Marlon Brando biography, children, young photos, age and cause of death

Biography of Marlon Brando

Marlon Brando was a renowned Hollywood actor, twice awarded the Oscars and Golden Globes. He achieved tremendous success after playing Stanley Kowalski in the film adaptation of "A Streetcar Named Desire." Although he later admitted to hating this character, fearing the association with this brutish type, the shadow of the anti-hero followed him throughout his career, manifesting in various roles he played in cinema.

Childhood, Youth, Family

Marlon was born in the spring of 1924 to Dorothy Pennebaker and Marlon Brando Sr. As a child, he was called Bud. His mother was an actress and performed on the Omaha theater stage in a small town in Nebraska. She maintained a friendly relationship with future global star, actor Henry Fonda.

Marlon’s father owned a business that produced feed and chemical additives. He was a strict and despotic man who forbade the family from showing emotions or affection. The only solace for Dodie (as the family called his mother) was music: she loved singing while playing the piano. But her patience didn't last long. Marlon later recalled:

In my early childhood, I had a normal home: father, mother, and two sisters, Frances and Jocelyn. I adored my mother, her beauty, charm, and lightness. However, this didn’t last long. Mother started to disappear from home. One day she came home drunk, called the cats into the bedroom, and gave them valerian. When they got intoxicated and lay around her, she fell asleep with a blissful expression on her face, as if she were among her best friends.

Bud was six years old, his sisters eleven and eight, when the whole family moved to Evanston, a town near Chicago. The Great Depression was beginning. Brando Sr. was offered a sales manager position at a calcium production corporation, which was a good escape from his failing business. Dody was adamantly against moving, as there was no theater in Evanston, but she didn’t dare oppose her husband. She started drinking even more, and a young maid named Ermi, whom Bud grew very attached to, took care of the children.

The children were enrolled in the prestigious Abraham Lincoln School, but Bud avoided his peers for a long time. He felt abandoned: his mother didn’t care for him, Ermi left, and his father scolded and shamed him for the slightest mistake, or sometimes for no reason at all. This sense of injustice took root in the boy.

Nevertheless, he made one friend. Eleven-year-old Wally Cox was passionate about movies and got his classmate Bud into them. They watched every film that came to the theater. For the first time, the boy thought he could become an actor too.

Soon, Dody took the children and moved away from her despotic husband to her mother’s home in Santa Ana, a town in California. She still drank but focused on her daughters’ education: Frances became seriously interested in painting, and Jocelyn decided to follow in her mother’s footsteps and act on stage. Bud, now a teenager, felt painfully neglected again. He started acting out and constantly clashed with teachers and peers at school (though he excelled in sports).

Meanwhile, Brando Sr. brought the family back and moved them to a small village in Illinois, where they settled in a large house provided by the farm that hired him for a managerial position. Bud became interested in music and played drums in an amateur band. The school had a drama club, where he eagerly played villains. However, he couldn’t play romantic or comic roles, so he soon quit and started reading the many books his mother had.

Like many at the time, Brando listened to radio plays and tried to imitate the actors’ voices. He then began parodying those around him and behaved increasingly arrogantly toward friends and teachers, which led to frequent punishments.

To tame the young rebel, his father sent him to Shattuck Military Academy, where he himself had studied. Bud found suitable activities there: he became a regular in the reading room, attended the cinema with enthusiasm, and demonstrated his acting talent to the local English professor, Earl Wagner, by reciting excerpts from William Shakespeare. He took the stage in the local theater, performing much better in his assigned role and earning the audience’s applause.

Afterward, the teacher wrote an enthusiastic letter to Marlon’s parents, convincing them that their son had an undeniable acting talent that shouldn’t be wasted in military school. His father was furious. In his mind, all actors were homosexuals, and their profession was shameful. But it was too late.

Film Career

A stubborn and headstrong young man dropped out of school and moved to New York, where his sister lived. He enrolled in an acting studio and briefly attended the New School for Social Research, where there was a theater class. World War II was still ongoing when Marlon made his Broadway debut in the play "I Remember Mama."

His appearance on stage as Stanley Kowalski in Elia Kazan's production of "A Streetcar Named Desire" delighted audiences and critics. He was hailed as the hope of American theater, but Brando had little interest in it.

A shot from the movie 'A Streetcar Named Desire'

In 1950, he made his film debut, playing Ken, a paralyzed war veteran, in Fred Zinnemann's drama "The Men." Right after that, he starred in the film adaptation of Tennessee Williams' play "A Streetcar Named Desire."

His Stanley on screen – sensual, sexual, like a perpetually hungry beast – stunned audiences. Even the famous Vivien Leigh seemed overshadowed by him, though she won an Oscar for her role as Blanche. Brando immersed himself so deeply in his character that he behaved similarly in real life for a while.

Stanley Meets Blanche

People started to see the actor as a rough, unstable man, and he chose not to dissuade them. The shadow of Kowalski followed him into Kazan's next film, "Viva Zapata!"

The demand for the actor skyrocketed. Renowned directors invited him for roles, but Brando starred in Laslo Benedek's lesser-known drama "The Wild One," playing Johnny Strabler, the leader of the "Black Rebels" gang. Once again, he hit the mark. He became a youth idol, embodying the image of a biker defying social norms.

Next was Mark Antony in the historical drama "Julius Caesar," and Brando won his first Oscar for his portrayal of former boxer Terry Malloy, who stands up against a corrupt union in the crime melodrama "On the Waterfront."

Marlon became the youngest recipient of the coveted award, but he treated it pragmatically: he used the statuette to prop open his door. It's worth noting that Frank Sinatra was initially set to play the lead role, but the producer insisted on Brando, and it paid off.

Young Brando's Screen Test

The 1960s were less successful for the actor, despite several leading roles. Brando's star reignited in 1972 when he starred in Francis Ford Coppola's gangster drama "The Godfather." His character, Don Vito Corleone, transformed on screen from a distinguished, graying gentleman to a disheveled old man. The actor's performance was brilliant, even though producers initially didn't want him in the film due to his reputation for unconventional behavior on set.

Marlon was awarded another Oscar but didn't attend the ceremony. Instead, he sent a woman named Sacheen Littlefeather from the Apache tribe. Following his instructions, she refused the statuette, drawing attention to the discrimination against Native Americans. This was one of Brando's many civil rights actions, demonstrating his clear political stance.

Special mention should be made of Francis Ford Coppola's visual masterpiece "Apocalypse Now" (1979), which metaphorically explored the dark sides of human nature revealed by war. Brando, who played the former Colonel Kurtz who perceived himself as a god, appeared on screen for only a few minutes, but his much-anticipated appearance was so shocking that it captivated viewers repeatedly.

Colonel Kurtz's Monologue

Another significant role for Brando in the '70s was as the aging widower Paul in Bernardo Bertolucci's drama "Last Tango in Paris." Maria Schneider played his young lover Jeanne. Audiences watched Paul's spiritual transformation with bated breath, experiencing all the Freudian twists with the actor. For this role, Brando was nominated for another Oscar, but he never won the statuette he had previously dismissed. Nevertheless, the film became a classic of world cinema.

In the early 1980s, Marlon Brando announced his retirement from acting. He decided to focus on writing but occasionally returned to film. In the 1980s, he appeared in movies like "The Formula," "A Dry White Season," and "The Freshman" – a total of ten films, mostly in minor roles. One of his last roles was as a psychotherapist in the melodrama "Don Juan DeMarco," where a young Johnny Depp shone.

A shot from the movie 'Don Juan DeMarco'

Personal Life of Marlon Brando

In interviews and letters, Brando often mentioned his romantic successes. He named Marlene Dietrich, Ingrid Bergman, Veronica Lake, and Joan Crawford.

Marlon Brando Flirts with a Journalist

While filming "A Streetcar Named Desire," he admitted to dreaming of a romance with Vivien Leigh. However, during that time, he began a relationship with Hollywood's leading beauty, Marilyn Monroe. Nevertheless, the film diva soon chose playwright Arthur Miller over him.

Numerous affairs didn't stop the actor from marrying and divorcing several times. His first wife was Indian actress Anna Kashfi, whom he married in 1957. A year later, their son Christian Devi was born, and another year later, they divorced.

Marlon Brando's First Wife – Anna Kashfi

Brando's second wife was Mexican actress Movita Castaneda. The six-year age difference didn't matter, although Movita knew she might not keep the handsome actor for long. During their two-year marriage, Marlon had a son, Miko Castaneda. After their divorce, their relationship continued, and in 1966, their daughter Rebecca was born.

At that time, Brando had already married Tahitian actress Tarita Teriipaia. His wife, eighteen years his junior, bore him two children – Simon Teihotu and Tarita Cheyenne. Marlon also adopted his wife's daughter from her first marriage, Maimiti. They lived together for ten years.

Brando never officially married again but lived with his housekeeper Maria Cristina Ruiz. In this common-law marriage, they had three more children: Ninna Priscilla, Myles Jonathan, and Timothy Gahan.

In his autobiographical book "Songs My Mother Taught Me," Marlon admitted to having same-sex relationships, but he felt no shame about them. In 1976, after coming out, the actor even joked that he wouldn't mind if the press linked him romantically with his only friend, Jack Nicholson.

Death

In the late nineties, the former Hollywood heartthrob began suffering from obesity caused by diabetes and liver disease. His weight exceeded 285 ponds, and he started having lung problems.

By the end of his life, Marlon Brando got fat due to health problems

Miko Castaneda, whom the actor had arranged to work as a bodyguard for his friend Michael Jackson, took his father to a ranch where Brando could breathe fresh air on an open veranda. Despite his severe condition and oxygen deficiency, Marlon considered working on a script about himself just a few days before his death.

Before being taken to the Ronald Reagan Medical Center, the actor recorded detailed instructions for his own funeral on a tape recorder: the names of the invited guests, those he did not want to see, how to start the ceremony, and how to end it. He wished for his ashes to be scattered over the ocean along with the ashes of his childhood friend Wally Cox, whose urn he had kept at home since Cox's death.

On July 1, 2004, the Hollywood legend passed away from respiratory failure, refusing resuscitation efforts. The funeral followed his exact wishes, and after cremation, his ashes were divided into two parts and scattered over the ocean near Tahiti and over Death Valley in California.

Memory

The actor's roles remain forever in Hollywood's golden list, and his personal star is on the Walk of Fame. Two years after Marlon's death, the film "Superman Returns" was released using computer technology, where he appeared as the main character's father.

Marlon Brando Documentary

His name is mentioned in dozens of songs by artists like Madonna, Iggy Pop, David Bowie, Alice Cooper, and others. Documentaries have been made about him, and several biographies have been written, the most notable being Stefan Kanfer's book "Somebody: The Reckless Life and Remarkable Career of Marlon Brando."

Nyle Doherty Content writer

Marlon Brando

Photos: Marlon Brando