Obit: Marlon Brando

Subject: Obit: Marlon Brando
From: Wesley S
Date: 02 Jul 04 - 12:27 PM

Does anyone have any information yet on the death of Marlon Brando ?

Subject: RE: Obit: Marlon Brando
From: Wesley S
Date: 02 Jul 04 - 12:29 PM

I'm sorry - I thought the Obit tag would have placed this in the BS section. My mistake.

Subject: RE: Obit: Marlon Brando
From: beardedbruce
Date: 02 Jul 04 - 12:29 PM

cnn

Subject: RE: Obit: Marlon Brando
From: freda underhill
Date: 02 Jul 04 - 12:39 PM

1924 - 2004
Actor Marlon Brando, 80, Dies

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.

Continues at:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A23157-2004Jul2.html

Subject: RE: Obit: Marlon Brando
From: Ellenpoly
Date: 02 Jul 04 - 12:47 PM

He was a one-off, though many tried to imitate him. I only wish I had seen the man on stage. Fortunately, he will live on in his films.

Rest in Peace, Marlon...

..xx..e

Subject: RE: Obit: Marlon Brando
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 02 Jul 04 - 12:54 PM

I read a quite long obit just now, chronicaling the troubled recent family history along with Brando's (originally Brandeau) young life. Interesting story, but it looks like the family is going to play some of this close to the vest. There were no announcements about cause of death, memorials, etc. This probably isn't a durable link, but it will work for a while: Marlon Brando Obit

SRS

Subject: RE: Obit: Marlon Brando
From: The Borchester Echo
Date: 02 Jul 04 - 12:59 PM

Sylvester McCoy was just speaking on the radio about meeting Brando at a Roundhouse film festival - in the bar serving him a pint - as well as about the lack of Daleks in future series of Dr Who. An end of two eras.

Subject: RE: Obit: Marlon Brando
From: Wesley S
Date: 02 Jul 04 - 01:01 PM

He could have been a contender - He could have been somebody.

Subject: RE: Obit: Marlon Brando
From: Amergin
Date: 02 Jul 04 - 01:20 PM

Oh wow....he was a fine actor...he WAS Vito Corleone and Colonel Kurtz...

Subject: RE: Obit: Marlon Brando
From: Peter T.
Date: 02 Jul 04 - 02:27 PM

Speaking of wasted careers, immense potential, some of it realized, so much more squandered.

yours, Peter T.

Subject: RE: Obit: Marlon Brando
From: fat B****rd
Date: 02 Jul 04 - 02:37 PM

Whay can you say ?? Mistah Kurtz he dead. RIP Mr.B

Subject: RE: Obit: Marlon Brando
From: WFDU - Ron Olesko
Date: 02 Jul 04 - 02:39 PM

Sorry Peter, his career was far from wasted.   The fact is, he lived his life the way HE wanted to. There was no reason for him to design a career that meets your requirements or anyone elses. You can have your opinion, but it really didn't matter to him.   THAT was what Brando was all about.

Subject: RE: Obit: Marlon Brando
From: catspaw49
Date: 02 Jul 04 - 02:55 PM

WEll here's something off the wall......Brando is part of one of my favorite trivia questions!

In the history of the Academy Awards, only once have two actors gotten the Oscar for portraying the same character. Name the actors and the character.
Brando and Robert DeNiro each won for their portrayal of Vito Corleone in the Godfather movies. Brando as the aging Don Corleone in the first one and DeNiro as the young Vito in Godfather II.

Spaw

Subject: RE: Obit: Marlon Brando
From: Wesley S
Date: 02 Jul 04 - 02:57 PM

Peter - When I said "He could have been a contender - He could have been somebody" - I was being ironic. I was referencing one of his famous lines from "On the Waterfront". That was not a personal viewpoint.

Subject: RE: Obit: Marlon Brando
From: Peter T.
Date: 02 Jul 04 - 03:29 PM

Oh, of course it is only my opinion. I am glad he did what he did. But I think we missed a lot of wonderful things he might have done -- he just sort of left and wandered around for so many years.


yours,

Peter T.

Subject: RE: Obit: Marlon Brando
From: EBarnacle
Date: 02 Jul 04 - 04:50 PM

I recently had the opportunity to see "On the Waterfront" at MOMA. Even after 50 years, the performance holds up. To quote someone he never played, "I yam what I yam." He was.

Subject: RE: Obit: Marlon Brando
From: s6k
Date: 02 Jul 04 - 05:00 PM

so sad when i heard this news.

he is one of the best actors ever, luckily, he had so many fans, and because his films were so great (the godfather, on the waterfront, apocalypse now) these will live forever, and so will he.

causes of death being witheld as he was a very private person.

R.I.P. to a real actor and a great man and condolences to all upset by this.

Subject: RE: Obit: Marlon Brando
From: jacqui.c
Date: 02 Jul 04 - 05:05 PM

Just yesterday there was an article in one of the papers about Brando. It seems that he was in debt to the sum of $11 million as a result of the family troubles in the past years. There was a picture of him in a wheelchair, looking very old and very ill.

However, anyone who has seen any of his films can but remember the outstanding performances he gave and just feel sadness that he could not, for whatever reasons, maintain that career to the end. He stole the screen whenever he was on it - other actors just couldn't compete with his presence.

Subject: RE: Obit: Marlon Brando
From: Mudlark
Date: 02 Jul 04 - 05:26 PM

Brando 80? Brando dead?? Never. He will always be as I remember him best in On the Waterfront...

Subject: RE: Obit: Marlon Brando
From: Little Hawk
Date: 02 Jul 04 - 06:28 PM

He was an odd actor. His performances ranged, I think, from superbly compelling to horrendously self-indulgent (in some of the later films). I sometimes got the feeling that he ardently detested himself and everybody else. That doesn't seem like a very good premise on which to base a life or an acting career to me, but he certainly did have panache whenever he appeared onscreen. His early films were unforgettable. His later ones ran the gamut from very good to just plain bloody awful.

Joan Baez revealed in her autobiography that she had been utterly transfixed by the young Brando, and she wondered why he "decided to get old so soon"? I wonder about that too. Well, she finally got to kiss the "old lion" on the cheek at some point...decades after "The Wild One". :-)

Subject: RE: Obit: Marlon Brando
From: Bill Hahn//\\
Date: 02 Jul 04 - 06:50 PM

He was, to me, a giant of an actor---and also a true eccentric. As you may know he owned (lived on) an island in the the S. Pacific. True story now: the is and NPR program "Wait Wait--Don't Tell Me". A quiz program about current events and trivia.   One query a while back was about Brando---and what he insisted guests to his island leave behind when they leave---you had 3 choices. A written opinion of the place, a blood stample, or a stool sample. I was amazed---he insisted for who know what reason ------A stool sample.

Oh well, still a great actor and so I guess eccentricity came with the territory.


Bill Hahn

PS If you visit me I will just ask for a written critique---nothing else.   Then again I am not a giant in the entertainment field.

Subject: RE: Obit: Marlon Brando
From: GUEST,Art Thieme
Date: 02 Jul 04 - 09:39 PM

Brando, Kerouac, Meridel Lesseuer, Ed Balchowsky---mentors all from a bit of a distance. It's as close as I dared get without melting the wax on my wings.

Brando in THE WILD ONE carried the rebeliousness of his personna to a subtle yet complete instant of realness when, while having hot steaming coffee at a greasy spoon counter, he offhandedly refused to use the handle on the cup. I picked up on that a half century ago or more and it's been, for me, a gentle personal statement of independence from the hive ever since. It's worth burning the fingers a bit. And it makes me smile---not weep.----- It must be sort of the way having one's tongue pierced for today's youth might play out. The silver bit of tack in their mouths is enough to remind them of the discomfort's reality. That, in turn, prepares them a bit for their own mortality. -------- I do suspect this man was ready to go.

Art Thieme

Subject: RE: Obit: Marlon Brando
From: WFDU - Ron Olesko
Date: 02 Jul 04 - 10:54 PM

stool sample?

Well, he was passionate about a number of causes. I guess he was making sure that his guests really gave a shit.

Ouch!

Subject: RE: Obit: Marlon Brando
From: Bobert
Date: 02 Jul 04 - 11:07 PM

Stella...

STELLA!!!...








Bobert

Subject: RE: Obit: Marlon Brando
From: Mudlark
Date: 03 Jul 04 - 12:18 AM

The music from The Wild Ones was great, too...Shorty Rogers. I played it over and over, a little extended play 45 until it was thin enough to see through.

Subject: RE: Obit: Marlon Brando
From: CET
Date: 03 Jul 04 - 04:37 PM

I'd have to agree that he was a fine actor, perhaps a great one - but the greatest actor of his generation? He was a contemporary of Alec Guinness and Burt Lancaster, for God's sake! Spencer Tracy was from an earlier generation, admittedly, but was producing some of his best work in the earlier part of Brando's career.

I think it's true that he was a very important actor. Someone in the paper was making the point that actors like Robert De Niro and Edward Norton could not have had the careers they have now without Brando opening the way.

Edmund

Subject: RE: Obit: Marlon Brando
From: GUEST,Art Thieme
Date: 03 Jul 04 - 07:17 PM

Brando, Debra Winger, Garbo, Sterling Hayden, Robert Mitchum (to a degree)--- Orson Wells as well: These all saw through the shallow banality that was and is Hollywood. In seeking their privacy, they were often ridiculed, made fun of, and denegrated. I found admirable qualities in the different stands that were taken by each of them in their own way. The Winger tale is still forming and being told. -- Many of us on the folk scene can fully understand the desire to avoid the show biz machinery. And we chose to do it differently while accepting the loss of monetary income that went with that choice. Of course, the secular humanistic spiritual income we banked was considerable.

Art Thieme

Subject: RE: Obit: Marlon Brando
From: Hrothgar
Date: 04 Jul 04 - 01:42 AM

Nobosy seems to have mentioned his role as Antony in "Julius Caesar." He made Shakespeare something more than the innocuous etuff we learned at school with his oration over the body of Caesar.

Subject: RE: Obit: Marlon Brando
From: GUEST,OneofBrandosexwives
Date: 04 Jul 04 - 04:04 AM

Like many others, I was transfixed by Brando's performances. I couldn't believe how rubbish he was. Act! He doesn't know the meaning of the word.

Subject: RE: Obit: Marlon Brando
From: Bill Hahn//\\
Date: 04 Jul 04 - 06:22 PM

Julius Caeser===right you are.   How could I forget being in college and seeing it in what was then one of NYC's premier art-houses for film (before the damned multiplexes). Served coffee in the lobby (gratis). The performance was stunning---when it comes to Shakespeare you had to rank him up there with Gielgud, Olivier, Branagh (who I think did better Hamlets and Henry V than Olivier).

And---Ron:   "give a shit"----that is really funny. WIsh I had thought of it.

Bill Hahn