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Marlon Brando, Jr. (April 3, 1924 – July 1,
2004) was an United States|American actor who is
widely regarded as one of the greatest film actors
of the twentieth century.  He brought the
techniques of the Stanislavski System to
prominence in the films A Streetcar Named Desire
and On the Waterfront, both directed by Elia Kazan
in the early 1950s. His acting style, combined
with his public persona as an outsider
uninterested in the Hollywood of the early 1950s,
had a profound effect on a generation of actors,
including James Dean and Paul Newman, and later
stars, including Robert De Niro and Al Pacino.

== Biography ==
=== Youth and early acting career ===
Brando was born in Omaha, Nebraska. In 1935, when
Brando was 9 years old, his parents, Marlon Brando
Sr. and Dorothy Pennebaker Brando separated.
Brando's mother moved with her three children to
Santa Ana, California. In 1937, the parents
reconciled, the family moved to Libertyville,
Illinois, a village north-west of Chicago,
Illinois|Chicago. The family were of
Germany|German, Dutch, England|English and
Ireland|Irish stock; the family name earlier being
spelt Brandow (originally Brandau German).
Brando's mother, a kind and talented woman with a
alcoholism|drinking problem, was involved in local
theater, (and helped a young Henry Fonda to begin
his own acting career). Here began Brando's
interest in Theatre|stage acting. Brando was a
gifted imitation|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 elder sister, Jocelyn Brando, was
also an actress, albeit not of the same stature as
Marlon.

Brando had a tumultuous childhood, in which he was
expelled from several schools. His father was
largely critical of his son, but encouraged him to
seek his own direction. Brando left Illinois for
New York City, where he studied at the American
Theatre Wing|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 revolutionary techniques of
the Stanislavski System.

Brando used his Stanislavski System skills in
summer-stock roles in Sayville, New York. 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, paraplegic veteran in Truckline
Café, although the play was a commercial failure.
He achieved real stardom, however, as Stanley
Kowalski in Tennessee Williams' play A Streetcar
Named Desire in 1947, 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.

=== On the screen ===
Brando's first screen role was the bitter crippled
veteran in The Men in 1950 in film|1950.  True to
his method, Brando spent a month in bed at a
veterans' hospital to prepare for the role. 

He made a much larger impression the following
year when he brought his performance as Stanley
Kowalski to the screen in Kazan's adaptation of
"Streetcar" in 1951 in film|1951. 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 in film|1952, Julius
Caesar (1953 movie)|Julius Caesar in 1953 in
film|1953 and On the Waterfront in 1954 in
film|1954.

Brando finally won the Oscar for his role of Terry
Malloy in On The Waterfront. Under Kazan's
direction, and with a talented ensemble around
him, Brando used his Stanislavski System training
and improvisational skills to produce a
performance that continues to display new facets
on each viewing. Brando claimed that he improvised
much of his dialogue with Rod Steiger in the
famous, much-quoted scene with him in the back of
a taxicab (Kazan disputed this).

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. While 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.

Brando's star sank even further in the 1960s as he
turned in increasingly uninspired performances in
Mutiny on the Bounty (fiction)#The 1962
Version|Mutiny on the Bounty and several other
forgettable films. Though even at this
professional low point, Brando still managed to
produce a few exceptional films; such as One-Eyed
Jacks, a western that would be the only film
Brando would ever direct as well as Burn! which
Brando would later claim as his personal favourite
of his movies.  Nonetheless, his career had gone
into almost complete eclipse by the end of the
decade thanks to his reputation as a difficult
star and his record in overbudget or marginal
movies.

=== The Godfather ===


His performance as Vito Corleone in The Godfather
in 1972 changed this. Brando once again had to beg
for a part, forcing a screen test in which he did
his own makeup. Francis Ford Coppola was
electrified by Brando's characterization as the
head of a crime family, but had to fight the
studio in order to cast him. Brando was voted the
Academy Award for Best Actor for his intelligent
performance; once again, he improvised important
details that lent more humanity to what could
otherwise have been a clichéd role.

Brando turned down the Academy Award, the second
actor to refuse an Academy Award|Oscar (the first
being George C. Scott for Patton.)  Brando
boycotted the award ceremony, sending little-known
Native American Actor|actress Sacheen
Littlefeather (nee Maria Cruz) to state his
objections.  She was booed as she denounced
Hollywood's portrayal of her people. The actor
followed with one of his greatest performances in
Last Tango in Paris, but it was overshadowed by an
uproar over the erotic nature of the Bernardo
Bertolucci film. Despite the controversies which
attended both the film and the man, the Academy
once again nominated Brando for the Best Actor.

=== Late career ===
His career afterwards was uneven:  in addition to
his iconic performance as Colonel Kurtz in
Apocalypse Now and his intensely personal
performance in Last Tango in Paris, Brando has
also played Jor-El, Superman's father, in the
first Superman (movie)|Superman movie—a role
he agreed to only on condition that he did not
have to read the script beforehand and his lines
would be displayed somewhere offscreen. Other
later performances, such as "The Island of Dr.
Moreau", earned him some of his most
uncomplimentary reviews of his career. Despite
announcing plans to retire—which he made
good on for most of the 1980s—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.

=== Off screen ===
Brando's crusades for civil rights, the American
Indian and other causes kept him in the public eye
throughout his career. So did his romances and
marriages. He married actress Anna Kashfi in 1957,
believing her to be East Indian. She was revealed
to be from Wales and of Irish Catholic extraction
(neé Joan O'Callahan), and they separated a year
later, after having a son together. 

In 1960 he married a Mexican actress, Maria
"Movita" Castaneda, at least 16 years his senior,
who had appeared in the first Mutiny on the Bounty
in 1935, some 27 years before Brando's own version
was released. A remake of Mutiny on the Bounty in
1962, with Brando as Fletcher Christian, seemed to
bolster his reputation as a difficult star. He was
blamed for a change in directors 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 took a 99-year lease on part of an
atoll island, Tetiaroa, which he intended to make
part-environmental laboratory and part-resort.
Tahitian beauty Tarita Teriipia, who had appeared
in the film as Fletcher Christian's love interest,
became his third wife after he and Castaneda were
divorced. Teriipia became the mother of three of
his children (of which one died, see below). The
hotel on Tetiaroa was eventually built; 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.

All three wives were pregnant when he married
them. The number of children he had is still in
dispute, although he recognized 11 children in his
will; they were:
* by his marriage to actress Anna Kashfi:
** Christian (46)
* by his marriage to actress Movita Castaneda:
** Miko (43)
* by his marriage to Tarita Teriipia:
** Simon Teihotu (41) - the only inhabitant of
Tetiaroa
** Rebecca Brando Kotlinzky (38)
** Cheyenne (died 1995 at the age of 25)
* by adoption: 
** Petra Brando-Corval (32), daughter of Brando's
assistant Caroline Barrett
* mother not publicly known:
** Maimiti (28)
** Raiatua (23)
* by his maid Christina Maria Ruiz:
** Nina Priscilla (15)
** Myles (12) 
** Timothy (10)

In May 1990, Brando's first son, Christian, shot
and killed Dag Drollet, 26, the Tahitian lover of
Christian's half-sister Cheyenne, at the family's
hilltop home above Beverly Hills. Christian, 31,
claimed the shooting was accidental. 

After a heavily publicized trial, Christian was
found guilty of voluntary manslaughter and use of
a gun. He was sentenced to 10 years. Before the
sentencing, Marlon Brando delivered an hour of
rambling testimony in which he said he and his
ex-wife had failed Christian. He commented softly
to members of the Drollet family: "I'm sorry. ...
If I could trade places with Dag, I would. I'm
prepared for the consequences." 

Afterward, Drollet's father said he thought Marlon
Brando was acting and his son was "getting away
with murder." 

The tragedy was compounded in 1995, when Cheyenne,
said to still be depressed over Drollet's death,
committed suicide by hanging herself in Tahiti.
She was only 25 years old. 

Brando's notoriety, his family's troubled lives,
his self-exile from Hollywood, and his obesity,
unfortunately attracted more attention than his
late acting career. He also earned a reputation
for being difficult on the set, often unwilling or
unable to memorize his lines and less interested
in taking direction than in confronting the film
director with odd and childish demands.  On the
other hand, most other actors found him generous,
funny and supportive.  

On July 1, 2004 Brando died, at age 80. The cause
of his death was intentionally withheld, with his
lawyer citing privacy concerns.  It was later
revealed that he died at UCLA Medical Center of
lung failure brought on by pulmonary fibrosis. He
had also been suffering from congestive heart
failure and diabetes, which was causing his
eyesight to fail, and had also recently been
diagnosed with cancer.

==Filmography==

*The Men (1950)
*A Streetcar Named Desire (1951)
*Viva Zapata! (1952)
*Julius Caesar (play)|Julius Caesar (1953)
*The Wild One (1953)
*On the Waterfront (1954)
*Desiree (1954)
*Guys and Dolls (1955)
*Operation Teahouse (1956) (short subject)
*The Teahouse of the August Moon (1956)
*Sayonara (1957)
*The Young Lions (1958)
*The Fugitive Kind (1959)
*One-Eyed Jacks (1961) (also as director)
*Mutiny on the Bounty (1962)
*The Ugly American (1963)
*Bedtime Story (1964)
*Morituri (1965)
*The Chase (1966)
*The Appaloosa (1966)
*Meet Marlon Brando (1966) (short subject)
*A Countess from Hong Kong (1967)
*Candy (film)|Candy (1968)
*The Night of the Following Day (1968)
*Burn! (1969)
*King: A Filmed Record...Montgomery to Memphis
(1970) (documentary)
*The Nightcomers (1972)
*The Godfather (1972)
*Last Tango in Paris (1972)
*The Missouri Breaks (1976)
*Raoni (1978) (documentary)
*Superman (movie)|Superman (1978)
*Apocalypse Now (1979)
*The Formula (1980)
*A Dry White Season (1989)
*The Freshman (1990)
*Heart of Darkness: A Filmmaker's Apocalypse
(1991) (documentary)
*Christopher Columbus: The Discovery (1992)
*Don Juan DeMarco (1995)
*The Island of Dr. Moreau (1996)
*The Brave (1997)
*Free Money (1998)
*The Score (2001)
*Big Bug Man (2006) (voice) (currently filming)
(Brando left his voice work completed before his
death in 2004)
*Superman Returns (archive footage) (currently
filming) (The movie will use archive footage from
the first Superman movie.)

== External links ==

*http://brando.crosscity.com/ Brando Tribute Site
(with strong Christian overtones)
*imdb name|id=0000008|name=Marlon Brando
*http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A23
157-2004Jul2.html Obituary from the Washington
Post
*http://www.geocities.com/timmlimm/brando.htm
Marlon Brando's Early Career
*http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5351267 MSNBC: Marlon
Brando dies in Los Angeles hospital
*http://home.nyc.rr.com/alweisel/premieremarlonbra
ndo.htm Marlon Brando: The Actor's Actor
*http://premiere.com/brando Premiere: Remembering
Brando
*http://www.newsday.com/features/custom/ithappened
/longisland/ny-iholi062904story.htmlstory Newsday
article on early career
*http://www.thegoldenyears.org/brando.html Classic
Movies (1939 - 1969): Marlon Brando