Limelight: More than a legend By Lubna Abdel-Aziz His death marked the end of an era as surely as his work marked its beginning. Considered by many as the greatest actor of the century, Marlon Brando died 1 July 2004 at UCLA Medical Center in Los Angeles, at age 80. The official cause of his death was pulmonary fibrosis. His lungs may have failed him; his talent never did. The art of filmmaking is often defined as BB or AB, before Brando or after Brando. The appearance of Brando six decades ago changed forever the concept of performance in motion pictures. Even that other great one of the 20th century, Sir Laurence Olivier reflected on the secret of his excellence: "He has an empathy, an instinctual understanding, that not even the greatest technical performers could possibly match." How carefully and cautiously he began his interpretation, how gently he won you over with his seductive rendition. He drew you into him, his thoughts, his soul, his insides. It may be only a performance, but what a performance -- noble, hypnotic, and so very real! The awe sets in, and then it is all over, leaving you spellbound -- breathless, motionless. Surely this was Stanley Kowalski in A Streetcar Named Desire, Zapata in Viva Zapata, Terry Malloy in On the Waterfront. This has to be none other than the Don himself, Vito Corleone, The Godfather. This is not acting -- this is real. It was the era of Marlon Brando. Revolution was nothing new to this intense, impassioned rebel; it was a way of life. Born 3 April 1924 in Omaha Nebraska, of Dutch, Irish, French, Italian descent, he was the third child and only son of Marlon Sr, an alcoholic, unfeeling businessman, and Dorothy Pennebaker, also an alcoholic but a sensitive disappointed actress who taught her son the love of nature, animals, "the night sky and a sense of closeness to earth". Marlon's rebellious streak was evident throughout his school years where he refused to play by the rules. His father finally sent him to Shattuck Military School in Minnesota, but was expelled for insubordination within a year. Frustrated by the boy's lack of motivation, Marlon Sr agreed to finance whatever path his son wished. Marlon decides to join his sister in New York, who was pursuing an acting career. There, Marlon enrolls at the Dramatic Workshop of the New School for Social Research. His teacher was the legendary Stella Adler who had spent several years in Russia studying with director Konstantin Stanislavsky at the Moscow Arts Theatre. Stella taught the "Group Theatre" the Stanislavsky principle of developing characters by drawing their own emotions from within. It became known as "The Method". It took Adler only one week of coaching Brando to predict that he would be the greatest actor in America. In 1944 Marlon debuts at the Workshop and earns a small part in the Broadway musical I Remember Mama. In 1946, he and roommate Karl Malden got bit parts in Maxwell Andersen's Truckluck Café. That year the critics awarded him "Broadway's Most Promising Actor". Despite his youth and inexperience, director Elia Kazan decided to cast Marlon in his theatre production of Tennessee William's A Streetcar Named Desire as the raging Stanley Kowalski. Wrote critic Daniel Thomson: "there had never been such a display of dangerous, brutal, male beauty on an American stage." When the curtain came down on the Ethel Barrymore Theatre on 3 December 1947, the standards for acting were forever changed. Hollywood came in hot pursuit but he resisted until finally he made his first movie The Men in 1950. Though he will always be identified with Stanley's animal cry "Stell -- aaaah" after starring in the film version of Streetcar in 1953, his crowning glory was yet to come. After five films and four Oscar nominations, he was crowned undisputed monarch as Terry Malloy in Kazan's visceral On the Waterfront. His definitive performance as a washed-up boxer turned mob-errand-boy brought such animal intensity, such raw genius as has never been seen on the screen before. New York Time's film critic Pauline Kael who called him "the greatest living actor" wrote, "he expressed the inner poetry of an inarticulate working class." The most repeated line in cinema comes from Malloy's cry to his brother: "I could have been a contender." He was a contender, the greatest one of all. Malloy is considered to be his best defining role. Yet Marlon, never happy with his work wrote in his autobiography: "On the day Kazan showed me the complete picture, I was so depressed by my performance that I got up and left the screening room." But Kazan thought differently: "If there is a better performance in the history of film in America, I don't know what it is!" Hollywood, which he shunned and who shunned him back, finally handed him his first Oscar for On the Waterfront (1954). He was a new breed of star -- an anti-star, making no concessions to studios, critics, glamour or decorum. He seemed to enjoy provoking Hollywood with his regularly, unpredictable behaviour, and became the poster boy for attitude and angst. The more he resisted the studios overtures, the more the studios wanted him. But sweet success only brought him tedious ennui. A string of awards and successes celebrated his artistry, but despite roles like Napoleon in Desirée (1954), Sky Masterson in Guys and Dolls (1955), Sakini in Teahouse of the August Moon (1956), it was obvious that though he still commanded respect from his peers, Marlon was "bored with it all". A downward spiral started in the early 1960s and the decade was riddled with a string of forgettable productions. He bought his own island near Tahiti "because there, they don't care who you are". But his genius would surface again and again in all of his 40 films to confound and astound. In 1972 the Mob came calling in the form of Don Corleone in Francis Ford Coppola's classic epic The Godfather. A whole new generation of youngsters discovered the miracle and magic of Marlon Brando. In a recent Premiere Magazine poll Brando's "Don Corleone" was named the single most memorable character in movie history. He was awarded his second Oscar. Another remarkable feat followed in Bernardo Bertolucci's Last Tango in Paris (1972), which included the most daring sex scenes of his time. No other actor but Brando would have dared to appear in it. Last Tango was the X-Rated sensation of its day. Mourning the loss of his friend and neighbour, Jack Nicholson exclaimed: "there's no one before or since like Marlon Brando. His gift was flawless, like Michel Angelo or Picasso -- he gave us all our freedom." Battling the jagged rocks of his turbulent destiny laid the foundation for his divine virtuosity. Marlon explained: "When you are a child who is unwanted or unwelcome and the essence of what you are seems unacceptable, you look for an identity that will be acceptable." Yet he often derided his profession, "the only reason why I am here is that I don't have the moral courage to turn down the money." He bragged about how much money he earned for three minutes on the screen for Superman -- the amount, $4 million in 1976. In Apocalypse Now (1979), the amount rose to $10 million. In recent years he receded into a private world haunted by his demons, family crises, and obesity, "food has always been my friend". His recent portly frame makes us forget that Marlon Brando was one of the most beautiful men of the silver screen. His blend of anger and tenderness, his vast masculinity and feminine vulnerability revealed how unashamed he was of his raw human urges and desires. His animal howl will always rip us apart with its savagery and sensitivity. He was never predictable, never ordinary, never definable. It is our duty to keep his genius undefined and undefiled. Watching Marlon Brando gave me the courage to rebel against the confines of my own stifling traditions and take up a career in acting. He made us all rebels. When the immortal Wild One was asked in the 1953 film: "What're you rebelling against, Johnny?" Johnny, or was it Marlon, replied: "Whaddya got?" Brando was Brando - not just an icon, not just a legend, but a philosophy, a movement, a revolution. Dead he is not, but departed -- For the artist never dies!" Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. "Now he belongs to the ages!" E-mail address: [email protected]
