Sign In Sign In. New Customer? Create account. List activity. Marlon Brando. Actor Director Writer Apocalypse Now Marlon Brando is widely considered the greatest movie actor of all time, rivaled only by the more theatrically oriented Laurence Olivier in terms of esteem. Unlike Olivier, who preferred the stage to the screen, Brando concentrated his talents on movies after bidding the Broadway stage adieu in , a decision for which he was severely criticized when his star began to dim in the s and he was excoriated for squandering his talents.
No actor ever exerted such a profound influence on succeeding generations of actors as did Brando. More than 50 years after he first scorched the screen as Stanley Kowalski in the movie version of Tennessee Williams ' A Streetcar Named Desire and a quarter-century after his last great performance as Col.
It was if the shadow of John Barrymore , the great American actor closest to Brando in terms of talent and stardom, dominated the acting field up until the s. He did not, nor did any other actor so dominate the public's consciousness of what WAS an actor before or since Brando's on-screen portrayal of Stanley made him a cultural icon.
Brando eclipsed the reputation of other great actors circa , such as Paul Muni and Fredric March. Only the luster of Spencer Tracy 's reputation hasn't dimmed when seen in the starlight thrown off by Brando. However, neither Tracy nor Olivier created an entire school of acting just by the force of his personality. Brando did. Marlon Brando, Jr. Frannie, Brando's other sibling, was a visual artist.
Marlon managed to escape the vocational doldrums forecast for him by his cold, distant father and his disapproving schoolteachers by striking out for The Big Apple in , following Jocelyn into the acting profession. Acting was the only thing he was good at, for which he received praise, so he was determined to make it his career - a high-school dropout, he had nothing else to fall back on, having been rejected by the military due to a knee injury he incurred playing football at Shattuck Military Academy, Brando Sr.
