What do you think of his performances in the 1950s? Where he seemed like he actually cared.
Let's just say in his earlier films, he showed what he was to become in later films.
According to the IMDB trivia page for
On the Waterfront Brando only worked until 4:00 every day.
For the film's classic scene between
Rod Steiger and Brando in the back of the cab, all of Steiger's close-ups were filmed after Brando had left for the day, so Brando's lines were read by one of the crew members. For many years Steiger, who had actually stayed during Brando's close-ups to help him put in a better performance, remained very bitter that Brando didn't return the favor, and often mentioned it in interviews.
Brando's antics during the shooting of
Mutiny on the Bounty became stuff of legends and led to his decline. There's way too many stories to post here.
Charlton Heston, who participated in
Martin Luther King's 1963 March on Washington with Brando, believes that Marlon was the great actor of his generation. However, noting a story that Brando had once refused a role in the early 1960s with the excuse "How can I act when people are starving in India?," Heston believes that it was this attitude, the inability to separate one's idealism from one's work, that prevented Brando from reaching his potential. As
Rod Steiger once said, Brando had it all, great stardom and a great talent. He could have taken his audience on a trip to the stars, but he simply would not. Steiger, one of Brando's children even though a contemporary, could not understand it. When
James Mason' was asked in 1971 who was the best American actor, he had replied that since Brando had let his career go belly-up, it had to be
George C. Scott, by default.
