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

Biography of Marlon Brando

Marlon Brando was a legendary Hollywood actor who won two Oscars and Golden Globes. He skyrocketed to fame playing Stanley Kowalski in the film adaptation of "A Streetcar Named Desire." Though he later admitted to hating the character and feared being typecast as this brutish figure, the anti-hero's shadow haunted his entire career, showing up in role after role.

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 Henry Fonda.

Marlon's father owned a business that produced feed and chemical additives. He was a strict, controlling 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, his sisters eleven and eight, when the 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 the move since 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 hold in the boy.

Nevertheless, he made one friend. Eleven-year-old Wally Cox was passionate about movies and got his classmate hooked on them too. 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 controlling husband to her mother's home in Santa Ana, California. She still drank but focused on her daughters' education: Frances got seriously into painting, and Jocelyn decided to follow in her mother's footsteps on stage. Bud, now a teenager, felt painfully neglected again. He started acting out and constantly clashed with teachers and classmates at school (though he excelled in sports).

Meanwhile, Brando Sr. brought the family back and moved them to a small Illinois village, where they settled in a large house provided by the farm that hired him as a manager. 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 handle romantic or comic roles, so he soon quit and started reading his mother's extensive book collection.

Like many kids back then, Brando would tune into radio plays and try mimicking the actors' voices. He started doing impressions of everyone around him and grew increasingly cocky with friends and teachers, earning himself plenty of punishment.

To straighten out his rebellious son, his father shipped him off to Shattuck Military Academy – his own alma mater. Bud actually found his groove there: he became a fixture in the reading room, hit up movies whenever he could, and showed off his acting chops to English professor Earl Wagner by performing Shakespeare passages. When he hit the stage at the local theater, he nailed his role and had the audience eating out of his hand.

Wagner was so impressed he fired off an enthusiastic letter to Marlon's parents, insisting their son had undeniable acting talent that was being wasted at military school. His father was furious. He believed all actors were gay and thought the profession was disgraceful. But it was too late.

Film Career

The stubborn, headstrong young man dropped out and headed to New York, where his sister was living. He signed up for an acting studio and briefly attended the New School for Social Research for their theater program. World War II was still ongoing when Marlon made his Broadway debut in the play "I Remember Mama."

His stage performance as Stanley Kowalski in Elia Kazan's production of "A Streetcar Named Desire" captivated audiences and critics alike. He was hailed as American theater's next great hope, but Brando couldn't have cared less.

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." Soon after, he landed the lead in the film adaptation of Tennessee Williams' "A Streetcar Named Desire."

His on-screen Stanley – raw, sensual, like a perpetually hungry animal – left audiences speechless. Even the legendary Vivien Leigh was overshadowed by his presence, despite winning an Oscar for her Blanche. Brando immersed himself so deeply in his character that he behaved similarly in real life for a while.

Stanley Meets Blanche

Audiences began viewing the actor as rough and unpredictable, and he didn't bother correcting them. The shadow of Kowalski followed him into Kazan's next film, "Viva Zapata!"

Suddenly, everyone wanted Brando. Top directors were lining up to work with him, but Brando chose Laslo Benedek's relatively unknown drama "The Wild One," playing Johnny Strabler, leader of the "Black Rebels" motorcycle gang. Once again, he nailed it. 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 winner of the coveted award, but treated it casually – reportedly using the statuette as a doorstop. Interestingly, Frank Sinatra was originally slated for the lead, but the producer fought for Brando – and boy, did it pay off.

Young Brando's Screen Test

The 1960s proved rougher for Brando, despite landing several major roles. Brando's career roared back to life in 1972 with Francis Ford Coppola's gangster epic "The Godfather." His Don Vito Corleone evolved on screen from a distinguished, silver-haired patriarch to a weathered old don. His performance was nothing short of brilliant, despite producers initially rejecting him due to his reputation for being difficult on set.

Brando won another Oscar but skipped the ceremony entirely. Instead, he sent Apache activist Sacheen Littlefeather in his place. Following his instructions, she refused the award, highlighting discrimination against Native Americans. It was classic Brando – using his platform to make a powerful political statement.

Francis Ford Coppola's visual masterpiece "Apocalypse Now" (1979) deserves special mention for its metaphorical exploration of war's ability to reveal humanity's darkest impulses. Brando's portrayal of the god-complex-afflicted Colonel Kurtz lasted only minutes on screen, but his much-anticipated appearance was so mesmerizing that it left audiences spellbound.

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 held their breath watching Paul's spiritual transformation, experiencing every Freudian twist alongside the actor. The role earned Brando another Oscar nomination, though he never claimed the statuette he'd once famously rejected. Nevertheless, the film became a classic of world cinema.

Marlon Brando announced his retirement from acting in the early 1980s, choosing to focus on writing while occasionally making film comebacks. Throughout the 1980s, he appeared in ten films including "The Formula," "A Dry White Season," and "The Freshman" – mostly taking 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 would often boast about his romantic conquests. He named Marlene Dietrich, Ingrid Bergman, Veronica Lake, and Joan Crawford.

Marlon Brando Flirts with a Journalist

While filming "A Streetcar Named Desire," he confessed to fantasizing about a romance with Vivien Leigh. But during that same period, he started an affair with Hollywood's ultimate bombshell, Marilyn Monroe. The screen goddess, however, ultimately chose playwright Arthur Miller over him.

His countless affairs didn't stop the actor from marrying and divorcing multiple 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 gap didn't faze them, though Movita knew she probably couldn't hold onto the handsome actor for long. During their two-year marriage, Marlon had a son, Miko Castaneda. Even after their divorce, they kept seeing each other, and in 1966, their daughter Rebecca was born.

By then, 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 tied the knot again but shacked up 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 autobiography "Songs My Mother Taught Me," Marlon openly admitted to same-sex relationships without any shame. In 1976, after coming out, the actor even cracked that he wouldn't mind if the press romantically linked him with his close 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 pounds, 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 hired as a bodyguard for his friend Michael Jackson, took his father to a ranch where Brando could get fresh air on an open veranda. Despite his severe condition and breathing problems, Marlon was still considering working on a script about himself just days before his death.

Before being taken to the Ronald Reagan Medical Center, the actor recorded detailed instructions for his own funeral: the names of invited guests, those he didn't 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 died 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 part of Hollywood's golden legacy, 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."

Photos: Marlon Brando