Marlon Brando, the versatile actor

By Amal Hewavissenti

Marlon Brando was the genius of the Hollywood cinema. As an actor he registered a memorable landmark in Hollywood Cinema with the super hits The Godfather, Apocalypse Now and On the Waterfront. His acting in these films shows that he had mastered the techniques of acting and he left indelible impressions on the minds of cinema lovers who are least likely to forget him.

He infused a fresh life into the roles he acted with his personality which earned him Oscar awards for the Best Actor for two years. He was even nominated for Oscar awards for four times.

Within a lifetime of extreme obstinacy and stubbornness built into him, Marlon Brando proved he was the most superb actor both on the stage and cinema during the post-war period.

Marlon Brando, born on April 3, 1924 in Nebraska of Omaha-America lead a life of total stubbornness, flippancy and irresponsibility during his childhood and youth.

For this reason, he was expelled from the school he attend the military academy which he attended following expulsion from the school.

Childhood

His intractable nature may be attributed to the influence of his childhood which witnessed the tragedy of a broken family at its worst. His mother Dorothy was a rehabilitated woman after an intense addiction to liquor and his father was a fairly sensitive person towards his bullheaded son in the depth of hopeless anxiety arising from unemployment and unsafe family background, Brando took up the trade of cutting ditches which deeply moved his father.

Subsequently, Brando and Dorothy introduced their son (Marlon) to a provincial drama ensemble where young Marlon was governed by a passion to act. His father had been determined to invest money on any meaningful enterprise that Marlon would embark on.

Soon the headstrong youth Marlon arrived in New York to study professional acting under Stells Addler because by now he had sensed his potential capacity to open up a prospective future with acting.

At this particular juncture, Marlon Brando joined the "Actors Studio" to work under the guidance of Lee Strasberg whose theories of realistic acting inevitably became a part and parcel of his life.

The drama "Bobino" expanded the horizons of his acting career (1943) and he appeared as a professional actor much in demand.

A year later, Marlon joined The Broadway Theatre House where he was thrust into limelight with the drama "I Remember Mamma", the first drama he acted in for the Broadway Theatre House. Commenting on this rare potential in acting in "Trackline Care", the spectators and the contemporary critics said" Marlon is the most reliable and the most promising actor in Broadway Theatre House."

Offering a perfect validity to this statement, Marlon Brando succeeded in grasping the attention, admiration and praise from the cinema lovers in 1947. Here, he became a maria overnight.

Marion became a living legend after the role "Stanley Kovalsky" which he played in the film "A Street car Named Desire" produced by Tennesy Williams.

Impressed

Soon the Hollywood was impressed with his appealing cinematic personality sharpness and reliability in acting. Yet this strange actor was never prepared to a accept whatever role he was given for the sake of a speedy popularity.

Instead he remained patient till he got a film where he could play a convincingly successful role and where he could exploit the best of his cinema.

Marlon's own commitment to acting is sometimes surprising. In Stanley Cremer's The Men, Marlon successfully played the role of a paralysed war hero with perfect professionalism and versatility. For this, he actually stayed in a hospital for a month to equip his own acting with naturality and realism which often discriminated him from other actors.

Even though the film The Men did not become a huge box office success, the talent and capacity displayed by Marlon was a subject of wider discussion. In 1951, he and Elia Cassen made the film "Street Car" and he was nominated for the Best Actor for the role he played in the film.

Though he missed the award for the Best Actor, the film won the Academy Award at the ceremony.

Rarest

Back in 1953, Marlon Brando was nominated for the award of the Best Actor for the roles he played in Viva Sapata and Julius Caesar.

The role of Mark Anthony that he played in Julius Caesar is one of the rarest acting in the history of Hollywood Cinema.

The film On the Waterfront produced by Elia Cassen in 1954 brought him the Oscar award for the Best Actor. Once again in 1957, Brando was honoured with the Oscar award for the Best Actor for the role he played in Sayonara. Later, he appeared in Young Lions with an eminent actor Montgomeri Clift and the film was a massive box office success.

This was the first and last film for Marlon to have co starred with versatile actor Montgomeri Clift.

Marlon Brando performed exceptionally well in The GodFather where he played the role of "Cornalia" a mafia leader.

Here he was awarded the Oscar Award for the Best Actor but he sent a Red Indian actress to the stage to receive the award for him.

This was meant to be a humiliating rebuff for Americans who were harassing Red Indians.

Old Marlon acted minor roles in Superman (1978) and Apocalypse Now (1979) and he was the actor who charged the highest for his acting.

On July 2, 2004 Marlon Brando, the star of life, breathed his last owing to a chronic bronchial infection - at the age of 80.