By Adam Bernstein Washington Post Staff Writer Friday, July 2, 2004; 11:38 AM
Marlon Brando, 80, a film star whose blend of sensitivity and savagery brought him acclaim as the greatest actor of his generation and whose tumultuous personal life made him a fascinating spectacle in popular culture, died July 1 in a Los Angeles hospital, the actor's lawyer said today.
The lawyer, David J. Seeley, told the Associated Press that the cause of death was being withheld.
Moody performers such as Humphrey Bogart made the stiff, oily leading man seem obsolete by the 1940s. But it was Brando -- sweaty, swaggering, mumbling, wounded, brutish and beautiful -- who further heightened expectations in postwar cinema. He won two Academy Awards, for "On the Waterfront" and "The Godfather," created a menagerie of unforgettable performances, from "A Streetcar Named Desire" to "Apocalypse Now," and became an icon of defiance onscreen and off.
His artistry in his greatest films transcended everything. As Newsweek cultural observer Jack Kroll wrote in 1994, "That will be Brando's legacy whether he likes it or not -- the stunning actor who embodied a poetry of anxiety that touched the deepest dynamics of his time and place." It was clear from Brando's cinema debut as a scornful, paraplegic war veteran in "The Men" (1950) and his explosive work as Stanley Kowalski in "A Streetcar Named Desire" (1951) that he was a towering new breed of actor, able to display a naked and raw soul that ached with passion but also was unpredictably bestial.
One critic noted that in "The Men," Brando "comes like a blood transfusion into cinema acting," and later writers confirmed his legacy: With his pinup magnetism and dazzling range, he simply dominated all discussions about film acting. One of his greatest legacies as an actor was to penetrate the deepest thoughts of his characters and convey their motivations so finely and believably. He drew on a lifetime of emotional distress, his brilliance at mimicry and his own intuition to bring new dimensions of psychological motivation to his parts. Although his leading men were capable of raping and threatening, he was praised for making those actions appear poetic and tragic, bestowing timeless resonance to his art.