Legendary Actors : Marlon Brando

                                                            Marlon Brando was quite simply one of the most celebrated and influential screen and stage actor; he rewrote the rules of performing, and nothing was ever the same again. Marlon Brando movies range from well-acted masterpieces to wildly out-of-control disasters. That’s because the celebrated actor was prone to moments of genius followed by equally bizarre periods of strangeness. Brooding, and intense, his greatest contribution was popularizing "Method acting".

What is Method Acting? 

                                  Lee Strasberg , a film theorist of acting and a leader of the Actors Studio, suggested that the most effective film performers were those who did not act. “They try not to act but to be themselves,to respond or react,” he said. 
                                    The “Method Acting” requires a performer to draw on his or her own self, on experiences, memories, and emotions that could inform a characterization and shape how a character might speak or move. Characters were thus shown to speak and gesture in a manner one would use in private life; rather than being stereotyped figures representing a single concept (the hero, the villain, the heroine).

Marlon Brando Facts:

•   He was the lonely son of alcoholic parents and acting was a skill he honed as a child.

•   Worked as a department store elevator operator before he became famous. 

•   Was named #4 Actor on "The 50 Greatest Screen Legends" list by American Film Institute.

• His monumental portrayal of Vito Corleone in the masterpiece The Godfather (1972) is the #1 "Greatest Movie Character of All Time."

•  Brando was nominated seven times for oscars and won two times.The one he'd won for On the Waterfront (1954), had been stolen. Prior to its theft, Brando had been using the Oscar as a doorstop. He refused his Best Actor Oscar for The Godfather (1972).

• Brando had Dyslexia(Learning Difficulties), and so often improvised his own dialogue.

•  Before he would agree to appear as Jor-El in Superman: The Movie, Brando demanded that he would receive $3.7 million for two weeks of work, would not have to read the script beforehand, and would have his lines displayed somewhere off-camera. All these demands were met. 

• He was a close friend of the great singer Michael Jackson for many years.

• He died in 2004 at the age of 80, from obesity, pulmonary fibrosis, diabetes, cardiac failure, and an enlarged liver suggesting cancer.

 Marlon Brando Quotes:

                "To grasp the full significance of life is the actor's duty, to interpret it is his problem, and to express it his dedication."

"Privacy is not something that I'm merely entitled to, it's an absolute prerequisite."

"If you're successful, acting is about as soft a job as anybody could ever wish for. But if you're unsuccessful, it's worse than having a skin disease." 

"The only reason I'm in Hollywood is that I don't have the moral courage to refuse the money."

"Never confuse the size of your paycheck with the size of your talent." 

"If there's anything unsettling, it's watching actors on television talk about their personal lives."

"The only thing an actor owes his public is not to bore them."

"Regret is useless in life. It's in the past. All we have is now."

                                                  A combative and often contradictory man, Brando is one of the screen's greatest enigmas, and there will never be another quite like him. 

 Marlon Brando - Wikipedia