WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:04.360 How does a guy who actively despises the craft 00:00:04.360 --> 00:00:07.080 of acting become the single greatest actor of 00:00:07.080 --> 00:00:09.259 the 20th century? I mean, it's the ultimate Hollywood 00:00:09.259 --> 00:00:11.439 paradox, right? You have someone who fundamentally 00:00:11.439 --> 00:00:14.580 changed the DNA of American cinema. He influenced 00:00:14.580 --> 00:00:17.280 literally every performer that came after him. 00:00:17.839 --> 00:00:19.179 And yet... Spent his whole life running away 00:00:19.179 --> 00:00:21.219 from it. Exactly. Running away from the very 00:00:21.219 --> 00:00:24.250 profession that made him... global icon. He practically 00:00:24.250 --> 00:00:26.769 tried to burn his own career to the ground like 00:00:26.769 --> 00:00:30.510 multiple times. Absolutely. So today's deep dive 00:00:30.510 --> 00:00:33.670 is all about that contradiction. We are exploring 00:00:33.670 --> 00:00:37.030 the life, the career, and the incredibly complex 00:00:37.030 --> 00:00:41.170 legacy of Marlon Brando and we're drawing entirely 00:00:41.170 --> 00:00:44.460 from his incredibly comprehensive Wikipedia page 00:00:44.460 --> 00:00:46.579 for this. It is a massive page. It really is. 00:00:46.759 --> 00:00:48.640 So we are taking you on a journey today to discover 00:00:48.640 --> 00:00:51.799 exactly how a rebellious, deeply troubled kid 00:00:51.799 --> 00:00:54.820 rewired an entire art form. Almost by accident. 00:00:55.020 --> 00:00:57.520 Right. And to understand that accident, we really 00:00:57.520 --> 00:00:59.619 have to look at the environment that forged him. 00:00:59.820 --> 00:01:02.560 Yeah, because everything Brando did, whether 00:01:02.560 --> 00:01:05.299 on screen or in his public life, was essentially 00:01:05.299 --> 00:01:08.140 born out of a rebellion against authority. Which 00:01:08.140 --> 00:01:11.239 started really early. It did, combined with this 00:01:11.239 --> 00:01:14.439 desperate, deeply buried need for acceptance 00:01:14.439 --> 00:01:17.140 that goes right back to his childhood. OK, let's 00:01:17.140 --> 00:01:19.379 unpack this. Because looking at the sources, 00:01:19.500 --> 00:01:22.640 his early life in Omaha, Nebraska, it reads like 00:01:22.640 --> 00:01:25.379 a psychological pressure cooker. That's a great 00:01:25.379 --> 00:01:27.579 way to put it. He was born in 1924, right? Mm. 00:01:28.170 --> 00:01:30.269 a father who was a traveling salesman. So he 00:01:30.269 --> 00:01:32.829 was very distant, very strict. And his mother 00:01:32.829 --> 00:01:35.390 is a stage actress, but she struggles really 00:01:35.390 --> 00:01:37.849 heavily with alcoholism. Yeah, she's frequently 00:01:37.849 --> 00:01:40.109 absent from the home. So young Marlon actually 00:01:40.109 --> 00:01:42.450 attaches himself to the family housekeeper. Which 00:01:42.450 --> 00:01:46.650 sets up his first major emotional trauma, because 00:01:46.650 --> 00:01:48.569 eventually, you know, that housekeeper leaves 00:01:48.569 --> 00:01:52.069 to get married. Oh, man. And Brando is just utterly 00:01:52.069 --> 00:01:55.049 devastated. He develops these profound abandonment 00:01:55.049 --> 00:01:58.599 issues. What's fascinating here is how that specific 00:01:58.599 --> 00:02:02.540 childhood trauma the emotional neglect the constant 00:02:02.540 --> 00:02:05.459 lack of approval from his father how that actually 00:02:05.459 --> 00:02:08.219 fueled his revolutionary ability as an actor 00:02:08.219 --> 00:02:10.379 later on because he had so much to draw from 00:02:10.379 --> 00:02:13.400 exactly he was carrying around this immense reservoir 00:02:13.400 --> 00:02:17.319 of buried, intense emotion, just because he had 00:02:17.319 --> 00:02:19.680 to survive it every single day. But he certainly 00:02:19.680 --> 00:02:22.219 didn't, like, channel that into art right away. 00:02:22.479 --> 00:02:25.340 No, not at all. The sources show a kid who is 00:02:25.340 --> 00:02:27.919 just a complete menace to any kind of institutional 00:02:27.919 --> 00:02:30.080 structure. I mean, he gets expelled from high 00:02:30.080 --> 00:02:32.300 school for riding a motorcycle through the hallways. 00:02:32.379 --> 00:02:35.080 Just a classic rebel move. Right, so his father 00:02:35.080 --> 00:02:38.020 sends him to Shattuck Military Academy, assuming... 00:02:37.909 --> 00:02:39.810 strict discipline is going to fix him. Which 00:02:39.810 --> 00:02:42.110 does the exact opposite. He is constantly on 00:02:42.110 --> 00:02:44.750 probation for insubordination. He sneaks into 00:02:44.750 --> 00:02:47.409 town, gets caught, and ends up just dropping 00:02:47.409 --> 00:02:49.889 out entirely. You just cannot abide anyone telling 00:02:49.889 --> 00:02:52.689 him what to do. No. Which makes his draft board 00:02:52.689 --> 00:02:54.969 experience kind of hilarious in a dark way. Oh, 00:02:54.969 --> 00:02:58.030 right. World War II is raging. He goes for his 00:02:58.030 --> 00:03:00.449 physical, and he actively dodges the military 00:03:00.449 --> 00:03:03.550 draft. He tells an army doctor he's psychoneurotic. 00:03:03.770 --> 00:03:06.830 Yeah, and he claims he has a trick knee from 00:03:06.830 --> 00:03:09.610 playing football. But the best part, when he's 00:03:09.610 --> 00:03:11.830 filling out the medical questionnaire under race, 00:03:12.330 --> 00:03:15.250 he writes, human. And for his color. He writes, 00:03:15.669 --> 00:03:19.150 seasonal oyster white to beige. I mean, he is 00:03:19.150 --> 00:03:22.210 treating the entire military apparatus with complete 00:03:22.210 --> 00:03:25.199 contempt. He makes sure every authority figure 00:03:25.199 --> 00:03:27.360 in that room knows he thinks their system is 00:03:27.360 --> 00:03:30.479 a joke. Wait, so if he hated authority and structure 00:03:30.479 --> 00:03:34.199 so much, how does a guy like that survive the 00:03:34.199 --> 00:03:37.500 incredibly strict regimented discipline? of the 00:03:37.500 --> 00:03:40.180 New York theater world. Well, because he essentially 00:03:40.180 --> 00:03:42.419 stumbled into an environment that validated him 00:03:42.419 --> 00:03:44.620 for the very first time. Oh, I see. Yeah. He 00:03:44.620 --> 00:03:46.659 followed his sisters to New York, and he took 00:03:46.659 --> 00:03:48.680 up acting classes largely because it was the 00:03:48.680 --> 00:03:50.460 first place he wasn't constantly criticized. 00:03:50.740 --> 00:03:52.240 Right. The things that got him in trouble were 00:03:52.240 --> 00:03:55.800 suddenly useful. Exactly. Suddenly, these raw, 00:03:55.939 --> 00:03:57.860 volatile emotions that got him expelled from 00:03:57.860 --> 00:04:00.379 school, they were exactly what his instructors 00:04:00.379 --> 00:04:03.120 were looking for. Specifically, an instructor 00:04:03.120 --> 00:04:06.379 named Stella Adler. Yes, he studies under Adler, 00:04:06.520 --> 00:04:09.039 who was teaching a variation of the Stanislavski 00:04:09.039 --> 00:04:12.419 system. And to understand what a seismic shift 00:04:12.419 --> 00:04:14.680 this was, you have to look at what acting was 00:04:14.680 --> 00:04:16.759 before this point. It was very stiff, right? 00:04:16.779 --> 00:04:19.480 Very presentational. It was about elocution, 00:04:19.839 --> 00:04:21.980 hitting your marks, projecting your voice to 00:04:21.980 --> 00:04:25.220 the back row. You basically learn how to pantomime 00:04:25.220 --> 00:04:27.540 anger or sadness. It was almost like putting 00:04:27.540 --> 00:04:31.139 on a mask. Precisely. But the Stanislavsky system, 00:04:31.339 --> 00:04:33.720 which later broadly gets categorized as method 00:04:33.720 --> 00:04:38.100 acting, it demanded psychological realism. It 00:04:38.100 --> 00:04:40.600 required the actor to draw on their own genuine 00:04:40.600 --> 00:04:43.199 personal emotional memories to trigger a real 00:04:43.199 --> 00:04:44.839 reaction in the moment. You aren't pretending 00:04:44.839 --> 00:04:47.360 to be sad. You are actively accessing your own 00:04:47.360 --> 00:04:50.139 trauma, so the sadness is real. Exactly. Although 00:04:50.139 --> 00:04:52.579 the sources point out that Brando absolutely 00:04:52.579 --> 00:04:55.639 loathed the term method actor. Oh, he hated it. 00:04:55.680 --> 00:04:58.579 He especially hated Lee Strasburg, who famously 00:04:58.579 --> 00:05:01.180 popularized the method, claiming Strasburg just 00:05:01.180 --> 00:05:03.319 wanted to take credit for Brando's innate talent. 00:05:03.620 --> 00:05:06.040 Yeah, he always credited Adler and the director, 00:05:06.180 --> 00:05:09.100 Aliyah Kazan, instead. And Adler, I mean, she 00:05:09.100 --> 00:05:11.560 recognized his genius immediately. There is that 00:05:11.560 --> 00:05:14.060 incredible anecdote from her classroom. The chicken 00:05:14.060 --> 00:05:16.620 exercise. The chicken exercise. I love this story. 00:05:17.060 --> 00:05:19.220 So Adler tells her students to imagine they are 00:05:19.220 --> 00:05:23.100 chickens, right? And suddenly they are facing 00:05:23.100 --> 00:05:27.500 a falling nuclear bomb. It's this high -spakes, 00:05:27.839 --> 00:05:30.779 surreal acting exercise to test their commitment. 00:05:31.180 --> 00:05:33.620 So the rest of the class completely panics. They 00:05:33.620 --> 00:05:36.000 are clucking wildly, running around the room, 00:05:36.079 --> 00:05:38.040 flapping their arms, trying to act out terror. 00:05:38.199 --> 00:05:40.920 But Brando just sits there, perfectly calm, and 00:05:40.920 --> 00:05:43.379 pretends to lay an egg. It's brilliant. And when 00:05:43.379 --> 00:05:45.920 Adler asks him what on earth he is doing, he 00:05:45.920 --> 00:05:48.600 looks up and says, I'm a chicken. What do I know 00:05:48.600 --> 00:05:51.360 about bombs? It perfectly encapsulates his genius. 00:05:51.680 --> 00:05:54.300 He isn't playing the intellectual idea of a chicken 00:05:54.300 --> 00:05:56.959 in a human panic. He grounds himself entirely 00:05:56.959 --> 00:05:59.079 in the absolute reality of the subject. Because 00:05:59.079 --> 00:06:00.759 a chicken doesn't understand nuclear physics. 00:06:01.160 --> 00:06:03.399 Exactly. So a chicken wouldn't panic. You know, 00:06:03.600 --> 00:06:06.379 acting before Brando was almost like pouring 00:06:06.379 --> 00:06:09.300 a bowl of dry, predictable breakfast cereal. 00:06:09.379 --> 00:06:11.540 OK, I like that. Every bite was exactly the same. 00:06:11.620 --> 00:06:14.160 You knew what you were getting. But Brando added 00:06:14.160 --> 00:06:16.800 water, milk, and unpredictability to the bowl. 00:06:17.019 --> 00:06:18.860 He just changed the entire texture of it. He 00:06:18.860 --> 00:06:21.459 really did. He brought a naturalism that simply 00:06:21.459 --> 00:06:23.579 did not exist on stage or screen. I mean, he 00:06:23.579 --> 00:06:25.399 would chat with a cameraman about his weekend. 00:06:25.699 --> 00:06:27.860 And when the director called action, he wouldn't 00:06:27.860 --> 00:06:29.939 even start delivering his lines until he felt 00:06:29.939 --> 00:06:32.259 he could transition into them naturally. Just 00:06:32.259 --> 00:06:34.680 seamlessly from that casual conversation. Yeah. 00:06:34.800 --> 00:06:37.980 He brought the messy, stumbling reality of human 00:06:37.980 --> 00:06:42.379 speech to a highly polished art form. Which completely 00:06:42.410 --> 00:06:44.470 He shocked audiences when he took on his breakout 00:06:44.470 --> 00:06:47.509 role. Stanley Kowalski in Tennessee Williams' 00:06:47.930 --> 00:06:50.569 is Streetcar Named Desire. Right. And he does 00:06:50.569 --> 00:06:53.209 it on Broadway first. And the physical and emotional 00:06:53.209 --> 00:06:56.949 toll is staggering. He is drawing on all that 00:06:56.949 --> 00:06:58.910 childhood rage we talked about. And he based 00:06:58.910 --> 00:07:02.310 this. Brutish, raw character on a real person 00:07:02.310 --> 00:07:04.709 he studied at the local gym. A boxer named Rocky 00:07:04.709 --> 00:07:07.509 Graziano. Yeah. And Graziano actually went to 00:07:07.509 --> 00:07:10.430 see the play, having no idea who Brando was or 00:07:10.430 --> 00:07:12.769 that he was being studied. He sat in the audience 00:07:12.769 --> 00:07:15.449 and later said, the curtain went up and on the 00:07:15.449 --> 00:07:17.350 stage is that son of a bitch from the gym and 00:07:17.350 --> 00:07:20.569 he's playing me. Because Brando was an absolute 00:07:20.569 --> 00:07:22.970 sponge for human behavior. And when he transitioned 00:07:22.970 --> 00:07:26.389 to film, he took this hyper realism even further. 00:07:26.550 --> 00:07:29.660 Like in The Men. Right. His very first film role, 00:07:29.920 --> 00:07:33.259 he plays a wounded paraplegic veteran and he 00:07:33.259 --> 00:07:35.720 didn't just visit a hospital. He lived in a bed 00:07:35.720 --> 00:07:38.319 at an actual army hospital for a month. Just 00:07:38.319 --> 00:07:41.319 to absorb the authentic physical and psychological 00:07:41.319 --> 00:07:44.410 reality of those men. Yes. But. The absolute 00:07:44.410 --> 00:07:46.829 master class of this style of acting has to be 00:07:46.829 --> 00:07:50.089 on the waterfront in 1954. Oh, for sure. He plays 00:07:50.089 --> 00:07:52.689 Terry Malloy, a tough Irish -American dock worker. 00:07:53.149 --> 00:07:54.930 And there was this incredibly famous scene in 00:07:54.930 --> 00:07:56.850 the back of a taxi cab where Terry's brother, 00:07:57.089 --> 00:07:59.629 played by Rod Steiger, pulls a gun on him. And 00:07:59.629 --> 00:08:01.629 the script called for Brando's character to act 00:08:01.629 --> 00:08:04.230 terrified, to react with fear to this lethal 00:08:04.230 --> 00:08:07.709 threat. But Brando approaches the director, Leah 00:08:07.709 --> 00:08:10.790 Kazan, and says the script is psychologically 00:08:10.790 --> 00:08:13.639 false. He argues that Terry wouldn't believe 00:08:13.639 --> 00:08:15.740 his own flesh and blood would actually pull the 00:08:15.740 --> 00:08:18.180 trigger. So instead of panicking, instead of 00:08:18.180 --> 00:08:21.300 acting afraid, Brando gently reaches out and 00:08:21.300 --> 00:08:23.660 pushes the barrel of the gun away. He just says, 00:08:23.860 --> 00:08:26.389 oh Charlie. with his tone of loving reproach. 00:08:26.550 --> 00:08:28.910 It's heartbreaking. It really is. He brings this 00:08:28.910 --> 00:08:31.910 mournful gentleness to a moment that was supposed 00:08:31.910 --> 00:08:34.509 to be a standard tough guy standoff. It completely 00:08:34.509 --> 00:08:36.750 disarms the audience. Kazan later called it the 00:08:36.750 --> 00:08:39.029 best performance by a man in the history of American 00:08:39.029 --> 00:08:41.629 film because it wasn't acting, you know, it was 00:08:41.629 --> 00:08:44.690 behaving. It wins him his first best actor Oscar. 00:08:45.129 --> 00:08:47.850 And suddenly, he's the biggest star in the world. 00:08:48.230 --> 00:08:50.929 He does the Wild One, playing rooting motorcycle 00:08:50.929 --> 00:08:53.529 gang leader, and he single -handedly sparks a 00:08:53.529 --> 00:08:55.809 massive cultural craze. He essentially invents 00:08:55.809 --> 00:08:58.029 the modern teenager. Yeah, the leather jackets, 00:08:58.190 --> 00:09:00.610 the sideburns, the motorcycles. He inspires a 00:09:00.610 --> 00:09:03.450 whole generation, including James Dean and Elvis 00:09:03.450 --> 00:09:05.820 Presley. But right as he reaches this pinnacle, 00:09:05.980 --> 00:09:08.419 he develops a notoriously frustrating habit on 00:09:08.419 --> 00:09:11.200 set. Ah, the cue cards. He refuses to memorize 00:09:11.200 --> 00:09:16.100 his lines and insists on using cue cards. Brando 00:09:16.100 --> 00:09:18.700 claimed this was a deliberate technique. He argued 00:09:18.700 --> 00:09:21.519 that reading lines off cards placed around the 00:09:21.519 --> 00:09:24.120 set, sometimes literally taped to another actor's 00:09:24.120 --> 00:09:26.620 forehead, made him look like he was genuinely 00:09:26.620 --> 00:09:29.320 searching for the right words in real time. Right. 00:09:29.419 --> 00:09:31.659 He said if you don't quite know the words, you 00:09:31.659 --> 00:09:33.919 capture the feeling of a person really thinking 00:09:33.919 --> 00:09:36.480 rather than just reciting something pre -written. 00:09:36.759 --> 00:09:39.759 See, I have to push back on this, though. Was 00:09:39.759 --> 00:09:43.179 this really a genius avant -garde technique for 00:09:43.179 --> 00:09:46.059 spontaneity? Or was Brando just coming up with 00:09:46.059 --> 00:09:48.799 a brilliant, artistic -sounding excuse for being 00:09:48.799 --> 00:09:51.080 fundamentally lazy? That's a fair question. Because 00:09:51.080 --> 00:09:54.080 years later, on the set of The Godfather, someone 00:09:54.080 --> 00:09:56.159 asked him why he needed his lines printed out, 00:09:56.159 --> 00:09:58.179 and he just shrugged and said, because I can 00:09:58.179 --> 00:10:00.220 read them that way. Yeah, it is very likely a 00:10:00.220 --> 00:10:02.320 defense mechanism disguised as a technique. I 00:10:02.320 --> 00:10:04.340 mean, if you think back to the stage run of Streetcar, 00:10:04.399 --> 00:10:06.940 he had to yell, scream, cry, and emotionally 00:10:06.940 --> 00:10:09.100 shatter himself six nights a week. Which has 00:10:09.100 --> 00:10:11.899 to be exhausting. He wrote that it left him completely 00:10:11.899 --> 00:10:15.600 drained. If you are bleeding on stage every night 00:10:15.600 --> 00:10:18.320 for years, eventually you run out of blood. The 00:10:18.320 --> 00:10:21.019 emotional bankruptcy of that hyperrealism was 00:10:21.019 --> 00:10:24.820 too much to sustain. So he pulls back. Exactly. 00:10:25.179 --> 00:10:27.440 As he gets older and more established, he starts 00:10:27.440 --> 00:10:31.379 building walls. He stops investing so deeply. 00:10:31.500 --> 00:10:34.000 Which naturally leads us into the 1960s, a decade 00:10:34.000 --> 00:10:36.059 that Brando explicitly referred to in his own 00:10:36.059 --> 00:10:38.980 memoir as his fuck you years. And the industry 00:10:38.980 --> 00:10:40.879 that crowned him is suddenly dealing with a man 00:10:40.879 --> 00:10:43.639 who is deeply disillusioned. He begins to view 00:10:43.639 --> 00:10:46.320 acting entirely with contempt. He's just treating 00:10:46.320 --> 00:10:48.759 it purely as a means to a financial end, right? 00:10:48.759 --> 00:10:51.000 Just to fund his personal interests. Yes. And 00:10:51.000 --> 00:10:53.139 he becomes infamous for clashing with everyone. 00:10:53.389 --> 00:10:56.169 He horrified Charlie Chaplin on the set of A 00:10:56.169 --> 00:10:58.610 Countess from Hong Kong. Oh, and he drove Frank 00:10:58.610 --> 00:11:01.230 Sinatra absolutely insane on the set of the musical 00:11:01.230 --> 00:11:03.850 Guys and Dolls. Sinatra detested doing multiple 00:11:03.850 --> 00:11:06.690 takes. He liked capturing the first fresh attempt. 00:11:07.110 --> 00:11:09.870 But Brando required take after take to find his 00:11:09.870 --> 00:11:11.850 rhythm. So Sinatra ended up calling him Mumbles 00:11:11.850 --> 00:11:14.210 and famously referred to him as the world's most 00:11:14.210 --> 00:11:17.269 overrated actor. The tension was real. But the 00:11:17.269 --> 00:11:19.210 breaking point for his professional reputation. 00:11:19.580 --> 00:11:22.740 was the 1962 remake of Mutiny on the Bounty. 00:11:22.960 --> 00:11:25.519 He was widely accused of deliberately sabotaging 00:11:25.519 --> 00:11:27.419 the production, wasn't he? He caused massive 00:11:27.419 --> 00:11:30.279 delays, ignored the director, drove the budget 00:11:30.279 --> 00:11:32.700 through the roof. The studio executives were 00:11:32.700 --> 00:11:35.940 furious. But the irony is it was during this 00:11:35.940 --> 00:11:38.240 agonizing shoot in Tahiti that he fell in love 00:11:38.240 --> 00:11:41.019 with the area. Right. He actually bought a 12 00:11:41.019 --> 00:11:44.720 island atoll named Tetiroa just to create a physical 00:11:44.720 --> 00:11:47.179 sanctuary away from Hollywood. Just an escape. 00:11:47.440 --> 00:11:49.500 Here's where it gets really interesting now. 00:11:49.559 --> 00:11:53.139 he is actively tanking his critical reputation. 00:11:53.940 --> 00:11:56.639 He is considered incredibly toxic to work with, 00:11:56.980 --> 00:12:00.440 and yet his manager, Jay Cantor, negotiates this 00:12:00.440 --> 00:12:02.980 massive, unprecedented contract for the film, 00:12:03.039 --> 00:12:05.840 Sayonara. Getting Brando 10 % of the girl's box 00:12:05.840 --> 00:12:08.200 office. Making him an instant millionaire. He 00:12:08.200 --> 00:12:10.610 is failing upward. He is rewarded financially 00:12:10.610 --> 00:12:13.289 while actively demonstrating his contempt for 00:12:13.289 --> 00:12:15.889 the people paying him. It's like it's like a 00:12:15.889 --> 00:12:17.950 brilliant software developer who resents the 00:12:17.950 --> 00:12:20.029 massive tech company he works for. So instead 00:12:20.029 --> 00:12:22.450 of quitting, he intentionally introduces these 00:12:22.450 --> 00:12:25.110 incredibly frustrating complex bugs into the 00:12:25.110 --> 00:12:27.850 code just to prove he's smarter than the executives 00:12:27.850 --> 00:12:30.629 who have to clean up his mess. That's exactly 00:12:30.629 --> 00:12:32.730 what it was like. But eventually the industry 00:12:32.730 --> 00:12:35.149 gets tired of cleaning up the bugs. By the early 00:12:35.149 --> 00:12:38.850 1970s, Brando is universally considered unbankable. 00:12:39.070 --> 00:12:42.269 He hadn't had a genuine box office hit in over 00:12:42.269 --> 00:12:46.450 a decade. Critics were actively mocking his fluctuating 00:12:46.450 --> 00:12:48.750 weight, his increasingly apathetic performances. 00:12:49.330 --> 00:12:52.029 He was effectively exiled from the A -list. Which 00:12:52.029 --> 00:12:54.870 sets the stage for arguably the greatest comeback 00:12:54.870 --> 00:12:57.649 in Hollywood history. The Godfather. But it almost 00:12:57.649 --> 00:13:00.789 didn't happen. No. Paramount Studios strictly 00:13:00.789 --> 00:13:03.980 forbade casting him as Don Vito Corleone. The 00:13:03.980 --> 00:13:06.080 president of the studio drew a hard line saying, 00:13:06.460 --> 00:13:08.500 as long as I'm president, Marlon Brando will 00:13:08.500 --> 00:13:10.740 not be in this picture. Francis Ford Coppola 00:13:10.740 --> 00:13:12.820 had to beg for him, and Brando actually had to 00:13:12.820 --> 00:13:15.980 submit to a videotaped screen test. Which is 00:13:15.980 --> 00:13:18.100 wildly humiliating for an actor who was previously 00:13:18.100 --> 00:13:20.139 considered the greatest of his generation. But 00:13:20.139 --> 00:13:22.759 he wanted the role, so he did it. And the tape 00:13:22.759 --> 00:13:25.399 is legendary. He stuffed his cheeks with cotton 00:13:25.399 --> 00:13:27.460 balls to weigh down his jawline. He darkened 00:13:27.460 --> 00:13:29.809 his hair with shoe polish. and transformed his 00:13:29.809 --> 00:13:32.769 posture into that of an elderly, powerful mafia 00:13:32.769 --> 00:13:35.309 don right before their eyes. When the studio 00:13:35.309 --> 00:13:37.509 executives saw the tape, they were stunned. They 00:13:37.509 --> 00:13:40.750 asked, who is this old guinea? They didn't even 00:13:40.750 --> 00:13:42.730 recognize the man they had just banned from the 00:13:42.730 --> 00:13:45.549 movie. So they hire him, but they still lowball 00:13:45.549 --> 00:13:49.049 him. They sign him for a fee of just $50 ,000, 00:13:49.330 --> 00:13:51.830 plus a percentage of the gross profits. And because 00:13:51.830 --> 00:13:54.570 Brando had terrible spending habits and was in 00:13:54.570 --> 00:13:57.389 dire need of immediate funds, he actually sold 00:13:57.389 --> 00:14:00.110 back his percentage points to the studio? For 00:14:00.110 --> 00:14:03.769 a flat $100 ,000 before the movie even came out. 00:14:04.049 --> 00:14:07.230 An utterly catastrophic financial decision. The 00:14:07.230 --> 00:14:09.470 Godfather became one of the highest grossing 00:14:09.470 --> 00:14:11.409 films of all time, and giving up those points 00:14:11.409 --> 00:14:15.059 cost him an estimated $11 million. Wow. But it 00:14:15.059 --> 00:14:18.059 did win him his second best actor Oscar. Only 00:14:18.059 --> 00:14:20.320 this time he didn't show up to accept it. No, 00:14:20.460 --> 00:14:22.759 he sent Native American activist and actress 00:14:22.759 --> 00:14:25.340 named Sasheen Littlefeather to the podium. She 00:14:25.340 --> 00:14:28.919 walked up in full Plains Indian style dress and 00:14:28.919 --> 00:14:32.100 declined the award on his behalf. She used the 00:14:32.100 --> 00:14:34.299 moment to protest the film industry's horrific 00:14:34.299 --> 00:14:36.980 treatment of Native Americans and to draw attention 00:14:36.980 --> 00:14:39.639 to the ongoing standoff at Wounded Knee. If we 00:14:39.639 --> 00:14:41.960 connect this to the bigger picture, this was 00:14:41.960 --> 00:14:45.039 a massive watershed moment in modern culture. 00:14:45.539 --> 00:14:48.580 Brando took the most watched self -congratulatory 00:14:48.580 --> 00:14:52.019 night in Hollywood and weaponized it. He turned 00:14:52.019 --> 00:14:54.860 it into a platform for radical political activism 00:14:54.860 --> 00:14:57.720 on a global stage. He essentially bridged the 00:14:57.720 --> 00:15:00.200 gap between celebrity and social justice in a 00:15:00.200 --> 00:15:02.340 way that we now see all the time. But back then, 00:15:02.399 --> 00:15:05.529 it was unprecedented and deeply shocking. But 00:15:05.529 --> 00:15:07.970 his next major films showed just how dark and 00:15:07.970 --> 00:15:10.769 isolated his internal life was becoming. He starred 00:15:10.769 --> 00:15:13.210 in Last Tango in Paris. A highly controversial 00:15:13.210 --> 00:15:16.029 film. Very. The director, Bernardo Bertolucci, 00:15:16.309 --> 00:15:18.389 pushed him to his absolute psychological limits. 00:15:18.929 --> 00:15:21.009 There's an infamous scene involving simulated 00:15:21.009 --> 00:15:23.190 sex and butter that left both his co -star Maria 00:15:23.190 --> 00:15:25.590 Schneider and Brando himself feeling, in their 00:15:25.590 --> 00:15:29.179 words, raped and manipulated. Brando was so traumatized 00:15:29.179 --> 00:15:31.639 by the emotional extraction of that shoot that 00:15:31.639 --> 00:15:34.519 he refused to speak to Bertolucci for 15 years. 00:15:34.720 --> 00:15:37.259 He vowed he would never destroy himself emotionally 00:15:37.259 --> 00:15:40.139 to make a movie again. Which perfectly explains 00:15:40.139 --> 00:15:42.759 the absolute chaos he brought to Francis Ford 00:15:42.759 --> 00:15:47.080 Coppola's Vietnam epic Apocalypse Now in 1979. 00:15:47.200 --> 00:15:49.879 Oh, this is the stuff of cinema legend. He has 00:15:49.879 --> 00:15:52.860 paid a staggering one million dollars a week 00:15:52.860 --> 00:15:55.879 for three weeks of work to play the rogue Colonel 00:15:55.879 --> 00:15:59.149 Kurtz. and he shows up on set in the Philippines 00:15:59.149 --> 00:16:02.429 vastly overweight. He cheerfully admits to Coppola 00:16:02.429 --> 00:16:04.350 that he hasn't even read the source material, 00:16:04.549 --> 00:16:06.570 Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness. And he just 00:16:06.570 --> 00:16:08.450 stalls the production. He spends days in his 00:16:08.450 --> 00:16:11.230 trailer just... philosophizing and talking to 00:16:11.230 --> 00:16:13.389 Coppola about the nature of the character while 00:16:13.389 --> 00:16:15.350 the clock is ticking and the budget is absolutely 00:16:15.350 --> 00:16:18.110 hemorrhaging. Coppola was desperate. He had a 00:16:18.110 --> 00:16:20.929 wildly expensive actor who refused to learn lines, 00:16:21.330 --> 00:16:23.230 who was deeply self -conscious about his weight, 00:16:23.309 --> 00:16:25.590 and who wouldn't wear the assigned military uniform. 00:16:25.889 --> 00:16:27.690 So Coppola had to figure out how to shoot around 00:16:27.690 --> 00:16:30.179 him. Right. He filmed Brando mostly in heavy 00:16:30.179 --> 00:16:32.860 shadows, focusing tightly on his face, and just 00:16:32.860 --> 00:16:36.759 let Brando improvise these fuzzy, brooding, existential 00:16:36.759 --> 00:16:38.720 monologues. Which really makes you wonder, I 00:16:38.720 --> 00:16:40.919 mean, by making himself such an untouchable, 00:16:41.059 --> 00:16:43.980 isolated problem on set, did Brando actually 00:16:43.980 --> 00:16:47.080 force Coppola's hand? By refusing to do it the 00:16:47.080 --> 00:16:49.159 normal way, did he force the director to create 00:16:49.159 --> 00:16:52.039 a much more terrifying, shadowy, and mythical 00:16:52.039 --> 00:16:54.840 version of Colonel Kurtz than whatever was originally 00:16:54.840 --> 00:16:57.850 written on the page? It is highly likely. His 00:16:57.850 --> 00:16:59.830 refusal to conform to the traditional production 00:16:59.830 --> 00:17:03.110 process created a severe creative crisis and 00:17:03.110 --> 00:17:05.549 that crisis resulted in cinematic brilliance. 00:17:05.930 --> 00:17:08.789 That famous whispering of the horror, the horror 00:17:08.789 --> 00:17:11.930 is iconic entirely because it feels so unscripted, 00:17:12.049 --> 00:17:15.349 so raw and so emerging from the shadows. He weaponized 00:17:15.349 --> 00:17:17.490 his difficult reputation to force art on his 00:17:17.490 --> 00:17:20.190 own terms. So we've explored the actor and we've 00:17:20.190 --> 00:17:22.130 explored the rebel. Let's shift gears and look 00:17:22.130 --> 00:17:24.579 at the complex human behind the icon. Because 00:17:24.579 --> 00:17:26.839 the sources document an off -camera life that 00:17:26.839 --> 00:17:30.059 was just as chaotic, contradictory, and fascinating 00:17:30.059 --> 00:17:33.000 as anything he put on film. He was a man of profound 00:17:33.000 --> 00:17:36.359 political convictions. We mentioned Sachin Littlefeather, 00:17:36.700 --> 00:17:39.579 but his activism ran incredibly deep. Right. 00:17:39.920 --> 00:17:42.779 In 1968, right after Martin Luther King Jr. was 00:17:42.779 --> 00:17:45.380 assassinated, Brando actually walked through 00:17:45.380 --> 00:17:47.539 the streets of Harlem with the mayor of New York 00:17:47.539 --> 00:17:50.180 to help quell the unrest. He was deeply involved 00:17:50.180 --> 00:17:52.059 in the civil rights movement. He was arrested 00:17:52.059 --> 00:17:55.900 at a 1964 fish inn protesting broken treaties 00:17:55.900 --> 00:17:57.940 for Native American fishing rights in Washington 00:17:57.940 --> 00:18:01.700 state. And he was also a very outspoken anti 00:18:01.700 --> 00:18:04.000 -apartheid activist. But it's important to look 00:18:04.000 --> 00:18:06.140 objectively at what our sources tell us about 00:18:06.140 --> 00:18:08.519 his later years, too, because he was also a lightning 00:18:08.519 --> 00:18:11.500 rod for intense controversy. Yes. And before 00:18:11.500 --> 00:18:13.500 we get into this, we need to explicitly remind 00:18:13.500 --> 00:18:16.460 you, the listener, that we are not taking sides 00:18:16.460 --> 00:18:18.579 or endorsing any of these views. Right. We are 00:18:18.579 --> 00:18:20.859 merely reflecting the source material's account 00:18:20.859 --> 00:18:24.240 of his complex public statements. Exactly. So 00:18:24.240 --> 00:18:26.359 looking at the historical record documented on 00:18:26.359 --> 00:18:29.890 his Wikipedia page, In a 1979 interview with 00:18:29.890 --> 00:18:33.529 Playboy and later on Larry King Live in 1996, 00:18:34.329 --> 00:18:36.470 Brando made highly controversial public statements. 00:18:37.170 --> 00:18:39.390 He used slurs to describe how minorities are 00:18:39.390 --> 00:18:42.150 portrayed in film while simultaneously arguing 00:18:42.150 --> 00:18:45.690 that Hollywood is run by Jews who do not allow 00:18:45.690 --> 00:18:47.789 themselves to be portrayed negatively on screen. 00:18:47.869 --> 00:18:50.519 Which caused massive outrage. Larry King, who 00:18:50.519 --> 00:18:53.079 was Jewish, challenged him directly on the air, 00:18:53.160 --> 00:18:55.019 pointing out that these comments played directly 00:18:55.019 --> 00:18:57.460 into the hands of anti -Semites. Ran a pushback, 00:18:57.460 --> 00:18:59.299 claiming he was actually praising Jewish people 00:18:59.299 --> 00:19:02.339 for their success, but their remarks left a significant 00:19:02.339 --> 00:19:04.599 stain. Even though his agent publicly defended 00:19:04.599 --> 00:19:07.720 him as a staunch supporter of Israel, his autobiography 00:19:07.720 --> 00:19:10.240 also detailed his shifting, conflicting views 00:19:10.240 --> 00:19:12.579 on the Middle East over the decades. He was a 00:19:12.579 --> 00:19:14.799 man who lived in extremes. And his personal life 00:19:14.799 --> 00:19:17.660 reflected those extremes. He was openly bisexual, 00:19:17.900 --> 00:19:21.000 telling a French journalist in 1976 that he had 00:19:21.000 --> 00:19:23.460 homosexual experiences and wasn't the least bit 00:19:23.460 --> 00:19:25.880 ashamed of it. He fathered at least 11 children 00:19:25.880 --> 00:19:28.839 with multiple different women. And he had these 00:19:28.839 --> 00:19:31.859 incredibly unique, isolated personal hobbies. 00:19:32.359 --> 00:19:34.779 For instance, he actually held a U .S. patent 00:19:34.779 --> 00:19:37.400 for a method of tensioning drumheads. Wait, really? 00:19:37.559 --> 00:19:40.880 Yes. And he was also a registered ham radio operator 00:19:40.880 --> 00:19:43.759 broadcasting under the pseudonym Martin Brando. 00:19:43.960 --> 00:19:46.720 That's wild. Why the sudden interest in technical 00:19:46.720 --> 00:19:49.500 isolation? Well, it speaks to a man desperately 00:19:49.500 --> 00:19:52.680 seeking control. His public life was entirely 00:19:52.680 --> 00:19:55.400 chaotic, scrutinized by millions, and heavily 00:19:55.400 --> 00:19:57.960 reliant on other people's schedules. But a patent 00:19:57.960 --> 00:20:01.369 for a drumhead. that is pure solitary mechanics. 00:20:01.490 --> 00:20:03.529 Oh, that makes sense. And a ham radio allows 00:20:03.529 --> 00:20:06.230 you to connect with human beings across the globe, 00:20:06.650 --> 00:20:09.250 but entirely anonymously without anyone judging 00:20:09.250 --> 00:20:11.829 the face attached to the voice. It was a safe 00:20:11.829 --> 00:20:14.009 way to seek connection. That need for a safe 00:20:14.009 --> 00:20:17.109 sanctuary really paints a picture of his deeply 00:20:17.109 --> 00:20:20.009 eccentric final years. He became close friends 00:20:20.009 --> 00:20:22.890 with Michael Jackson, spending weeks at his Neverland 00:20:22.890 --> 00:20:25.190 Ranch. Because Brandon needed oxygen much of 00:20:25.190 --> 00:20:27.410 the time in his later years, he would literally 00:20:27.410 --> 00:20:29.759 drive around the grounds of Neverland in a golf 00:20:29.759 --> 00:20:32.799 cart equipped with a portable oxygen tank. And 00:20:32.799 --> 00:20:35.180 here is a detail that just stops you in your 00:20:35.180 --> 00:20:38.420 tracks. He kept the ashes of his childhood best 00:20:38.420 --> 00:20:40.759 friend, the actor Wally Cox, in his home for 00:20:40.759 --> 00:20:43.039 decades. He kept them even though Cox's widow 00:20:43.039 --> 00:20:46.119 actively wanted them back. When Brando died in 00:20:46.119 --> 00:20:49.380 2004 at the age of 80, his family scattered both 00:20:49.380 --> 00:20:52.119 his and Wally Cox's ashes together in Death Valley. 00:20:52.380 --> 00:20:55.180 This raises an important question. How do we 00:20:55.180 --> 00:20:58.099 reconcile a man capable of such profound global 00:20:58.099 --> 00:21:01.319 empathy for marginalized groups and such deep, 00:21:01.440 --> 00:21:04.140 possessive love for a childhood friend with someone 00:21:04.140 --> 00:21:06.519 whose professional conduct and personal relationships 00:21:06.519 --> 00:21:09.579 were so frequently destructive? It's so complicated. 00:21:09.740 --> 00:21:11.980 So what does this all mean? When you step back 00:21:11.980 --> 00:21:13.700 and look at the totality of the sources we've 00:21:13.700 --> 00:21:16.400 covered today, Marlon Brando was the ultimate 00:21:16.400 --> 00:21:18.859 American anti -hero. He really was. He was a 00:21:18.859 --> 00:21:21.240 man who single -handedly modernized an entire 00:21:21.240 --> 00:21:24.099 art form. through an unprecedented display of 00:21:24.099 --> 00:21:26.759 raw vulnerability. And yet he spent his entire 00:21:26.759 --> 00:21:29.279 adult life building impenetrable walls to protect 00:21:29.279 --> 00:21:32.359 a deeply wounded inner child. He brought true 00:21:32.359 --> 00:21:35.240 psychological realism to a medium that was previously 00:21:35.240 --> 00:21:38.660 theatrical and stiff. Before him, men on screen 00:21:38.660 --> 00:21:41.759 were unshakable pillars. He made it okay for 00:21:41.759 --> 00:21:44.440 a leading man to be broken, sensitive, mumbling, 00:21:44.720 --> 00:21:47.420 and completely unpredictable. And that is exactly 00:21:47.420 --> 00:21:49.539 what I want you to take away from this. The next 00:21:49.539 --> 00:21:52.480 time you are sitting in a movie theater or streaming 00:21:52.480 --> 00:21:55.299 a new show. And you see an actor looking away 00:21:55.299 --> 00:21:58.579 from the camera, mumbling their lines, or seemingly 00:21:58.579 --> 00:22:00.900 searching the air for a thought in real time. 00:22:01.140 --> 00:22:03.400 You are looking at the direct lineage of Marlon 00:22:03.400 --> 00:22:06.579 Brando. Exactly. Every actor working today is 00:22:06.579 --> 00:22:08.680 swimming in the waters he filled. He completely 00:22:08.680 --> 00:22:10.940 changed the physical and emotional vocabulary 00:22:10.940 --> 00:22:13.660 of performance. But it leaves you with a final, 00:22:13.920 --> 00:22:17.140 provocative thought to mull over. If Marlon Brando 00:22:17.140 --> 00:22:19.240 hadn't been so emotionally neglected as a child. 00:22:19.480 --> 00:22:21.700 If his parents had been attentive, if he had 00:22:21.700 --> 00:22:24.299 grown up happy, secure, and respectful of authority 00:22:24.299 --> 00:22:27.779 in Omaha, Nebraska, would we even have modern 00:22:27.779 --> 00:22:30.160 acting as we know it today? It's a fascinating 00:22:30.160 --> 00:22:33.339 what if. Or does that specific kind of transcendent, 00:22:33.500 --> 00:22:36.160 world -changing, artistic genius require a person 00:22:36.160 --> 00:22:37.319 to be fundamentally broken?