50 Fun Facts About Marlon Brando

In which city was Marlon Brando born in 1924?

His father was a travelling salesman and his mother a stage actress; his ancestry was German, Dutch, English and Irish, with no Italian at all.

From which military academy was Brando effectively expelled in 1943 for insubordination?

His father had attended it too; a football injury there left him with a trick knee that kept him out of the Army.

When Stella Adler told her class to act like chickens with a nuclear bomb falling, what did Brando do?

'I'm a chicken—what do I know about bombs?' he explained; he insisted Adler and Kazan, not Lee Strasberg, taught him.

Which childhood friend from Evanston, Illinois stayed close to Brando until his 1973 death and later shared his ashes?

'If Wally had been a woman, I would have married him,' Brando said; their ashes were scattered in Tahiti and Death Valley.

Brando made his Broadway debut in 1944 in which play?

He played the son of Mady Christians; Truckline Cafe later got him voted Most Promising Young Actor.

Which star fired Brando from her play, then recommended him for Stanley Kowalski as 'a total pig of a man'?

He had scratched, picked his nose and mumbled his way through her tour; she still called him 'a great young actor when he wanted to be'.

On which boxer did Brando base his portrayal of Stanley Kowalski?

Graziano attended on tickets Brando gave him: 'on the stage is that son of a bitch from the gym, and he's playing me.'

How did Brando prepare to play a paraplegic veteran in his first film, The Men (1950)?

Bosley Crowther wrote that he could 'lash into a passionate rage with the tearful and flailing frenzy of a taut cable suddenly cut'.

On the induction questionnaire, Brando described his race as 'human' and his colour as what?

He told an Army doctor he was psychoneurotic and avoided service in the Korean War.

Asked on The Godfather set why he wanted his lines printed out on cards, what did Brando reply?

He claimed cue cards made him seem to search for words like a real person; others thought it was laziness.

Which Mexican revolutionary did Brando play in a 1952 Kazan film, earning his second Oscar nod?

Kazan secretly told co-star Anthony Quinn that Brando was unimpressed with him, to create tension; the two only compared notes years later.

Which Shakespearean role did Brando play opposite John Gielgud in 1953?

John Huston said watching it was 'like a furnace door opening'; Gielgud offered him a season at Hammersmith, which he declined.

What was the make of motorcycle Brando rode in The Wild One (1953)?

Sales of leather jackets and motorcycles soared afterwards; 'Nobody tells me what to do' was, he said, exactly how he felt all his life.

Which singer nearly got Terry Malloy in On the Waterfront before Spiegel wooed Brando back?

Brando was still angry at Kazan for naming names to HUAC; Kazan admitted 'I always preferred Brando to anybody'.

In the 'I coulda been a contender' scene, what did Brando insist his character do with the gun?

Kazan asked 'what other actor... would put his hand on the gun and push it away with the gentleness of a caress?'

What happened to Brando's Oscar statuette for On the Waterfront?

He had walked out of the first screening convinced 'I was a huge failure'.

How did Brando describe his singing voice in Guys and Dolls (1955), his only musical?

His songs were stitched together from countless takes; he and co-star Sinatra were frosty.

In The Teahouse of the August Moon (1956), Brando played Sakini, an interpreter of what nationality?

Pauline Kael said he 'starved himself to play the pixie interpreter' and talked 'with a mad accent'.

For The Young Lions (1958), Brando dyed his hair blond to play a soldier of which nationality?

He argued the character should not be a Nazi caricature, prompting a televised row with novelist Irwin Shaw.

Which director was fired early from One-Eyed Jacks (1961), leaving Brando to make his directorial debut?

Shooting stretched from three months to six, costs doubled past $6 million and Paramount took the film away from him.

How much did a 1962 Saturday Evening Post story say Brando's Tahiti-shoot behaviour had sent 'down the drain'?

Director Lewis Milestone said executives 'deserve what they get when they give a ham actor, a petulant child, complete control'.

How did Brando describe his middle-aged 1960s career slump in his memoir?

He made The Night of the Following Day 'only for the money' and Candy, widely seen as his nadir, because a friend asked.

Which 1969 film, loosely based on Guadeloupe's history, did Brando call his own favourite?

He said director Gillo Pontecorvo was the best he had worked with after Kazan and Bertolucci, and that 'we nearly killed each other'.

What did Brando use in his videotaped Godfather 'make-up test' to simulate the Don's puffed cheeks?

Paramount's president had sworn Brando would never be in the picture; Gulf+Western's boss saw the test and asked 'What are we watching?'

Which two actors did Coppola narrow his Don Corleone shortlist to as 'the greatest actors in the world'?

Olivier then competed with Brando for the Best Actor Oscar with Sleuth, and beat him at the New York Film Critics Circle.

Brando became the second actor to refuse a Best Actor Oscar. Who was the first?

Scott declined for Patton; Brando sent Sacheen Littlefeather to decline his in 1973.

Sacheen Littlefeather's refusal of Brando's Oscar took place while which standoff was ongoing?

She cited 'the poor treatment of Native Americans in the film industry'; Brando had been arrested at a Puget Sound 'fish-in' in 1964.

For how many years did Brando refuse to speak to Bernardo Bertolucci after Last Tango in Paris?

Bertolucci finally called in about 1993 and Brando said 'Come here... Now', as if nothing had happened.

How much was Brando paid for about two weeks' work as Jor-El in Superman (1978)?

He also demanded not to read the script and to have his lines displayed off-camera; he later blocked his Superman II footage over money.

How much per week was Brando paid for his three weeks of work on Apocalypse Now?

With his gross points he earned around $9 million; the whispered 'The horror! The horror!' became the film's most famous moment.

For which 1979 miniseries did Brando win a Primetime Emmy?

He then took a nine-year hiatus from acting.

Brando appeared for free in which 1989 anti-apartheid film, then fell out with its director?

It still earned him an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor and a Tokyo festival prize.

In The Freshman (1990), Brando played Carmine Sabatini, a caricature of which of his own roles?

Roger Ebert asked whether any star had ever repeated a triumph 'more triumphantly'.

For which 1996 film did Brando win a Golden Raspberry for Worst Supporting Actor?

Screenwriter Ron Hutchinson later wrote that Brando sabotaged the production by feuding with everyone.

Brando's last completed film, The Score (2001), paired him with which actor?

He played a fence; the film was received generally positively, unlike its predecessors.

How many children did Brando father or adopt, at least?

Three were adopted; his partners included Anna Kashfi, Movita Castaneda, Tarita Teriipaia and his housekeeper Maria Cristina Ruiz.

Which actress, Brando's lover from 1954, wrote that he arranged a botched abortion for her?

She later played his love interest in The Night of the Following Day and accused him of throwing chairs when she mentioned dating Elvis.

Brando's second wife, Movita Castaneda, had appeared in which earlier version of a film he later remade?

The marriage was annulled in 1968 when it emerged she was still married to her first husband.

Which Tahitian co-star from Mutiny on the Bounty became Brando's long-term partner and made him fluent in French?

They had two children, Teihotu and Cheyenne, and he adopted her daughter and niece.

What is Tetiaroa, which Brando bought after falling in love with Tahiti?

He built an eco-village and a bird-and-turtle laboratory there; a hotel called The Brando opened in 2014.

Members of which tribe reportedly named the spot of Brando's 1964 'fish-in' arrest 'Brando's Landing'?

The protest near Tacoma was over broken treaty fishing rights in Puget Sound.

What was the title of Brando's 1994 autobiography?

It skipped his marriages and children entirely; Fan-Tan was a novel he conceived with Donald Cammell, published in 2005.

Whose 2001 video 'You Rock My World' featured Brando, a regular guest at the singer's ranch?

His son Miko was Jackson's bodyguard; 'The last time my father left his house to go anywhere... it was with Michael Jackson.'

Brando's final role, voiced in 2004 for the unreleased Big Bug Man, was his only what?

He voiced Mrs. Sour; shortly before dying he also recorded one line as Vito Corleone for the Godfather video game while on oxygen.

How old was Brando when he died of respiratory failure in July 2004?

He also had diabetes and liver cancer, and weighed over 300 pounds in the 1990s.

Where were Brando's ashes, mixed with Wally Cox's, scattered?

He had prised Cox's ashes from the widow, who conceded 'Marlon needed the ashes more than I did'.

Which two later stars reputedly copied Brando, one basing his Jailhouse Rock image on him?

Johnny Strabler's haircut in The Wild One set off a craze for sideburns.

How many Oscar nominations did Brando receive for Best Actor with Last Tango in Paris?

His eighth and last nomination, for supporting actor, came for A Dry White Season in 1989.

Brando's production company, formed with Paramount in the 1950s, was named in tribute to whom?

Dorothy Pennebaker Brando died in 1954; the company's declared purpose was films with 'social value that would improve the world'.

Which future Emmy-winning Broadway producer did Brando live with when he first arrived in New York?

He spent his first months sleeping on friends' couches while studying under Erwin Piscator at the New School.