Marlon Brando, Jr. (April 3, 1924 – July 1, 2004) was an American movie star and political activist. "Unchallenged as the most important actor in modern American Cinema" according to the St. James Encyclopedia of Popular Culture,Brando was one of only three professional actors, along with Charlie Chaplin and Marilyn Monroe, named by Time magazine as one of its 100 Persons of the Century in 1999.
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Brando had a significant impact on film acting, and was the foremost example of the
"method" acting style. While he became notorious for his "mumbling" diction and exuding a raw animal magnetism, his mercurial performances were nonetheless highly regarded, and he is widely considered as one of the greatest and most influential actors of the 20th century. Director
Martin Scorsese said of him, "He is the marker. There's 'before Brando' and 'after Brando'." Actor
Jack Nicholson once said, "When Marlon dies, everybody moves up one." He was ranked by the
American Film Institute as the
fourth greatest screen legend among male movie stars.
An enduring
cultural icon, Brando became a box office star during the 1950s, during which time he racked up five Oscar nominations as Best Actor, along with three consecutive wins of the
BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role. He initially gained popularity for recreating the role as
Stanley Kowalskiin
A Streetcar Named Desire (1951), a
Tennessee Williams play that had established him as a
Broadway star during its 1947-49 stage run; and for his Academy Award-winning performance as Terry Malloy in
On the Waterfront (1954), as well as for his iconic portrayal of the rebel motorcycle gang leader Johnny Strabler in
The Wild One (1953), which is considered to be one of the most famous images in
pop culture. Brando was also nominated for the Oscar for playing
Emiliano Zapata in
Viva Zapata! (1952);
Mark Antony in
Joseph L. Mankiewicz's 1953
film adaptation of
Shakespeare's
Julius Caesar; and as Air Force Major Lloyd Gruver in
Sayonara (1957),
Joshua Logan's adaption of
James Michener's 1954 novel. Brando made the
Top Ten Money Making Stars, as ranked by Quigley Publications' annual survey of movie exhibitors, three times in the decade, coming in at number 10 in 1954, number 6 in 1955, and number 4 in 1958.
Brando directed and starred in the cult western film One-Eyed Jacks that was released in 1961, after which he delivered a series of box office failures beginning with the non-success of the 1962 film adaptation of Mutiny on the Bounty. The 1960s proved to be a fallow decade for Brando, and after 10 years in which he did not appear in a commercially successful movie, he won his second Academy Award for playing Vito Corleone in Francis Ford Coppola's The Godfather (1972), a role critics consider among his greatest. The movie, which became the most commercially successful film of all time when it was released — along with his Oscar-nominated performance as Paul in Last Tango in Paris (1972), another smash hit — revitalized Brando's career and reestablished him in the ranks of top box office stars, placing him at number 6 and number 10 in Top 10 Money Making Stars poll in 1972 and 1973, respectively.
Brando failed to capitalize on the momentum of his revitalized career, taking a long hiatus before appearing in
The Missouri Breaks (1976), a box office bomb. Afterwards, he was content to be a highly-paid character actor in parts that were glorified
cameos in
Superman (1978) and
The Formula (1980) before taking a nine-year break from motion pictures. According to the
Guinness Book of World Records, Brando was paid a record $3.7 million ($14,190,445 in today's funds) plus 11.75% of the gross profits for 13 days work playing
Jor-El in
Superman, further adding to his mystique. He finished out the decade of the 1970s with his highly-controversial performance as
Colonel Walter Kurtz in another Coppola film,
Apocalypse Now (1979), a box office hit for which he was highly paid and that helped finance his career layoff during the 1980s.
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