Hello, my friends, old and new! Today we will celebrate a man who spearheaded a revolutionary change both in acting and in personal attitude in the Hollywood constellation. He is, in my opinion, the best movie actor of the 20th century. He is Marlon Brando.
Marlon Brando, Jr. was born on April 3, 1924, in Omaha, Nebraska, to Marlon Brando, Sr., a calcium carbonate salesman, and his artistically inclined wife, the former Dorothy Julia Pennebaker. "Bud" Brando was one of three children. His ancestry included English, Irish, German, Dutch, French Huguenot, Welsh, and Scottish; his surname originated with a distant German immigrant ancestor named "Brandau." His oldest sister Jocelyn Brando was also an actress, taking after their mother, who engaged in amateur theatricals and mentored a then-unknown Henry Fonda, another Nebraska native, in her role as director of the Omaha Community Playhouse. Frannie, Brando's other sibling, was a visual artist. Both Brando sisters contrived to leave the Midwest for New York City, Jocelyn to study acting and Frannie to study art. Marlon managed to escape the vocational doldrums forecast for him by his cold, distant father and his disapproving schoolteachers by striking out for The Big Apple in 1943, following Jocelyn into the acting profession. Acting was the only thing he was good at, for which he received praise, so he was determined to make it his career - a high-school dropout, he had nothing else to fall back on, having been rejected by the military due to a knee injury he incurred playing football at Shattuck Military Academy, Brando Sr.'s alma mater. The school booted Marlon out as incorrigible before graduation.
Acting was a skill he honed as a child, the lonely son of alcoholic parents. With his father away on the road, and his mother frequently intoxicated to the point of stupefaction, the young Bud would play-act for her to draw her out of her stupor and to attract her attention and love. His mother was exceedingly neglectful, but he loved her, particularly for instilling in him a love of nature. Sometimes he had to go down to the town jail to pick up his mother after she had spent the night in the drunk tank and bring her home, events that traumatized the young boy but may have been the grain that irritated the oyster of his talent, producing the pearls of his performances.
Brando enrolled in Erwin Piscator's Dramatic Workshop at New York's New School and was mentored by Stella Adler, a member of a famous Yiddish Theatre acting family. Adler helped introduce to the New York stage the "emotional memory" technique of Russian theatrical actor, director and impresario Konstantin Stanislavski, whose motto was "Think of your own experiences and use them truthfully." The results of this meeting between an actor and the teacher preparing him for a life in the theater would mark a watershed in American acting and culture.
Brando made his debut on the boards of Broadway on October 19, 1944, in "I Remember Mama," a great success. As a young Broadway actor, Brando was invited by talent scouts from several different studios to screen-test for them, but he turned them down because he would not let himself be bound by the then-standard seven-year contract. Brando would make his film debut quite some time later in Fred Zinnemann's The Men (1950) for producer Stanley Kramer. Playing a paraplegic soldier, Brando brought new levels of realism to the screen, expanding on the verisimilitude brought to movies by Group Theatre alumni John Garfield, the predecessor closest to him in the raw power he projected on-screen.
This scene from The Men attests to Brando's physical presence:
... while this scene from the same movie reveals Brando's acting presence:
Ironically, it was Garfield whom producer Irene Mayer Selznick had chosen to play the lead in a new Tennessee Williams play she was about to produce, but negotiations broke down when Garfield demanded an ownership stake in "A Streetcar Named Desire." Burt Lancaster was next approached, but couldn't get out of a prior film commitment. Then director Elia Kazan suggested Brando, whom he had directed to great effect in Maxwell Anderson's play "Truckline Café," in which Brando co-starred with Karl Malden, who was to remain a close friend for the next 60 years.
During the production of "Truckline Café," Kazan had found that Brando's presence was so magnetic, he had to re-block the play to keep Marlon near other major characters' stage business, as the audience could not take its eyes off of him. For the scene where Brando's character re-enters the stage after killing his wife, Kazan placed him upstage-center, partially obscured by scenery, but where the audience could still see him as Karl Malden and others played out their scene within the café set. When he eventually entered the scene, crying, the effect was electric. A young Pauline Kael, arriving late to the play, had to avert her eyes when Brando made this entrance as she believed the young actor on stage was having a real-life conniption. She did not look back until her escort commented that the young man was a great actor.
The problem with casting Brando as Stanley was that he was much younger than the character as written by Williams. However, after a meeting between Brando and Williams, the playwright eagerly agreed that Brando would make an ideal Stanley. Williams believed that by casting a younger actor, the Neanderthalish Kowalski would evolve from being a vicious older man to someone whose unintentional cruelty can be attributed to his youthful ignorance. Brando ultimately was dissatisfied with his performance, though, saying he never was able to bring out the humor of the character, which was ironic as his characterization often drew laughs from the audience at the expense of Jessica Tandy's Blanche Dubois. During the out-of-town tryouts, Kazan realized that Brando's magnetism was attracting attention and audience sympathy away from Blanche to Stanley, which was not what the playwright intended. The audience's sympathy should be solely with Blanche, but many spectators were identifying with Stanley. Kazan queried Williams on the matter, broaching the idea of a slight rewrite to tip the scales back to more of a balance between Stanley and Blanche, but Williams demurred, smitten as he was by Brando, just like the preview audiences.
For his part, Brando believed that the audience sided with his Stanley because Jessica Tandy was too shrill. He thought Vivien Leigh, who played the part in the movie, was ideal, as she was not only a great beauty but she WAS Blanche Dubois, troubled as she was in her real life by mental illness and nymphomania. Brando's appearance as Stanley on stage and on screen revolutionized American acting by introducing "The Method" into American consciousness and culture. Method acting, rooted in Adler's study at the Moscow Art Theatre of Stanislavsky's theories that she subsequently introduced to the Group Theatre, was a more naturalistic style of performing, as it engendered a close identification of the actor with the character's emotions. Adler took first place among Brando's acting teachers, and socially she helped turn him from an unsophisticated Midwestern farm boy into a knowledgeable and cosmopolitan artist who one day would socialize with presidents.
When the film came out in 1951, directed by Kazan and starring Brando, Leigh, Malden, and Kim Hunter, it was an instant classic: it was only the second Tennessee Williams play to be adapted for Hollywood (The Glass Menagerie came out a few months earlier) and its success made Tennessee Williams the most sought-after playwright in Hollywood in the 1950s and 60s. The film was nominated for 12 Oscars, eventually winning four, three of which were for its actors, Leigh, Malden, and Hunter. Brando, although he was nominated (his first of 8 nominations) lost out to Humphrey Bogart for John Huston's African Queen. Was Bogart better that year? No, But he was a loved veteran who had never won until then, even if his iconic presence in movies like The Maltese Falcon and Casablanca has survived until today. He was also well-respected for taking an anti-McCarthy stance during the Hollywood witch-hunt. Brando was still "fresh", in only his second screen part - and furthermore, he was "naughty", refusing to play the Hollywood PR game. The final straw against him winning was that the "youthful-minded" votes were split between him and Montgomery Clift, who also gave a career-defining performance in A Place In The Sun.
I guess Hollywood must have felt a little guilty for not awarding Brando - and to atone gave Marlon three more consecutive nominations - and a win at the end of the run. Anyway, if you haven't yet seen A Streetcar Named Desire - you better do. This scene is Blanche and Stanley's first meeting:
... This is the famous "Stella!" scene:
... This is the equally powerful "I'm the King Around Here" scene:
... And this is the "Pearls Before Swine" scene:
His next film was also directed by Kazan - and was his second Oscar nomination. It was John Steinbeck's Viva Zapata! (1952). Here's a scene from the film:
In the star-studded adaptation of Shakespeare's Julius Caesar (1953) by Joseph Mankiewicz. Brando stood out as Mark Antony. Director John Huston said his performance of Mark Antony was like seeing the door of a furnace opened in a dark room, and co-star John Gielgud, the premier Shakespearean actor of the 20th century, invited Brando to join his repertory company. Brando received his third Oscar nomination for this film. This is the "Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears" scene, which should be required viewing for every politician:
The Wild One (1953) helped cement the Brando legend. His iconic performance as the rebel-without-a-cause Johnny ("What are you rebelling against?" Johnny is asked. "What have ya got?" is his reply), brought into fashion the tough motor-cyclists clad in black leather. This is a scene from the film. With him is a young Lee Marvin:
For his On the Waterfront (1954) portrayal of meat-headed longshoreman Terry Malloy, the washed-up pug who "coulda been a contender," Brando won his first Oscar. Bette Davis, who truly appreciated talent, was happy to hand over the Oscar to him. This is the "I Coulda Been A Contender" scene:
... This is the fight with Lee J. Cobb:
... This is the finale:
There were the occasional misfires. He was miscast as Napoleon in Désirée (1954), yet his worst was better than many actors' best. This is the trailer:
One would expect that Brando in a musical wouldn't work, yet he did fine in Guys and Dolls (1955). Here he is with Luck Be A Lady:
Another misfire was The Teahouse of the August Moon (1956), where Brando was cast as a Japanese. At least he had fun doing it. Here he is:
The box-office high point of his early career was Sayonara (1957) for which he received his fifth Best Actor Oscar nomination:
In The Young Lions (1958) he portrayed a Nazi officer:
He successfully revisited Tennessee Williams with The Fugitive Kind (1960), along with another Williams' veteran, the great Anna Magnani:
Brando tried his hand at directing a film, the well-reviewed One-Eyed Jacks (1961) that he made for his own production company, Pennebaker Productions (after his mother's maiden name). Stanley Kubrick had been hired to direct the film, but after months of script rewrites in which Brando participated, Kubrick and Brando had a falling out and Kubrick was sacked. According to his widow Christiane Kubrick, Stanley believed that Brando had wanted to direct the film himself all along. Here is Martin Scorsese talking about it:
Mutiny on the Bounty (1962) was an epic that could have been great, but Brando's notorious on-set antics made co-star Richard Harris would later describe the production as "nightmarish" and "a total fucking disaster". Marlon Brando later wrote a long letter to Trevor Howard apologizing for his behavior during filming. However, something good came of this experience: Brando fell in love with Tahiti and the nearby islands, buying one for himself. He also fell in love with his soon-to-be third wife, Tarita, who was a cast member. This is a scene from the film:
In The Ugly American (1963) he portrayed an American ambassador, a role that would later give Michael Caine an Oscar nomination:
Morituri (1965) was a war drama. This is the trailer:
The Chase (1966) was a good film, written by Lillian Hellman and directed by Arthur Penn. Alongside Brando were soon-to-be stars, like Robert Redford, Jane Fonda, Angie Dickinson, and Robert Duvall. Here's a scene from it:
Despite working alongside the genius called Charlie Chaplin, who wrote and directed the film, as well as two of the sexiest ladies of the era, Sophia Loren and Tippi Hedren, A Countess from Hong Kong (1967) was a critical and commercial failure. It was to be Chaplin's last film. Here is a scene:
Nobody can say that Brando didn't take risks in choosing his roles. In John Huston's Reflections in a Golden Eye (1967) he portrays a closeted gay military man married to a loud and unsatisfied Elizabeth Taylor. In this scene Brando is cruising Robert Forster:
Here he is with Elizabeth Taylor:
By the time Brando began making the anti-colonialist picture Burn! (1969) in Colombia with Gillo Pontecorvo in the director's chair, he was box-office poison, despite having worked in the previous five years with such top directors as Arthur Penn, John Huston, and the legendary Charles Chaplin, and with such top-drawer co-stars as David Niven, Yul Brynner, Sophia Loren, and Taylor.
Despite evidence in such films that Brando was, in fact, doing some of the best acting of his life, critics, perhaps with an eye on the box office, slammed him for failing to live up to, and nurture, his great gift. Brando's political activism, starting in the early 1960s with his championing of Native Americans' rights, followed by his participation in the Southern Christian Leadership Conference's March on Washington in 1963, and followed by his appearance at a Black Panther rally in 1968, did not win him many admirers in the establishment. In fact, there was a de facto embargo on Brando films in the recently segregated (officially, at least) southeastern US in the 1960s. Southern exhibitors simply would not book his films, and producers took notice. After 1968, Brando would not work for three years.
This is a scene from Burn!:
The last film of the first phase of Brando's career was made in England and was directed by Michael Winner. It was called The Nightcomers (1971) and it was a prequel to Henry James' "The Turn of the Screw", itself the basis of the wonderful film The Innocents (1961) starring Deborah Kerr. A scene from the film:
Charlton Heston, who participated in Martin Luther King's 1963 March on Washington with Brando, believes that Marlon was the great actor of his generation. However, noting a story that Brando had once refused a role in the early 1960s with the excuse "How can I act when people are starving in India?" Heston believes that it was this attitude, the inability to separate one's idealism from one's work, that prevented Brando from reaching his potential. As Rod Steiger once said, Brando had it all, great stardom and a great talent. He could have taken his audience on a trip to the stars, but he simply would not. Steiger, one of Brando's children even though a contemporary, could not understand it.
Then, Brando was given a second chance - and his career took off again. This career revival will be the subject of next week's second and final part of our story.
The weekend is here, which means it's time for our countdown and our statistics: At #169 of our Motown countdown, we have a tie; first off, let's talk about the first big hit-making act signed by Motown that consisted only of white members. Although not the first white band signed to Motown, none of the previously signed all-white acts The Rustix, The Dalton Boys, or The Underdogs had any hits. We are talking about the group that formed in 1960 as The Sunliners and changed its name to Rare Earth in 1968.
Written by Tom Baird and recorded by Rare Earth, Born To Wander (the song at #169) was released as a single in 1970 from the album Ecology. The single peaked at #17 on the US Hot 100. Here it is:
This is a live version from the 1971 album In Concert:
Also at #169 is another hit by Stevie Wonder. Journalist Alex Galbraith considers As (one of the shortest titles to become a hit single) as the greatest song Stevie Wonder has ever written. I wouldn't go so far, but it's one of his great songs in a plethora of great songs nonetheless.
As was a song written, produced, and performed by Stevie Wonder - and appeared on his 1976 epic album, Songs in the Key of Life. It reached #36 on both the Billboard Hot 100 and the US R&B chart. It gets its name from the first word of the song, which is repeated many times throughout.
The song implies that the love the singer has for his partner will never diminish, as he says that he will love her until the physically impossible becomes true. The impossible feats include: rainbows burning the stars out in the sky, oceans covering the tops of every mountain, dolphins flying, and parrots living at sea, dreaming of life and life becoming a dream, day becoming night and vice versa, trees and the seas flying away, 8×8×8 equaling 4, this day becoming the last day, the Earth turning right to left, the Earth denying itself, Mother Nature saying her work is through, and "until the day that you are me and I am you."
By the most straightforward interpretation of the lyrics, this is a lover serenading his beloved. By another possible interpretation, the lyrics describe the endless unconditional love for the listener, sung on behalf of the Abrahamic god. In yet a third interpretation the song expresses the lyricist's own love for humanity. The verse that begins with "We all know sometimes life's hates and troubles..." would seem to preclude the first interpretation, and the second interpretation would seem precluded by the lyric, "As today I know I'm living but tomorrow, Could make me the past but that I mustn't fear". Here it is:
Sister Sledge covered it and included it on their 1977 album Together:
It was also covered by violinist Jean-Luc Ponty on his 1982 album Mystical Adventures:
In 1999, George Michael and Mary J. Blige covered the song, and worldwide outside of the United States, it was the second single from George Michael's greatest hits album Ladies & Gentlemen: The Best of George Michael. It became a top ten UK pop hit, reaching #4 on the chart. It was not released on the US version of the greatest hits collection or as a single in the US; Michael cited Blige's record company president for pulling the track in America after Michael's arrest for committing a lewd act. Hmmm...
Singer-songwriter Becca Stevens included a cover of the song, featuring Jacob Collier, on her album Regina (2017):
At #168 we find Cloud Nine, a 1968 hit single recorded by The Temptations. It was written by Norman Whitfield and Barrett Strong, produced by Whitfield, and appeared on the 1969 album of the same title. The song marked a series of firsts: It was the first of their singles to feature Dennis Edwards instead of David Ruffin in the lineup, was the first of producer Norman Whitfield's psychedelic soul tracks, and won Motown its first Grammy Award.
How did the song come to be? Temptations member Otis Williams introduced Norman Whitfield to the music of the trailblazing soul/rock/psychedelic band, Sly & The Family Stone (who have also heavily influenced many others, Prince most prominent among them.) At first, Whitfield did not want to produce anything with such a radically different sound. "I don't want to get into all that crazy shit," he said. "That ain't nothing but a little passing fancy." Within a few weeks, however, he had created the backing tracks for the newest Temptations single, a psychedelic-styled number called Cloud Nine, and stuck primarily to such songs well into the early 1970s.
Featuring all five Temptations trading lead vocals à la The Family Stone, Cloud Nine was a marked departure from the standard Tempts sound: wah-wah guitars and a harder, driving beat propelled the record, as opposed to pianos and strings. The song also features the Cuban percussionist Mongo Santamaria on conga drums. Edwards, Eddie Kendricks, and Paul Williams swap leads on the verses, bridges, and choruses, such as this example from the first bridge:
Paul Williams: "You can be what you wanna be..."
Dennis Edwards: "You ain't got no responsibility..."
Eddie Kendricks: "And every man, in his mind is free..."
Dennis Edwards: "And you're a million miles from reality..."
Otis Williams has some brief lead lines on the last half of the song (i.e.: he repeats "Reality…"), and Melvin Franklin also gets a line near the end ("There's no difference between day and night…"). The lyrics for the song were about the struggles and pains of living poor, as opposed to being about relationship and love troubles. The broke, unemployed, and despondent main character in the song proclaims that he gets over all of his problems by "riding high on 'cloud nine'". This has been interpreted by many (including Motown head Berry Gordy) as a reference to drug abuse, although Whitfield, Strong, and The Temptations deny that Cloud Nine is about drugs.
Cloud Nine won Motown its first Grammy Award in 1969 for Best Rhythm & Blues Group Performance, Vocal or Instrumental, reached #2 in the US R&B chart and #6 in the Hot 100, and led the way for the Temptations' full-blown venture into psychedelia, with increasingly eclectic and socio-political-themed records, including Runaway Child, Running Wild, Psychedelic Shack, and Ball of Confusion (That's What the World Is Today), following within the coming two years. This is it:
Cloud Nine has been covered by the great Bob Marley and the Wailers. Here it is:
At #167 we meet Stevie Wonder again, but only as a co-composer, along with Lee Garrett, and as a co-producer, along with the song's performer, Jermaine Jackson. The song in question is Let's Get Serious, which appeared on Jermaine Jackson's 1980 album of the same name.
The single was Jermaine's first #1 US R&B hit and second Top 10 Pop hit, peaking at #9 on the Hot 100. It also reached the top 10 in the UK peaking at #8. At the end of the year, it became Billboard's #1 Soul hit for 1980, beating out brother Michael's platinum-certified mega-hit Rock with You which had to settle for #2. This is Let's Get Serious:
Finally for today, at #166, we find The Supremes with the song Love Is Here and Now You're Gone (1967), the ninth of their twelve number ones on the US Hot 100. It was also a #1 R&B hit, as well as a top 20 hit in the UK. Like most of their big pre-1968 hits, it was written and produced by the wonder-team of Holland–Dozier–Holland.
The song, which depicts a relationship in the beginning stages of breakup ("You persuaded me to love you/And I did/But instead of tenderness/I found heartache instead"), features several spoken sections from lead singer Diana Ross, who delivers her dialogue in a dramatic, emotive voice. Matching the song's drama influences is an instrumental track, featuring a prominent harpsichord and strings, which recalls both a Hollywood film score and The Left Banke's recently popularized Baroque rock. Lyricist Eddie Holland names Love is Here as his favorite Supremes song. Here it is:
Michael Jackson covered Love Is Here, and Now You're Gone for his solo debut album, Got to Be There (1972):
Tami Lynn covered the song on her debut album, Love Is Here and Now You're Gone (1972):
Phil Collins included this song on his 2010 album of soul covers, Going Back:
Now, let's continue with last week's statistics; sorry for missing last week. All the stories since we last spoke performed well - there were only two that underperformed: the one that featured Beyoncé's photo - and the latest, with Carly Simon's photo. Although the latter is still "young" and has the potential of doing better.
As far as countries are concerned, a great week for the United States, Greece, Pakistan, Canada, and Cyprus - while France, the United Kingdom, and Turkey are slightly falling behind. The other major players kept their percentages more or less stable. You may notice (on the all-time list) that while Germany and Canada appear to have the same percentage, I list Germany before Canada. This is because as far as the exact number of visits are concerned, Germany is still ahead of Canada, if only slightly.
Here are this week's Top 10 countries:
1. the United States
2. Greece
3. the United Kingdom
4. France
5. Canada
6. Cyprus
7. Australia
8. Germany
9. Pakistan
10. Brazil
Here are the other countries that graced us with their presence since our last statistics (alphabetically): Angola, Argentina, Armenia, Austria, the Bahamas, Bangladesh, Barbados, Belgium, Belize, Benin, Bermuda, Bolivia, Bulgaria, Cameroon, Chile, China, Colombia, Costa Rica, Croatia, Cuba, Czechia, Democratic Republic of Congo, Denmark, Ecuador, Egypt, Estonia, Finland, FYR Of Macedonia, Ghana, Guatemala, Guernsey, Haiti, Honduras, Hong Kong, Hungary, India, Indonesia, Iraq, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Jersey, Kenya, Kuwait, Kyrgyzstan, Latvia, Lebanon, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malaysia, Mexico, Moldova, Mongolia, Morocco, Myanmar (Burma), the Netherlands, New Caledonia, New Zealand, Nigeria, Norway, Oman, Panama, Peru, the Philippines, Poland, Portugal, Puerto Rico, Qatar, Romania, Russia, Rwanda, Saint Martin, Saudi Arabia, Serbia, Singapore, Slovakia, Slovenia, South Africa, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, Thailand, Turkey, Ukraine, the United Arab Emirates, Uruguay, Uzbekistan, Venezuela, Vietnam, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. Happy to have you all!
And here's the all-time Top 10:
1. the United States = 31.4%
2. France = 19.2%
3. the United Kingdom = 11.9%
4. Greece = 8.4%
5. Russia = 2.4%
6. Germany = 1.8%
7. Canada = 1.8%
8. Italy = 1.1%
9. Cyprus = 0.93%
10. Turkey = 0.79%
That's all for today, folks. Till the next one!
