LGBT People Of History Part Sixty Six Marlon Brando

Born Marlon Brando Jr on April 3rd 1924 to his father Marlon Brando Sr, and his mother Dorothy Julia Brando in Omaha, Nebraska.

Marlon was an American movie star and political activist, campaigning for civil rights. He also attended and participated in the March on Washington in 1963.

From early childhood Marlon was able to absorb the mannerisms of people that he portrayed and display them quite dramatically whilst remaining in character.

Marlon’s sister Jocelyn became an actress. She appeared on Broadway first and then followed a career in to movies and television. Her best known role is in the movie ‘The Big Heat’ in 1953 where she played opposite Glenn Ford as his doomed wife.

Marlon had a troubled school life, being expelled from his first school for riding his motorcycle down the corridors. He then dropped out of his second High School.

He undertook a summer job as a ditch digger and then tried to join the army but was rejected due to a football injury leaving him with a ‘trick’ knee. He then followed his sister Jocelyn to New York, where he studied at the American Theatre Wing Professional School, part of the Dramatic Workshop of the New School.

He was discovered in a play produced by the school and eventually made it to Broadway in 1944 starring in ‘I Remember Mama.’ He was voted ‘Broadway’s Most Promising Actor’ by the critics for his role in this play.

In 1947 Marlon was asked to do a screen test for Warner Brothers. The test was an early script of ‘Rebel without a Cause’- though this has no relation to the actual film produced in 1955 with James Dean.

Marlon’s first screen role was in 1950 where he played a bitter paraplegic veteran in the film ‘The Men.’

During his early career his first five films established him. These films are –

1. A Street Car Named Desire

2. Viva Sapata (1952)

3. Julius Caesar (1953)

4. On The Waterfront (1954)

5. The Wild One (1953)

He was nominated for Academy Awards for best actor and he won the BAFTA Award for best Actor in a Leading Role for three years from 1951 to 1953.

He was awarded an Oscar for his portrayal of Tery Malloy in the film ‘On the Waterfront’.

Later his career had a lull as he had a reputation for being difficult to work with. This ended with a bang with ‘The Godfather’ (1972). He won the Oscar for ‘Best Actor’ but turned it down on the grounds that Native Americans were depicted negatively in movies and on TV. He also starred in the controversial ‘Last Tango in Paris’.

He appeared in ‘Superman’ (1978) and the powerful anti-war film, ‘Apocalypse Now!’ (1979) as a US Officer in the Vietnam War, who has ‘gone bad’ and runs his own bestial society in the jungle.

Marlon Brando was bisexual. He had a string of marriages and divorces, along with eleven children and over thirty grandchildren. He openly admitted that he was bisexual in an interview in 1976 for his biography ‘The Only Contender.’ He seemed to have been a highly sexed individual.

On July 1st 2004 he died aged 80. Initially the cause of his death was withheld but it was later revealed that Marlon had died from respiratory failure brought on by pulmonary fibrosis.