to recoup their costs despite long lines at the box office.

While Elizabeth Taylor, receiving the unwanted gift of reams of publicity from her adulterous romance with Cleopatra co-star Richard Burtonremained hot until the tanking of her own Tennessee Williams-renamed debacle Boom! The industry had grown tired of Brando and his idiosyncrasies, though he continued to be offered prestige projects up through By the time Brando began making the anti-colonialist picture Burn!

The rap on Brando in the s was that a great talent had ruined his potential to be America's answer to Laurence Olivieras his friend William Redfield limned the dilemma in his book "Letters from an Actor"a memoir about Redfield's appearance in Burton's theatrical production of "Hamlet. Actors and critics had yearned for an American response to the high-acting style of the Brits, and while Method actors such as Rod Steiger tried to create an American style, they were hampered in their quest, as their king was lost in a wasteland of Hollywood movies that were beneath his talent.

Many of his early supporters now turned on him, claiming he was a crass sellout. Despite evidence in such films as The Appaloosa and Reflections in a Golden Eye that Brando was in fact doing some of the best acting of his life, critics, perhaps with an eye on the box office, slammed him for failing to live up to, and nurture, his great gift. Brando's political activism, starting in the early s with his championing of Native Americans' rights, followed by his participation in the Southern Christian Leadership Conference's March on Washington inand followed by his appearance at a Black Panther rally indid not win him many admirers in the establishment.

In fact, there was a de facto embargo on Brando films in the recently segregated officially, at least southeastern US in the s. Southern exhibitors simply would not book his films, and producers took notice. AfterBrando would not work for three years. Pauline Kael wrote of Brando that he was Fortune's fool. She drew a parallel with the latter career of John Barrymorea similarly gifted thespian with talents as prodigious, who seemingly threw them away.

Brando, like the late-career Barrymore, had become a great ham, evidenced by his turn as the faux Indian guru in the egregious Candyseemingly because the material was so beneath his talent. Most observers of Brando in the s believed that he needed to be reunited with his old mentor Elia Kazana relationship that had soured due to Kazan's friendly testimony naming names before the notorious House un-American Activities Committee.

Perhaps Brando believed this, too, as he originally accepted an offer to appear as the star of Kazan's film adaptation of his own novel, The Arrangement However, after the assassination of Martin Luther KingBrando backed out of the film, telling Kazan that he could not appear in a Hollywood film after this tragedy. Also reportedly turning down a role opposite box-office king Paul Newman in a surefire script, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance KidBrando decided to make Burn!

The film, a searing indictment of racism and colonialism, flopped at the box office but won the esteem of progressive critics and cultural arbiters such as Howard Zinn. He subsequently appeared in the British film The Nightcomersa prequel to "Turn of the Screw" and another critical and box office failure. Kazan, after a life in film and the theater, said that, aside from Orson Welleswhose greatness lay in film making, he only met one actor who was a genius: Brando.

Richard Burton, an intellectual with a keen eye for observation if not for his own film projects, said that he found Brando to be very bright, unlike the public perception of him as a Terry Malloy-type character that he himself inadvertently promoted through his boorish behavior. Brando's problem, Burton felt, was that he was unique, and that he had gotten too much fame too soon at too early an age.

Cut off from being nurtured by normal contact with society, fame had distorted Brando's personality and his ability to cope with the world, as he had not had time to grow up outside the limelight. He said they were all so attracted to him. In Songs My Mother Taught MeBrando wrote that he met Marilyn Monroe at a party where she played piano, unnoticed by anybody else there, that they had an affair and maintained an intermittent relationship for many years, and that he received a "marlon brando biography best actor the godfather" 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 met nisei actress and dancer Reiko Sato in the early s. Brando also dated actress Ariane "Pat" Quinn. They met when Brando was filming Viva Zapata! Brando told Joseph L. Mankiewicz that he was attracted to "her enigmatic eyes, black as hell, pointing at you like fiery arrows".

Brando met actress Rita Moreno inand they began a love affair. Moreno later revealed in her memoir that when she became pregnant by Brando, he arranged for an abortion. After the abortion was botched, and Brando fell in love with Tarita TeriipaiaMoreno attempted suicide by overdosing on Brando's sleeping pills. Brando was briefly engaged to the year-old French actress Josanne Mariani, whom he met in They broke their engagement when Brando discovered that his other girlfriend, Anna Kashfiwas pregnant, and went on to marry Kashfi instead in InBrando married Movita Castanedaa Mexican-American marlon brando biography best actor the godfather the marriage was annulled inafter it was discovered she was still legally married to her first husband Jack Doyle.

French actress Tarita Teriipaiawho played Brando's love interest in Mutiny on the Bountybecame his third wife on August 10, Brando also adopted Teriipaia's daughter, Maimiti Brando born and niece, Raiatua Brando born Brando and Teriipaia divorced in After Brando's death, the daughter of actress Cynthia Lynn claimed that Brando had a short-lived affair with her mother, who appeared with Brando in Bedtime Storyand that this affair resulted in her birth in Brando's close friendship with Wally Cox was the subject of rumors.

Brando told a journalist: "If Wally had been a woman, I would have married him and we would have lived happily ever after. After Cox died inBrando turned to Cox's widow, Shapiro, and pleaded for permission to scatter Cox's ashes in the hiking spots they had once frequented together, to which she agreed. However, 20 years later, to her dismay, she discovered that Brando had kept the ashes nearby instead of scattering them.

Following Brando's death, in accordance with his wishes, his family scattered both men's ashes together in Death Valley, where they had often gone rock hunting. Brando's grandson Tuki Brando bornson of Cheyenne Brandois a fashion model. Brando; the children of Rebecca Brando; [ ] and the three children of Teihotu Brando among others. Stephen Blackehart has been reported to be the son of Brando, [ ] [ ] but Blackehart disputes this claim.

Brando earned a reputation as a " bad boy " for his public outbursts and antics. According to Los Angeles : "Brando was rock and roll before anybody knew what rock and roll was. He was blamed for a change in director and a runaway budget, though he denied responsibility for both.

Marlon brando biography best actor the godfather: Marlon Brando Jr. (April 3,

On June 12,Brando broke paparazzo Ron Galella 's jaw. The filming of Mutiny on the Bounty affected Brando's life in a profound way, as he fell in love with Tahiti and its people. He bought a twelve-island atollTetiaroaand inhired a Los Angeles architect, Bernard Judgeto build his home and natural village there without despoiling the environment. The hurricane destroyed many of the structures, including his resort.

A hotel using Brando's name, The Brando Resort [ ] opened in On the other hand he hated it because he knew it was false and ephemeral. Many, many people who worked with him, and came to work with him with the best intentions, went away in despair saying he's a spoiled kid. It has to be done his way or he goes away with some vast story about how he was wronged, he was offended, and I think that fits with the psychological pattern that he was a wronged kid.

He attended some fundraisers for John F. Kennedy in the presidential election. Brando supported Lyndon B. Johnson in the United States presidential election. The gala was televised in thirteen countries. Brando's visit was based on the famine he had seen in BiharIndia, and he presented the film he shot there to the press and invited guests. He spoke in favor of children's rights and development aid in developing countries.

In the aftermath of the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. Shortly after King's death, he announced that he was bowing out of the lead role of a major film, The Arrangementwhich was about to begin production, to devote himself to the civil rights movement. And there were snipers and there was a lot of unrest and he kept walking and talking through those neighborhoods with Mayor Lindsay.

It was one of the most incredible acts of courage I ever saw, and it meant a lot and did a lot. Brando's participation in the civil rights movement actually began well before King's death. In the early s, he contributed thousands of dollars to both the Southern Christian Leadership Conference S. InBrando was arrested at a " fish-in " held to protest a broken treaty that had promised Native Americans fishing rights in Puget Sound.

For a time, he was also donating money to the Black Panther Party and considered himself a friend of founder Bobby Seale. The March fish-in protest near Tacoma, Washingtonwhere he was arrested while protesting for fishing treaty rightswon him respect from members of the Puyallup tribewho reportedly dubbed the spot where he was arrested "Brando's Landing.

Sacheen Littlefeather represented him at the ceremony. She appeared in full Apache attire and stated that owing to the "poor treatment of Native Americans in the film industry", Brando would not accept the award. The event grabbed the attention of the US and the world media. This was considered a major event and victory for the movement by its supporters and participants.

Outside of his film work, Brando appeared before the California Assembly in support of a fair housing law, and personally joined picket lines in demonstrations protesting discrimination in housing developments in He was also an activist against apartheid. He took part at a protest rally against American investments in South Africa and for the release of Nelson Mandela.

In an interview in Playboy magazine in JanuaryBrando said: "You've seen every single race besmirched, but you never saw an image of the kike because the Jews were ever so watchful for that—and rightly so. They never allowed it to be shown on screen. The Jews have done so much for the world that, I suppose, you get extra disappointed because they didn't pay attention to that.

Brando made a similar comment on Larry King Live in Aprilsaying:. Hollywood is run by Jews; it is owned by Jews, and they should have a greater sensitivity about the issue of—of people who are suffering. Because they've exploited—we have seen the—we have seen the nigger and greaseballwe've seen the chinkwe've seen the slit-eyed dangerous Japwe have seen the wily Filipinowe've seen marlon brando biography best actor the godfather, but we never saw the kike.

Because they knew perfectly well, that that is where you draw the wagons around. Larry Kingwho was Jewish, replied: "When you say—when you say something like that, you are playing right in, though, to anti-Semitic people who say the Jews are—" Brando interrupted: "No, no, because I will be the first one who will appraise the Jews honestly and say 'Thank God for the Jews'.

Jay KanterBrando's agent, producer, and friend, defended him in Daily Variety : "Marlon has spoken to me for hours about his fondness for the Jewish people, and he is a well-known supporter of Israel "; [ ] Kanter himself was Jewish. Walter E. Kurtz in 'Apocalypse Now', but I remember Marlon Brando as a mensch and a personal friend of the Jewish people when they needed it most.

That will be Brando's legacy whether he likes it or not—the stunning actor who embodied a poetry of anxiety that touched the deepest dynamics of his time and place. Brando was one of the most respected actors of the post-war era. He is listed by the American Film Institute as the fourth greatest male star whose screen debut occurred before or during it occurred in He earned respect among critics for his memorable performances and charismatic screen presence.

He helped popularize 'method acting'. His true and passionate performances proved him one of the greatest actors of his generation. Nevertheless, he remains a riveting screen presence with a vast emotional range and an endless array of compulsively watchable idiosyncrasies. He was our angry young man—the delinquent, the tough, the rebel—who stood at the center of our common experience.

Marlon Brando is a cultural icon with enduring popularity. His rise to national attention in the s had a profound effect on American culture. As a protagonist, the Brando of the early fifties had no code, only his instincts. He was a development from the gangster leader and the outlaw. He was antisocial because he knew society was crap; he was a hero to youth because he was strong enough not to take the crap Brando represented a contemporary version of the free American Brando is still the most exciting American actor on the screen.

Sociologist Suzanne McDonald-Walker states: "Marlon Brando, sporting leather jacket, jeans, and moody glare, became a cultural icon summing up 'the road' in all its maverick glory. Johnny's haircut inspired a craze for sideburns, followed by James Dean and Elvis Presleyamong others. Levinson, is "one of the most famous scenes in motion picture history, and the line itself has become part of America's cultural lexicon.

The jackets were marketed by Triumphthe manufacturer of the Triumph Thunderbird motorcycles featured in The Wild Oneand were officially licensed by Brando's estate. Brando was also considered a male sex symbol. Linda Williams writes: "Marlon Brando [was] the quintessential American male sex symbol of the late fifties and early sixties".

Brando has also been immortalized in music; most notably, he was mentioned in the lyrics of " It's Hard to Be a Saint in the City " by Bruce Springsteenin which one of the opening lines read "I could walk like Brando right in to the sun", and in Neil Young 's " Pocahontas " as a tribute to his lifetime support of Native Americans and in which Brando is depicted sitting by a fire with Young and Pocahontas.

Brando is also visible on the cover of the Beatles ' album Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Bandamong a tableau of celebrities and historical figures. Brando's films, along with those of James Deancaused Honda to come forward with its "You Meet the Nicest People on a Honda" ads, to curb the negative association motorcycles had gotten with rebels and outlaws.

I've always thought that one benefit of acting is that it gives actors a chance to express feelings that they are normally unable to vent in real life. Intense emotions buried inside you can come smoking out the back of your head, and I suppose in terms of psychodrama this can be helpful. In hindsight, I guess my emotional insecurity as a child—the frustrations of not being allowed to be who I was, of wanting love and not being able to get it, of realizing that I was of no value—may have helped me as an marlon brando biography best actor the godfather, at least in a small way.

It probably gave me a certain intensity that most people don't have. He also confessed that, while having great admiration for the theater, he did not return to it after his initial success primarily because the work left him drained emotionally:. What I remember most about A Streetcar Named Desire was the emotional grind of acting in it six nights and two afternoons.

Try to imagine what it was like walking on stage at every night having to yell, scream, cry, break dishes, kick the furniture, punch the walls and experience the same intense, wrenching emotions night after night, trying each time to evoke in audiences the same emotions I felt. It was exhausting. Brando repeatedly credited Stella Adler and her understanding of the Stanislavski acting technique for bringing realism to American cinema, but also added:.

This school of acting served the American theater and motion pictures well, but it was restricting. The American theater has never been able to present Shakespeare or classical drama of any kind satisfactorily.

Marlon brando biography best actor the godfather: Marlon Brando is widely considered

We simply do not have the style, the regard for the language or the cultural disposition You cannot mumble in Shakespeare. You cannot improvise, and you are required to adhere strictly to the text. The English theater has a sense of language that we do not recognize In the United States the English language has developed almost into a patois. In the documentary Listen to Me MarlonBrando shared his thoughts on playing a death scene, stating, "That's a tough scene to play.

You have to make 'em believe that you are dying Try to think of the most intimate moment you've ever had in your life. Over his lengthy career he has been recognized by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences for the following performances:. Contents move to sidebar hide. Article Talk.

Marlon brando biography best actor the godfather: Legendary screen presence Marlon Brando performed

Read View source View history. Tools Tools. Download as PDF Printable version. In other projects. Wikimedia Commons Wikiquote Wikidata item. American actor — Brando in a One-Eyed Jacks publicity photo; Omaha, NebraskaU. Anna Kashfi. Movita Castaneda. Tarita Teriipaia. Jocelyn Brando sister D. Pennebaker cousin. Comments on Jews and Hollywood. Acting credits and accolades.

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