Marlon Brando, 1924-2004: Film icon was rebel on and off screen
Marlon Brando, whose blend of sensitivity and savagery brought him acclaim as the greatest actor in some of the finest American films of his generation and whose tumultuous personal life made him an icon of defiance on screen and off, died Thursday.
Mr. Brando, 80, died at a Los Angeles hospital, whose spokeswoman said he had lung failure. He also suffered from heart aliments.
Moody performers such as Humphrey Bogart made the stiff, oily leading man seem obsolete by the 1940s. But it was Mr. Brando — sweaty, swaggering, mumbling, wounded, brutish and beautiful — who further heightened expectations in postwar cinema. He won two Academy Awards, for "On the Waterfront" and "The Godfather," created a menagerie of unforgettable performances, from "A Streetcar Named Desire" to "Apocalypse Now."
His naked emotional display on film was matched by often-tragic events in his private life, from his pain-wracked childhood to his failed marriages to his self-castigating courtroom pleas during his son Christian's manslaughter trial. He also made disastrously indulgent career choices as he came to view acting as a lark and spent decades teetering between being a has-been and creating major milestones in performance.
His artistry in his greatest films transcended everything.
It was clear from Mr. Brando's cinema debut as a scornful, paraplegic war veteran in "The Men" (1950) and his explosive work as Stanley Kowalski in "A Streetcar Named Desire" (1951) that he was a towering new breed of actor, able to display a raw soul that ached with passion but also was unpredictably bestial.
With his pinup magnetism and dazzling range, he simply dominated all discussions about film acting.
One of his greatest legacies as an actor was to penetrate the deepest thoughts of his characters and convey their motivations finely and believably. He drew on a lifetime of emotional distress, his brilliance at mimicry and his own intuition to bring new dimensions of psychological motivation to his parts.
Few other actors made so many instant classics. In more than 40 films, his gallery of most-admired performances include: "Viva Zapata!" (1952), as Mexican revolutionary Emiliano Zapata; "Julius Caesar" (1953), as Marc Antony; "On the Waterfront" (1954), as longshoreman Terry Malloy, who takes a lonely stand against organized crime; "The Wild One" (1954), as a motorcycle gang leader; and "Sayonara" (1957), as an Army officer who romances a Japanese dancer.
After a series of 1960s flops, he experienced an unexpected renaissance with "The Godfather" (1972), as mafia chieftain Vito Corleone; "Last Tango in Paris" (1973), as a man who, after his wife's suicide, goes on a sexual spree that is both liberating and tortuous; and "Apocalypse Now" (1979), as Army Col. Walter Kurtz, a symbol of madness during the Vietnam War.
Although his role was brief, he also played Jor-El, the title superhero's father, in the blockbuster "Superman" (1978).
Of eight Oscar nominations, he won twice for best actor, in "On the Waterfront" and "The Godfather."
Mr. Brando also had a huge impact on public behavior.
He wore jeans to swank parties, insulted gossip columnists and flaunted his preference for dark-skinned women, then a social taboo — anything to pique the Hollywood system that tried to control his public image.
He infuriated studio executives by going millions over budget on his only directorial effort, the revenge western "One-Eyed Jacks" (1961), and was blamed for immense cost overruns on the South Sea Island set of "Mutiny on the Bounty" (1962).
Starting in the 1960s, Mr. Brando became one of the first actor-activists to march for civil and Native American rights. He refused to appear at the Oscar ceremony to accept his award for "The Godfather," protesting what he felt was discrimination against Native Americans on film and in government policy.
Instead, he dispatched to the Academy Awards a woman who claimed to be a Native American named Sacheen Littlefeather, who read an abridged version of Mr. Brando's 15-page indictment of policies toward Indians. Later, she was revealed to be an actress named Maria Cruz, a winner of the 1970 Miss American Vampire competition.
Mr. Brando also participated in "Free Huey" protests after Black Panther leader Huey P. Newton was tried in 1968 for allegedly killing an Oakland, Calif., police officer.
In later years, Mr. Brando came to be seen more as a tabloid curiosity as his personal setbacks seemed boundless. With time, he represented the disintegration of a sex symbol as his physique crumbled and he ballooned to more than 300 pounds. He was a hulking and teary presence at his son's 1990 trial for the shooting death of his half-sister's lover.
The public read about the bitterness of his three marriages; the many paternity suits; his daughter Cheyenne's 1995 suicide; and his odd public behavior, such as kissing television host Larry King on the mouth during an interview before Mr. Brando signed off with, "Darling, goodbye."
Marlon Brando Jr., the youngest of three children, was born in Omaha, Neb., to the former Dorothy Pennebaker, a local actress, and Marlon Brando Sr., an insecticide salesman. In 1943, he moved to New York to join his sisters, Frances and Jocelyn. He was a ditch digger, a department store elevator man and a night watchman. He also became a roommate and friend of actor Wally Cox, the bashful star of "Mr. Peepers."
Mr. Brando enrolled at the New School for Social Research's dramatic workshop, where his classmates included Harry Belafonte, Shelley Winters and Rod Steiger.
In 1944, Mr. Brando was hired to play the teenage son Nels in John van Druten's "I Remember Mama." The hit play brought Mr. Brando a swath of admirers, including director Elia Kazan.
Kazan persuaded producer Irene Selznick to hire Mr. Brando for the Broadway role of Stanley Kowalski in Tennessee Williams' "A Streetcar Named Desire."
"Streetcar" and Mr. Brando's performance in it were hailed as landmark theatrical events.
The play was a breakthrough in establishing the Brando persona — a raw and mysterious magnetism that was at once frightful and compelling.
Hollywood sought him, and he turned down all offers except Stanley Kramer's production of "The Men." The film, released at the start of the Korean War, was not a popular success, largely owing to its topic of disabled war veterans.
The filmed version of "Streetcar" launched him onscreen, but Mr. Brando was upset when he lost the Oscar to Bogart in "The African Queen." Film historians considered Bogart's win "sentimental," and the loss burnished Mr. Brando's dismissive views of the film community.
He won the Oscar for best actor in Kazan's "On the Waterfront," marking an early pinnacle of his career as a conscience-stricken former boxer. Mr. Brando delivered to his screen brother, Rod Steiger, the "I coulda been a contender" speech, considered one of the great film moments of all time.
After a fiasco with "Mutiny on the Bounty" (1962), he spent more time on his social activism and entered his longest commercial slump as an actor with a series of films casting a critical gaze on American society.
Mr. Brando considered his most successful role, by the measure of both acting and social protest, his turn as a British emissary sent to investigate a slave revolt in Gillo Pontecorvo's "Burn!" (1969). It failed with the public.
Dealing with film and marital woes, he was depressed and began another of his increasingly habitual eating binges. He retreated to Tahiti, which he had discovered as a peaceful retreat while filming "Mutiny." He bought an entire atoll in 1967 for $270,000.
Out of nowhere, author Mario Puzo sent Mr. Brando the "Godfather" script, hoping he would play Don Vito Corleone. Mr. Brando agreed, seeing the part as a statement about corporate greed.
"The Godfather" and his next role in "Last Tango in Paris," in which he has a fatal fling with a young Frenchwoman, prompted a massive rethinking of Mr. Brando's career. "Last Tango in Paris," which received an X rating, featured a highly improvisational Brando using many autobiographical details to flesh out his character.
In her New Yorker review, critic Pauline Kael wrote that director Bernardo Bertolucci and Mr. Brando "have altered the face of an art form" and called the film revolutionary.
Mr. Brando said he made many of his later films for the money — he reportedly made $3.7 million for 12 days of work on "Superman." But he never seemed anything short of mesmerizing, whether as a cross-dressing hired gun in the western "The Missouri Breaks" (1976) or as a mischievous Mafia don in "The Freshman" (1990).
He earned his final Oscar nomination, for best supporting actor, as a lawyer in apartheid South Africa in "A Dry White Season" (1989).
Morbidly obese and depressed after the deaths of family members and friends, he spent the last decade more as a symbol of media curiosity than as an actor looking for the next challenge. He largely resigned himself to insubstantial parts in panned films such as "The Island of Dr. Moreau" (1996).
His marriages to actresses Anna Kashfi, Movita Castenada and Tarita Teriipaia ended in divorce.
Survivors include a son from his first marriage, Christian; two children from his second marriage, Miko and Rebecca; and a son from his third marriage, Teihotu.