Brando: He, too, was a pioneer

I just found out about Marlon Brando's death on my Movie Scene thread and I feel a sadness that another legend is gone.

He was magnificent in "Streetcar Named Desire" and "On The Waterfront." No matter how mediocre many of his later films were, I shall always remember him for those two roles.

Yes, Raggedy, "On the Waterfront". Of course, most folks probably recall "The Godfather.", but in spite of the fact that Viva Zapata may have been a bit revisionist, as Lightwizard puts it, he was outstanding in the role.

and you know I can't get by without posting his one and only song that I know of:

They call you lady luck
But there is room for doubt
At times you've had a very un lady like way of running out
You're on this date with me
The Pickens have been lush
And yet before this evening is over
You might give me the brush
You might forget your manners
You might refuse to stay
And so the best that I can do is pray

Luck be a lady tonight
Luck be a lady tonight
Luck if you've ever been a lady to begin with
Luck be a lady tonight
Luck let a gentleman see
How nice a dame you can be
I know the way you've treated other guys you've been with
Luck, be a lady with me

A lady doesn't leave her escort
It isn't fair, it isn't nice
A lady doesn't wander all over the room
And blow on some other guy's dice

Let's keep this party polite
Never get out of my sight
Stick me with me baby, I'm the fella you came in with
Luck, be a lady tonight

Luck, let a gentleman see
Just how nice , how nice a dame you can be
I know the way you've treated other guys you've been with
Luck be a lady with me

A lady doesn't leave her escort
It isn't fair , and it's not nice
A lady doesn't wander all over the room
And blow on some other guy's dice

So let's keep the party polite
Never get out of my sight
Stick with me baby, I'm the guy that you came in with
Luck be a lady
Luck be a lady
Luck be a lady
Tonight

Well, Marlon was not a crooner to be sure (Frank Sinatra wanted the role of Sky Masterson, not Nathan Detroit, in that one),and Marlon lost a few pounds learning some dance steps, but he pulled that role off, didn't he? There was another hit from Guys and Dolls, Letty. "A Woman in Love"-
Your Eyes are the Eyes of a Woman in Love.

I too liked Brando in Viva Zapata, and a movie that not too many folks remember: "The Fugitive Kind" with Anna Magnani, based on a Tennessee Williams' play, Orpheus Descending. The movie bombed, but I never miss it when it's on TV.

And I loved Brando in "Sayonara" southern drawl and all. Beautiful movie.

Oh, my Gawd, Raggedy, that's right. And wasn't it Jean Simmons who was the little Salvation Army girl?

I just heard some fumbling, stumbling young reporter on CNN trying to read the tributes to Brando, one of which was from Frank Coppola observing that Marlon was never comfortable with his success, and would hate to have a tribute in memory of his passing. UhOh!

Well, I just remembered he played Superman's father in one of those movies.

Letty: Yes, Jean Simmons sang along (At least I think she did, unless it was Marnie Nixon, again.

And, I don't think Marlon Brando would mind one eensy weensy bit to receive a tribute from Raggedyaggie and Letty.

Oh, and how about "Don Juan DeMarco"? Johnny Depp may have set young hearts throbbing (and mine, too), but Marlon "stole" my heart.

Yikes! Raggedy. I'll have to check on Don Juan DeMarco. Johnny Depp?

I tried to rely mostly on my memory about Brando, another uhoh!

And CNN just showed a clip of Larry King and Brando TRYING to do a duet. Terrible!

Brando made a few mistakes in getting cast in "Teahouse of the August Moon" and "The Island of Dr. Moreau," his notorious weird drag performance but by-and-large he got the most delectable parts of movie history. "Streetcar" and "Waterfront" are his two shining performances and almost everything he did was not far off that quality. I love his reprise of his Godfather part in "The Freshman." He was a superb comic foil for Mathew Broderick and finally proved he could do comedy. In "Teahouse" he simply wasn't funny and the bad makeup didn't help. A great, you're right Letty in saying pioneering, actor has left us. His Hollywood Hills home is actually only a few blocks from where I used to live when I went to UCLA and Otis Art Institute.

Hey, Mr. Wizard. I forget his bad performances and think about the superb ones. Wow. How great it must be to live in the glitter dome capital. Didn't Brando live in Tahiti for a bit?

Just remembered his role in Julius Caesar. Hey, I loved that. The guy was multi-faceted. I think I tried to get through Apocalypse Now; didn't much like it nor Heart of Darkness, either.

I was not put-off by his Marc Antony as many were and it wasn't his performance in "Apocalypse Now" -- the screenwriter was trying to put over some sort of Jean-Paul Sartre exinstensialist mumbo jumbo in an otherwise brutally realistic movie and it didn't work. Brando would have had to be a superman to bring it off. Oh, well, he was a sort of superman in "Superman."

Well, I have tried to persuade that Brit, Col to come over and cite some of his revealing details on the late, great actor, but he/she is shy, I think.

Guys and Dolls was my second favorite musical to movie translation. (My fav was Paint Your Wagon. Who could ever forget Clint Eastwood and Lee Marvin crooning tunes)

He was a true great and I can still remember my favorite Brando line by far (Beats even 'I'm gonna make him an offer he can't refuse' )

From 'The Wild One', Brando is the head of a motorcycle gang and is asked 'what he's rebelling against?'

To which he replies: "Whattaya got?"

Hey, fedral. And don't forget, "...keep your friends close, and your enemies closer..." I suppose that was original, but if it isn't, I have never been able to locate the origin.

being a child of the 70's my memories of marlon were mainly connected to the godfather which i thought was one of the best film ive seen
although i liked apocalypse now i thought marlons role in that wasnt as good although i recall he made some good speeches about the corruption of the american system

i read an article earlier about commemorating his life and it said :

A family friend told Fox News that Brando died on Thursday night at 6:20 p.m. (11:20 p.m. British time) in a Los Angeles-area hospital after being taken there on Wednesday. The cause of death was not immediately known.

Brando, with his broken nose and rebel nature, established a more naturalistic style of acting and defined American macho for a generation with classic performances in "A Streetcar Named Desire" (1951), "The Wild One" (1953) and "On the Waterfront" (1954).

To many, Brando remained the motorcycle-riding rebel he played in "The Wild One". Asked what he was rebelling against, Brando replied, "Whaddya got?"

Brando won an Academy Award for "On the Waterfront" and another for his brooding, at times mumbling, portrayal of the patriarch of a Mafia family in "The Godfather" (1972).

But Brando also railed against Hollywood and chafed at the pomp of stardom throughout a stormy career. In 1973, he refused to accept his second Oscar to protest the treatment of American Indians and later professed not to know what had happened to the award.

In more recent years, Brando's brilliance as an actor was overshadowed by his eccentric reclusiveness, the turmoil in his family life and financial disputes.

Christian Brando, his son by his first wife, Welsh actress Anna Kashfi, was sentenced to 10 years in prison for the 1990 murder of his half-sister Cheyenne's boyfriend. Cheyenne later committed suicide, in 1995, at the age of 25.

Brando, who was paid a then-staggering $14 million (7.6 million pounds) for his walk-on performance in 1978's "Superman", remained enmeshed in legal disputes over money up until his final weeks.

He poured millions into Tetiaroa, a South Seas atoll he bought in 1966 and where he spent much of the 1980s living out a boyhood fascination with Tahiti rekindled during the shooting of "Mutiny on the Bounty".

Movies, he said, he made only for the money. "Acting is an empty and useless profession," he said.

Still, Brando inspired a generation of beatniks and rebel actors, including James Dean.

"There was a sense of excitement, of danger in his presence, but perhaps his special appeal was in a kind of simple conceit, the conceit of tough kids," wrote critic Pauline Kael of the New Yorker.

"Brando represented a contemporary version of the free American," she wrote.

THE UNIVERSAL ACTOR

Brando was born on April 3, 1924, in Omaha, Nebraska, the son of a calcium carbonate salesman and an actress who coached a local drama group. He was sent to a Minnesota military academy but was soon expelled.

He headed to New York, where his two sisters were studying art and drama. There he took up drama, studying with famed teacher Stella Adler and the Actors' Studio.

"Marlon never really had to learn how to act. He knew," Adler once said. "Right from the start he was a universal actor. Nothing human was foreign to him."

In 1946, critics voted Brando Broadway's most promising actor for his role as a returning World War II veteran in the flop "Truckline Cafe".

Brando broke his nose in backstage horseplay and gained a reputation for being moody. Auditioning for a Noel Coward comedy, Brando tossed the script aside, saying, "Don't you know there are people in the world starving?"

In 1947, playwright Tennessee Williams approved selecting Brando to play the brutish Stanley Kowalski in the stage production of "A Streetcar Named Desire".

Brando resisted Hollywood until 1950, but then turned in memorable performances in Elia Kazan's 1951 film version of "Streetcar" and "Viva Zapata!" (1952), the story of a Mexican peasant revolutionary.

'I COULD HAVE BEEN SOMEBODY'

In "On the Waterfront", Brando played a one-time boxer who turns against his friends and brother in a corrupt union.

In one of the most famous scenes in cinema, Brando tells his brother, played by Rod Steiger, "Oh, Charlie, oh, Charlie ... you don't understand. I could have had class. I could have been a contender. I could have been somebody, instead of a bum -- which is what I am."

In the 1960s, Brando became active in the civil rights movement, especially for American Indians. He sent Indian actress Sacheen Littlefeather to the Academy Award's platform in 1973 to describe the plight of Indians.

Critics both hailed and panned his performances in "Last Tango in Paris" (1972) and "Apocalypse Now" (1979), but Brando was also legendary for being one of his toughest critics.

"To this day, I can't say what 'Last Tango in Paris' was about," he wrote in his 1994 autobiography. He also claimed to have talked Francis Ford Coppola into marginalising his role as the enigmatic Colonel Kurtz in order to heighten the mystery.

"What I'd really wanted from the beginning was to find a way to make my part smaller so that I wouldn't have to work as hard," he said.

In the 1990s, Brando emerged from a decade hiatus to take small roles in minor films, often for outsized fees. He played a Godfather-like mafioso for laughs opposite Matthew Broderick "The Freshman", and his portrayal of a kindly psychiatrist in 1995's "Don Juan DeMarco," opposite Johnny Depp, earned him about $3 million in a movie budgeted at $15 million.

Brando was married three times, choosing little-known actresses as his brides -- Kashfi, Mexican actress Movita Castenada, and Tahitian Tarita Tariipia, who co-starred with him in "Mutiny on the Bounty".

"He's full of deep hostilities, longings, feelings of distrust," director Kazan once said of him, "But his outer front is gentle and nice."

Hoorah! We just lured Col here to share stuff with us, and interesting it is, as well.

Col, noticed in your profile that you said, "Just ask"...soooooo I'm asking. You male or female and how old are ya? We have some astute young folks here on A2K.

Before your half-Brit friend comes over, Letty, I'll chat about Brando, if you don't mind.
I read that John Garfield was first choice for the stage production of Streetcar Named Desire, but there were contract conflicts.Brando's agent had sent him a copy of the script and Brando at first hesitated because he had doubts about his ability to play Kowalski because "Kowalski was right and never wrong. He had the kind of brutal agressiveness I hate" he said. Brando, it was said, was an extremely gentle sensitve man. But, probably due mostly to Elia Kazan's guidance, from the moment Brando bounded onto the stage until his final line, the audience was filed with a live eletricity. Brando played Stanley for a year and a half always keepng his role fresh and alive. He quit when his contract ran out and the Press hounded him with stupid questions such as his food and pet preferences, etc. His first movie role was as a paraplegic in "The Men" and for that role he spent a month living with the paraplegic vets who would appear in the film. I thought he was great in that role.
Streetcar followed, and three of the stars from that film won Oscars, but Brando lost to Humphrey Bogart for "African Queen". Many felt that Brando had been snubbed because of his up-your's attitude toward Hollywood.

Brando, along with Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward, Harry Belafonte, et al, was very active in the Civil Rights Movement.

Indeed, I could go on forever here about Brando in his younger days, as to how he was misrepresented by reporters and how Truman Capote double-crossed him by reporting things in an interview that he had promised Brando he would not publicize.

But, I'm anxious to hear what other folks here have to say.

"Pant Your Wagon" is what it's known as -- likely one of the worst movie musicals of all time. The filmmakers should have been sued by Frank Loesser for the abortive version of "I Was Born Under a Wandering Star." Yuck. The only good rendition was "They Call the Wind Maria" sung by at least an accomplished singer, Harve Presnell. It was thrashed on the opening reviews, the box office was miserable and the IMDb rating is just average.

"Guys and Dolls" suffered from curious staging and dramatic interludes which seemed incongruous to the musical. Thank gawd they never got hold of "The Most Happy Fella" to ruin.

It's Brando's nuanced baritone that made the dialogue sing in his best roles. He did literally almost sing some of the lines. "Stella. Oh Stella" was operatic.

half brit friend ha
yeah im half brit and im half human too
and letty im a male and im 32 years old..
so im not so young anymore but im not so old either
i dont know about being astute i think of myself as a simple dude

im not really into politics i see faults in all sides left right and centre

i believe in love and working together to make this world a better place
althgough im far from perfect and have my rage moments too

im into the connectedness of all things
i love the universe and the galaxies and stars and all that

i like music, films, not too much tv as i believe its brainwashing

im into spiritual things that bring peace and harmony and help us understand each other more

i like to travel and see the world and make friends all over

im sorry but im not much of a conversationalist or a debater so dont expect long winded opinions out of me

im kind of into simple things that bring love

hmm
ok