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Facts About Marlon Brando
What happened to him?
Marlon Brando is considered by some to be one of the greatest actors of our time. That’s assuming you're an old person. I am not one of those people. I’m old but not as impressed with him as some are. He has, however done some noteworthy work. He does have an impressive body of work, and at one time had an impressive body, but more about that later.
I guess one reason I wasn’t that thrilled with Brando was he always seemed to be brooding and mumbling. Possibly because his characters carried around angst. I don’t find angst to be entertaining. Regardless, here are some facts about Marlon Brando.
1: Brando was kicked out of two schools.
He was kicked out of high school for, as the story goes, riding a motorcycle down a hallway. After that he was sent to Shattuck Military Academy in Faribault, Minnesota. He was eventually expelled from there also, but not before pulling off an interesting prank.
Brando climbed the belltower and extracted a 150-pound clapper from the bell. He then proceeded to bury it 200 yards away. Clap on, clap off was a lot tougher back then.
2: Like many actors, Brando worked at a lot of menial jobs before becoming a star.
Included in those jobs were sandwich man, short-order cook and waiter. Hmm, all food related. Was that a harbinger of things to come?
3: Frank Sinatra was originally going to star as Terry Malloy in “On the waterfront” before Brando relented at took the part.
Brando had returned the script twice without reading it before being talked into taking the part. It was so late in the process that the costumes were being fitted for Sinatra. I believe they had to let those costumes out.
4: Brando didn’t care for his performance in “On the Waterfront” and when he saw it in the screening room walked out without saying a word.
Possibly because nothing was written down for him. Hold on, being told that’s not true and was snarky…
