Unruly, animalistic and exceedingly charming, Marlon Brando remains even today, twenty years after his death, a legend of world cinema and for many the greatest star of all time.

The American actor lived in excess, showing from a young age his unconventional character, either with his (indulgently) volatile personal life and public image, or with his political militancy in favor of the Native Americans and African Americans and of course, against of the powerhouses of the Hollywood film industry. But also as an actor, many times the roles he chose to embody had something of his character.

An iconic actor, who made his legend, with a handful of films, in his youth, while the Francis Ford Coppola gave it another push to the top with the inimitable “Godfather” and “Revelation Now”. But it was also this “dishonorable” sweaty white shirt of his Stanley Kowalskiin the “Pothos Bus”which will forever rock, especially the female audience.

His play Tennessee Williamswhich, after causing waves of excitement among discerning theater audiences in the late 1940s, would make him a major star when it was transferred to the big screen in 1951. Brando, possessing the charisma, the acting instincts, would faithfully follow the principle of “don’t give them what they expect, always surprise, catch them asleep”.

He will combine this principle with the acting lessons he received from the famous Actors’ Studio and Stella Adlerthe soul of his school Lee Strasberg.

THE Kazan he may have proved very small as a man, handing over colleagues to McCarthy’s Un-American Activities Committee, but he was a brilliant and capable director. He will understand the magnitude of Brando’s talent and will give him the unique opportunity, with the role of Kowalski. Next to her tragic figure Blanche Dubois and unique Vivian LeeBrando will be transformed into a symbol of forbidden lust, an eternal fantasy.

Completing 100 years since his birth (April 3, 1924), Marlon Brando remains an icon, an image that will refer to the best of cinema and at the same time a mysterious personality, who apparently could not manage the launch of his name into the heavens, a a savage who could not be bound by convention and where you adored him, his self-destructive nature made everything rubbish.

Abandonment

Marlon Brando was born in Omaha, Nebraska, and had a difficult childhood due to a tyrannical father, a salesman who often traveled out of state, and an actress mother, who was often away from home. Both parents had problems with alcoholism and little Marlon quickly developed abandonment issues as his two sisters were older. His parents divorced in 1936 and reconciled two years later.

Brando attended Libertville High School, excelling in sports and acting, but failing all other subjects, and was expelled for misbehavior. He will be sent to the military academy, which his father also attended, but due to his naughty character he will be expelled.

The method

Brando decided at the age of 18 to follow his sisters to New York to study acting. He will spend the first months sleeping on friends’ sofas, until he begins to see light in the prospect of becoming an actor. He will love Stella Adler as his second mother, who – although she did not like his character – will appreciate his innate talent and teach him the techniques of the Stanislavsky Method. There he will later meet Kazan.

Untamed

He made his Hollywood debut, after his theatrical triumph as Kowalski, in 1950 in Fred Chineman’s remarkable war drama “My Body Belongs to You”, co-starring Teresa Wright. Next year he will play in the film- station about his career “Pothos Bus”, he will receive his first Oscar nomination.

The huge success “Atithasos” will follow, which will make him a legend, while his appearances in the films “Viva Zapata” and “Julius Caesar” were also noteworthy, where he will receive his second and third Oscar nominations. In 1954, he will star in Kazan’s masterpiece social drama “The Port of Agonia”, where he will rightfully win the Oscar for Best Actor, for the interpretation of his life as he himself claimed.

Comparisons

Within five years, Brando had already become a living legend. The sequel was not comparable, the standards were very high for him and the films he played – often indifferent to insignificant – as it was obvious that he chose roles for the money, and the Method, from which he could not break away, he was beginning to reach the limits of manners. However, he also starred in great films such as John Huston’s Glimpses of Golden Eyes and Arthur Penn’s The Chase, but although he was good, he lost in comparisons to his early films.

Vito Corleone

Until the beginning of the 70s, when the demon Coppola chooses him for the role of Vito Corleone in “The Godfather”. There, Brando will transform himself, under his own responsibility and inspiration, into the head of the most famous family, giving at the same time a monumental performance. However, the most important thing in this rebirth of his, the real interpretation of his life, was his choice to throw away the Method and all those elements that made him a star, from his incredible beauty to the exuberant, often animalistic his acting status.

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Against the establishment

Brando, despite being turned down by Paramount for the role, which he finally got at Coppola’s insistence, will win his second Oscar, but will refuse to accept the golden statuette and send a young Indiana woman to represent him. , who will read a short message in front of a stunned audience and embarrassed presenters. As the young Native American actress Littlefeather announced to them, Brando was refusing the Oscar in solidarity with the mobilization of Native American activists over the way they were portrayed in Hollywood productions. Brando’s move caused a lot of publicity, but also the anger of the establishment in the USA, while the actor received threats, even shots outside his home.

Revelation Now

Immediately after that, he will shoot the controversial and particularly provocative for the time “Last Tango in Paris” by Bernardo Bertolucci, for which he will be attacked by the feminist movement, while fortunately six years later will come the masterful anti-war drama “Apocalypse Now “, where he will deliver a heartbreaking performance and one of the most mysterious appearances, at the end of the shocking film. The sequel is well-known and almost insignificant for the cinema and its myth, which, however, would not be broken by anything.

Stormy

Brando will live a stormy life. It’s not so much the three marriages and eleven children he had with his wives or his love affairs, but that he had sexual relations with hundreds of women and men, including Marilyn Monroe, Ursula Andres, Rita Moreno . His love desire seemed inexhaustible, often sickening, but what brought him down was a terrible crime, which shook his psychology forever. His first-born son Christian will be sentenced in 1990 to 10 years in prison for the murder of the lover of his pregnant half-sister Seyenne, who will commit suicide five years later!

Stature

His self-destructive nature will become particularly dangerous for him too, as he will fall headlong into an endless binge, which will bring him face to face with the disease of obesity. Diabetes and even more serious problems, such as liver cancer, will quickly follow. Brando will die on July 1, 2004. The irony of fate will bring him to take his last breath at the Ronald Reagan Medical Center, the man he loathed, as well as his ilk.

Hollywood rarely loses the game and knows how to take revenge on those who stand up and challenge it. And Brando, beyond his few but wonderful films, we prefer him as the man who stood up against the heavy Hollywood regime and against all injustice.