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Marlon Brando
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Spouse
Tarita (? - ?) (divorced); 2 children
Movita (4 June 1960 - 1961) (divorced); 1 child
Anna Kashfi (11 October 1957 - 1959) (divorced); 1 child
Anna Kashfi (11 October 1957 - 22 April 1959) (divorced); 1 child
Movita (4 June 1960 - 1968) (annulled); 2 children
Biography from Leonard Maltin's Movie Encyclopedia:
An enigmatic superstar widely regarded as America's greatest actor, Marlon Brando has been a Hollywood icon since the early 1950s. His unmistakable, naturalistic "method" acting style made him one of the most influential figures in cinema, paving the way for such latter-day disciples as James Dean, Paul Newman, and Robert De Niro. Brando was by all accounts "difficult" even as a youngster, having been expelled from sev eral schools, including a military academy. Upon being prodded by his father to find some direction for himself, he chose to follow his muse to New York. There he studied Stanislavsky's acting techniques at the New School before enrolling at the Actors' Studio to work with Lee Strasberg and Stella Adler. Brando applied his "method" training to summer-stock roles, in which he scored enough rave reviews to merit his first shot at Broadway in "I Remember Mama" (1944). Several acclaimed theatrical performances followed, including his landmark interpretation of the loutish Stanley Kowalski in Tennessee Williams' "A Streetcar Named Desire" (1947).
Brando made his screen debut in The Men (1950), studying for his part as an embittered paraplegic by lying in bed for a month at a veterans' hospital. The following year Brando reprised his Stanley Kowalski characterization for Elia Kazan's film adaptation of Street- car earning the first of four consecutive Academy Award nominations for Best Actor (the others were for 1952's Viva Zapata! 1953's Julius Caesar and 1954's On the Waterfront Although not nomi- nated for his indelible (and enduring) performance as the misunderstood rebel in The Wild One (also 1954), Brando fi- nally struck Oscar gold that year for his work in Kazan's Waterfront. His com- plex portrayal of Terry Malloy, a washed-up boxer turned mob stooge and informant, became a landmark of Amer- ican cinema.
In typical fashion, Brando followed his Waterfront success with a series of roles in which he played against type. In Guys and Dolls (1955), he tried his hand at musicals in the singing role of Sky Masterson; in The Teahouse of the August Moon (1956), he made the daring move of playing a Japanese interpreter who is vaguely homosexual. Another Oscar nomination came in 1957 for Sayonara. The Young Lions (1958) cast him as a Nazi officer during World War 2, and he played a wandering tramp in The Fugitive Kind (1959), another Tennessee Williams adaptation.
Brando made his directorial debut with One-Eyed Jacks (1961), an ambitious if confused anti-Western. His reputation began to suffer following release of the bloated 1962 remake of Mutiny on the Bounty (with Brando in the Clark Gable role of Fletcher Christian), which came in grotesquely over budget, thanks in part to his capricious penchant for "inspired" improvisation and painstaking attempts to achieve the "perfect mood." The actor's few forays in screen comedy, including Bedtime Story (1964) and Charlie Chaplin's ill-fated A Countess From Hong Kong (1967), nearly sank his career; indeed, by the end of the decade, Brando was nearly a forgotten figure. Such odd and unusual films as Reflections in a Golden Eye (1967) and Burn! (1969) put Brando outside the mainstream-to the extent that he had to test for the role of mob boss Vito Corleone. That remarkable performance in The Godfather (1972) not only netted Brando his second Oscar, but restored the luster to his tarnished reputation. Brando amplified his renewed notoriety by sending a young woman in Indian costume to refuse the award, based on the actor's outrage over the plight of Native Americans. He snagged yet another Oscar nomination for his work in Last Tango in Paris (1973), playing a middle-aged man carnally involved with a young stranger.
Since delivering those two milestone performances, Brando has worked less frequently, appearing both in brilliant movies Apocalypse Now 1979) and silly ones Superman 1978; The Formula 1980), based exclusively on a producer's willingness to pay his exorbitant fee. He was again Oscar-nominated in 1989 for A Dry White Season and has been seen in The Freshman (1990, in a comic takeoff of his Vito Corleone characterization), Christopher Columbus: The Discovery (1992, as Torquemada), and Don Juan DeMarco (1995). For all his eccentricities, Brando remains one of the most powerful, arresting, and unpredictable actors in film history. |  |
