Marlon Brando was an American actor and icon of the 'silver screen' era of movies. He was born 3 April, 1924 in Omaha, Nebraska to a prosperous businessman and amateur actress. However, he spent most of his childhood in Illinois. In 1940, he spent a short time at Shattuck Military Academy in Fairbult, Minnesota from where he was expelled for insubordination. Then he went to work digging ditches for a living until his father decided to finance his education. At the age of nineteen he moved to New York to study acting with Stella Adler at Lee Strasberg's Actors' Studio. There he learnt method acting, a form of acting using the actors' own emotions. Other people to study at the Actors' Studio included Marilyn Monroe, Shelley Winters, Rod Steiger and Paul Newman, who once remarked:'I'm angry at Marlon because he does everything so easily. I have to break my ass to do what he can do with his eyes closed'. Despite the fact that Brando was able to be anything he wanted to be from a Hell's Angel to a tree consequently making fellow actors believe that he was the king of 'method' acting, he grew to dislike acting and would only take roles to earn money. Brando once said, Acting is the expression of a neurotic impulse. It's a bum's life. Quitting acting is a sign of maturity.

Big Break

By 1944, Brando was ready to take to the stage. His first appearance was as Jesus in the Gerhart Hauptmann play Hannele, closely followed by a two-year run in I Remember Mama, a Broadway musical adapted by Rodgers and Hammerstein from the play by John Van Druten. Then in 1946, he was voted Broadway's Most Promising Actor by New York theatre critics after his appearance in Truckline Café and took part in Candida and The Eagle Has Two Heads. His powerful on-stage presence brought him to the attention of many of the big names in the theatre and cinema world. In 1947, his name was put forward by Elia Kazan as the actor best-suited to play the role of Stanley Kowalski in A Streetcar Named Desire, written by Tennessee Williams. In 1949, he made his debut television performance in I'm No Hero for American television channel ABC. He later furthered his appearances on television with a portrayal of an American Nazi leader called George Lincoln Rockwell in 'Roots: The Next Generation' for the same channel and a special on the Actors Studio for another American television channel called PBS. This spurred him on to try to break into films and he made his first film, The Men, in 1950.

There had never been such a display of dangerous, brutal male beauty on an American stage.
- David Thomson, a critic and author

Capitalising on his success in the stage play, he then starred in the film version of A Streetcar Named Desire in 1951, which launched his career in the film business. The film Viva Zapata! also featuring Brando was released in 1952, which led him to win critical acclaim, by obtaining the Best Actor Award at Cannes and the Best Foreign Actor award in Britain. He then went on to appear in The Wild One, which was banned in Britain for several years in fear that it may encourage delinquency. His performance as Terry Malloy in On the Waterfront led him to win an Academy Award.

If there is a better performance by a man in the history of American film, I don't know what it is.
- director Elia Kazan

Later, during the 1950s, he took up roles in Désirée, Guys and Dolls, The Young Lions and played Mark Anthony in Julius Caesar. He also tried directing, making One-Eyed Jacks in 1961 and that same year starred as Fletcher Christian in Mutiny on the Bounty. Brando also appeared in the films The Ugly American, The Chase and A Countess from Hong Kong but these films didn't fare well at the box office. He was renowned for throwing tantrums, trying to alter the script, eating too much, having affairs and isolating himself. During the 1960s Brando dropped his rebellious image in order to play other characters. He appeared in The Fugitive Kind (1960), The Ugly American (1963), Bedtime Story (1964), Reflections in a Golden Eye (1967) and Burn! (1969). However, many of these were flops from the start and it wasn't until The Godfather that his acting career picked up again.

The Godfather

All the great film actors since On the Waterfront are heavily influenced by Brando. And when he appeared in The Godfather, all those actors in The Godfather said he was the godfather of screen acting.
- Robert Tanitch

Then in 1972 Brando returned to the spotlight playing the mafia boss, Don Vito Corleone in The Godfather and achieved the Academy Award for Best Actor, but declined it as he didn't want to accept the award in person. In protest of Hollywood's treatment of Native Americans Brando sent a Native American Indian Apache named Sasheen Littlefeather to decline the award on his behalf.

To his great regret Marlon Brando feels unable to accept his award. The reasons lie in the treatment of the Indian in TV and the movies in this country, and in the recent events at Wounded Knee.

Last Tango in Paris

After his epic performance in The Godfather, Brando went on to appear in The Nightcomers and Last Tango in Paris. On filming Last Tango in Paris it was clear that Brando was hypnotic, people appeared in awe of him so much so that they had to re-shoot the first shot.

I remember the first shot of the film: I shouted 'OK, that's good' but Umetelli, the camera operator, blushing with embarrassment, whispered to me, 'Sorry - as soon as I saw Brando through the viewfinder I became paralysed just watching him'. We had to shoot the shot again.
- Bernardo Bertolucci, Director, Last Tango in Paris

Brando found method acting irritating and after filming Last Tango in Paris was done he didn't speak to the director for twelve years.

He made me suffer terribly, giving me serious doubts about myself and my work
- Bernardo Bertolucci

After many years had passed Bertolucci phoned Brando and the actor kept the director on the phone for two hours - 'Marlon was diabolically curious about everything'. They then met up and talked till the late hours of the evening.

Later Years

The only reason I'm in Hollywood is that I don't have the moral courage to refuse the money.
- Brando

By the late 1970s Brando was repetitively arguing that the next film would be his last and spent much of his time away from the camera. However, every time he said that he was lured back to make another. In 1976, he appeared in The Missouri Breaks, this was followed by a part in Superman for which he received $3.7m for his cameo role. He also appeared in Francis Ford Coppola's Apocalypse Now and took a small role in A Dry White Season as a South African lawyer, which led to him being nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. Then in 1990, he parodied his 'Godfather' role in the film The Freshman. Other films within his repertoire were Don Juan DeMarco in which he co-starred alongside Johnny Depp, The Island of Dr. Moreau and The Score, which featured Robert De Niro, Edward Norton, and Angela Bassett. Brando also wrote a biography entitled Songs My Mother Taught Me that was released in 1994.

Off Screen Dramatics

Privacy is not something that I'm merely entitled to, it's an absolute prerequisite.
- Brando

When he wasn't acting he spent his time living a reclusive lifestyle in Tetiaroa; a tiny coral island 25 miles north of Tahiti, with his third wife and children. In total Brando was married three times to former actresses, had 11 children, two with his third wife, five with his former wives, three from a Guatemalan maid and another from an affair. Christian¹, a son of Brando's, once told People magazine, 'The family kept changing shape. I'd sit down at the breakfast table and say, 'Who are you?'.

Brando gained weight towards the end of his life and became 23 stone at the age of 65. Sophia Loren said 'He had some real tragedies in his life and perhaps stopped looking after himself for that reason'.

Just before his death Brando was working on a film by French-Tunisian director, Ridha Behi, following an Arab youth's gradual disenchantment with the American dream in which he was to play himself. He was also going to play himself in a film called Brando and Brando.

Brando suffered from lung failure and died at the UCLA Medical Center in Los Angeles in 2004. He was later cremated during a private funeral.

One year after his death his voice was used in the video game version of The Godfather: The Game.