Marlon Brando – screen legend, notorious eccentric, known as much for his prodigious girth as for his immense acting abilities, passed away yesterday from undisclosed causes. He was 80 years old.Read on for more 
Born in Omaha, Nebraska – the “heart of middle-America”, Marlon Brando followed his aspirations to be a stage actor and, by his early twenties, was a wunderkind on the New York stage. His legendary performance as Stanley Kowalski in a 1947 Broadway production of Tennessee Williams A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE, put him on the map as the next big thing. Film offers followed, and after a good showing in the otherwise unremarkable 1950 film THE MEN, Brando cemented his on, and off-screen image by starring in Elia Kazan’s Big Screen version of STREETCAR co-starring Vivien Leigh. Brando was so primal and electrifying in the role of a brutal and uncouth husband that he will forever be associated with the part and it’s trademark line “Stella!!! Stelllaaaa!!!”. Brando’s career took off like the proverbial rocketship from there, with other iconic roles in films like VIVA ZAPATA!, JULIUS CAESAR,THE WILD ONE and ON THE WATERFRONT for which he won his first Best Actor Academy Award, reteaming with director Elia Kazan. 
Brando was one of the first proponents of the Stella Adler school of “Method” Acting and soon gained a reputation for being difficult and unapproachable on the set. He also garnered an epic reputation as a playboy and troublemaker off the set.Brando followed WATERFRONT with the unexpected musical GUYS AND DOLLS showcasing his range of talents next to Jean Simmons and Frank Sinatra. It became the #1 film of 1956. Strange roles followed, as Napoleon in DESIREE, an Okinawan interpreter in TEAHOUSE OF THE AUGUST MOON and as a young Nazi in THE YOUNG LIONS. Throughout the early 60’s, Brando became more and more self-assured and more and more alienating to his fans with films like ONE-EYED JACKS and his version of MUTINY ON THE BOUNTY.By the late 60’s he was more has-been than star, and audiences were no longer drawn to the brooding and often bizarre Brando, who was increasingly becoming more Political spokesperson than movie star. 1972 saw a huge comeback for Brando, who starred as a jaded widower who tries to lose himself in a passionate and violent affair with a young french woman in Bernardo Bertolucci’s controversial LAST TANGO IN PARIS. He also starred that same year as the titular patriarch of the Corleone crime family in Francis Ford Copppola’s THE GODFATHER, which garnered him not only a second Oscar, but yet another role for which he will always be remembered.
Brando also appeared as Superman’s father Jor-El in 1978’s SUPERMAN and as the insane and overwrought Colonel gone “Native” in Coppola’s APOCALYPSE NOW. Following that powerhouse performance, that many believe he should have received a third Academy Award for, Brando virtually disappeared throughout the 80’s, becoming increasingly eccentric and gaining weight to a startling degree. Family problems plagued the actor, and rumors constantly circled about his mental health, his physical health and his outrageous behaviour, including his purchase of a small island and the murder trial of his son, accused of murdering his half-sisters boyfriend.The 1990’s saw Brando return to the screen in some memorable parts, usually poking fun at his own image, in films like THE FRESHMAN, the highly underrated DON JUAN DEMARCO and the high-camp remake of THE ISLAND OF DR. MOREAU, which features an immense Brando in a mumu and coated in white sunscreen, as well as Val Kilmer doing a tremendous impression of Brando’s Colonel Kurtz from APOCALYPSE NOW. Very few films followed, culminating in his last appearance in 2001’s THE SCORE alongside fellow legend Robert DeNiro (who played a younger version of Brando’s GODFATHER character in the 1974 sequel), and “method” young gun Edward Norton.Brando has been in declining health in the last few years and his public appearances became very few and far between. Marlon Brando was an enigma. A movie star of the highest order, who despised the system that made him a star. An actor who didn’t want to act. A man who lived by his own rules and would not compromise for anyone or anything. A difficult man, who wanted all the world to pay attention and admire him, but a man who wanted to be left alone. In the end, he will be remembered always for the roles he played. He will live on forever through the parts he so thoroughly embodied and made his own. Vito Corleone, Terry Malloy, Stanley Kowalski, Colonel Walter Kurtz… Some of the greatest characters ever recorded on film, and some of the greatest moments in the history of the medium are his.So, all of us should take a few hours this long weekend, throw on our favorite Brando flick, and say good bye to the true original, the bad boy of the Hollywood age.
