Tuesday, April 9, 2024
Republican-American (Waterbury CT): On centennial of his birth, Brando remembered as iconic rebel
(The following review of Burt Kearns’s new book, Marlon Brando: Hollywood Rebel was published on January 31, 2023, in the Republican-American newspaper of Waterbury, Connecticut. The R-A site is protected by a paywall, but you can view five articles for free by registering at rp-am.com. Click the headline below to link to the original story.)
On centennial of his birth, Brando remembered as iconic rebel
By ALAN BISBORT April 8, 2024
Marlon Brando in "The Wild One"
Marlon Brando the actor died in 2004 at age 80. However, Marlon Brando the cultural icon just turned 100, on April 3, the centenary of his birth. A number of articles have appeared marking the occasion, as has a film series on Turner Classic Movies and other cable and streaming services.
The one essential book published in connection with the anniversary is “Marlon Brando: Hollywood Rebel,” by Burt Kearns. Kearns, a Stamford native and Fairfield University grad who now lives in Los Angeles, is a veteran print and broadcast journalist and Emmy-winning TV documentarian. He is also a serious film history buff, and his previous book was a biography of the boozing, brawling tough-guy actor, Lawrence Tierney.
It may come as a surprise to some readers that Kearns opens this book with “The Wild One” (1953), which isn’t one of Brando’s crowning cinematic jewels. There is a method to the author’s madness, though. Kearns is not interested in a chronological story, nor is this book a biography – though there is much fascinating biographical detail in it.
Instead he’s documenting the astonishing range of influence that Brando wielded on his own times and over succeeding generations – in acting, outlaw attitude, style of speech, manners and dress, political activism, countercultural movements and even music. And “The Wild One” was a game changer.
About this book, Kearns writes that it’s “a study of how one man’s artistic and personal decisions affected not only those around him, but all of Western society and popular culture. … The reader will find that Marlon Brando’s mark on the modern world has been indisputable and pervasive in the 77 years since he walked onstage at Broadway’s Ethel Barrymore, 20 years after his death, and 100 years after his birth.”
For example, you may not have realized, until this book, that Brando had high hopes and serious intent for “The Wild One.” It was not an exploitative biker flick in the Roger Corman-Russ Meyer mold. Brando took this role of Johnny Strabler, outlaw biker gang leader, as seriously as any of the other films that would win him fame and acclaim.
At the time, he’d already garnered two Academy Awards nominations – for “A Streetcar Named Desire” (1951) and “Viva Zapata!” (1953) – so he had no reason to slum with cheesy B movies.
Before filming even started, he immersed himself in biker culture, hung out at L.A biker bars and bought a motorcycle. He wanted this to be a serious film. But then, the Hollywood censors came calling, insisting the script had to be changed so that the “bad guys” took all the blame. Brando later said, “We started out to do something worthwhile, to explain the psychology of the hipster. But somewhere along the way we went off the track.”
As low on Brando’s totem pole as it may be, “The Wild One” had huge cultural impacts. In Memphis, where it was banned, a 19-year-old wannabe singer named Elvis Presley was determined to see it; he became a Brando fanatic. Presley signed a record contract with Sun Records and then with RCA right about the time “Rebel Without a Cause”(starring James Dean, another Brando acolyte) was released. This created a perfect storm of youth revolt, in manners, film and music. In addition to being a rock’n’ roll star, Elvis now wanted to be a “serious” actor like his idol, Marlon Brando.
A group of lads from Liverpool were also smitten with Brando and Elvis. When they were fishing around for a band name, they recalled a line from “The Wild One.” Chino, a gang leader played by Lee Marvin, tells Strabler (Brando’s character) “the Beetles miss you.” The Beetles was the name of another biker gang, and when “The Wild One” came to Liverpool, two best pals, John Lennon and Stu Sutcliffe, were there to see it. It was not too far a leap to adopt the name the Beetles, change the ‘e’ to an ‘a’ and, bingo, rock’n’ roll history was made. In homage, Brando is one of the people featured on the cover of the “Sgt. Pepper’s” album.
Kearns makes similar deep dives into Brando films in order to illustrate the actor’s equally strong influence on the Beat Generation (Jack Kerouac was a fan), Pop Art (Andy Warhol was a fan), the gay subculture and gay rights, the American Indian movement, Black power, environmentalism and even the punk movement of the 1970s and 1980s. And then there are the generations of actors who stood in Brando’s shadows, the ones who, following his example, immersed themselves in roles as outsiders and malcontents, everyone from De Niro, Depp and Nicholson to Daniel Day-Lewis and Nicole Kidman.
One of the most fascinating aspects of this book is to remind us how Brando, a product of the Midwest (like Orson Welles and Buster Keaton) had already become one of America’s great young stage actors before ever setting foot in Southern California. He really didn’t need Hollywood; Hollywood needed him. When he arrived in Hollywood in 1949, he snubbed the journalists and gossip columnists and said things like, “This town and everything in it is overrated.”
He was, in short, a “Hollywood Rebel” from the start and remained one until the end.
“Marlon Brando: Hollywood Rebel” by Burt Kearns
(Applause Theatre & Cinema Books, 280 pages, $29.95)
TRIVIA QUIZ
Text your knowledge of all things Brando with this 10-part quiz.
1) Brando came to the attention of Hollywood through his celebrated Broadway appearances in “A Streetcar Named Desire.” Who wrote the play on which this production was based?
2) Who played the role of Blanche Dubois in the stage production with Brando? Who portrayed Blanche Dubois in the film version?
3) What actor took over the role of Stanley Kowalski on stage after Brando left? (Hint: He would go on to have a long film career.)
4) What was the only musical Brando ever appeared in?
5) Brando was nominated six times for Academy Awards. How many did he win, and for what films?
6) What was his only film given an X rating?
7) What was the only film he directed and what famous director did he replace?
8) Who appeared in Brando’s stead at the 1973 Academy Awards ceremony when he won Best Actor for his role in “The Godfather”?
9) What was the only film in which Jack Nicholson and Brando appeared together?
10) What was the only film in which Robert De Niro and Brando appeared together?
ANSWERS:
1) Tennessee Williams. 2) Jessica Tandy, Vivien Leigh; 3) Ralph Meeker. 4) “Guys and Dolls,” with Sinatra. 5) Two, for “On the Waterfront” (1954) and “The Godfather” (1972). 6) “Last Tango in Paris” (1972). 7) “One-Eyed Jacks” (1961), Stanley Kubrick, who was hired to direct but, two weeks before production started, he dropped out and Brando volunteered to take over. 8) Sacheen Littlefeather, a Native American actress who, under instructions from Brando, refused the Oscar to protest Hollywood’s depiction of Native Americans and in solidarity with the protesters at Wounded Knee. 9) “The Missouri Breaks” (1976). 10) “The Score” (2001).
Saturday, March 30, 2024
'Marlon Brando: Hollywood Rebel’ internacional! Spain’s El Mundo features Burt Kearns’s latest book
The Los Angeles Times weighed in this week-- as did the Spanish newspaper El Mundo, in its La Lectura cultural magazine. Journalist Dario Prieto spoke to the author and featured the book this weekend.
The article is shown below, and a rough translation follows.
A rough translation:
LA LECTURA The cultural magazine of EL MUNDO Friday, March 29, 2024
100 YEARS OF MARLON BRANDO:
"TODAY HE WOULD BE CANCELLED...
AND HE WOULDN'T CARE."
intimidator of women,
openly bisexual, activist
in favor of the creation of
State of Israel, as well as
for native rights
of the US and African Americans,
the actor made his life a
representation greater than its
own myth. “It was limited to
live your life, no matter what
that no one would think,” says the
author of a new biography
by Dario Prieto
The first issue of Punk magazine, which popularized the term to refer to that youthful revolution, chose Marlon Brando (1924-2004) as "the original punk." The leather jackets worn by the Ramones were the same Perfecto that he wore in Savaje (1953), just as the rebelliousness and rebellious spirit of those young people was a reflection of what the actor had put into practice on and off the screen.
This Wednesday marks the centenary of his birth and, coinciding with the anniversary, Marlon Brando: Hollywood Rebel (Applause), a biography by Burt Kearns that delves into the living legacy of the interpreter of A Streetcar Named Desire (1951), The Law of Silence (1954), The Godfather (1972) and Apocalypse Now (1979).
"Brando was a giant of cinema and popular culture," says Kearns in a conversation with La Lectura in which he explains his approach: "I'm a journalist and an expert in culture, not a cinephile. And when it was suggested that I write a book about him, I thought: What else can you write? There are 800-page books about his life, Brando himself wrote a book, his achievements and his mistakes have been dwelt on many times... So I approached it from a different angle and it's how this man, through the choices he made in his life and on screen, continues to shape Western popular culture in every way: from Lily Gladstone being the first Native American to be nominated for the Oscar for Best Actress to what's happening in Israel."
THE HOLLYWOOD GAME. The first thing that stands out, the author points out, is that, "even though he had an incredible talent for acting - which meant nothing to him; it was just a song and dance - activism was more important to him than anything he did in film. If he was in a film, it had to be one that helped people, that made a difference". Based on Savaje and its influence on the advent of rock and roll and pop (it profoundly influenced both Elvis and the Beatles), Kearns draws parallels between Brando's image and his social commitment: "When Brando came to Hollywood, you had to do certain things when you set foot there: sign with a studio, talk to the press and deal with the gossip columnists who ran the city's media. Brando never did it, so he was greeted with suspicion: he was a weird guy and couldn't be trusted because he lied and made up stories about his past, in a similar way that Bob Dylan would later do. He wasn't someone the industry could trust, but his talent won out and he ended up playing the Hollywood game.”
"He led the way," he says. "In the old days of Hollywood, the '40s, if a star wanted to get into political activism he would come out and say you had to support the guys in the military and buy war bonds. But when he became a great figure, he began to appear in the vicinity of a prison where a man was to be executed, to protest against the death penalty. And the reaction was one of hostility: Who cares what that guy thinks? He's just an actor. But he did it because he was concerned about human rights, so he got involved in issues such as the inequalities of the caste system in India or the treatment of natives in the United States. The stars didn't do that and he was willing to be humiliated for it." And he paid a heavy price. "The gossip press was very conservative then – it still is – and it was waiting until you had a divorce or a problem on a set to say, 'Look at Marlon Brando; he's trying to change the world, but pay attention to what's happened in the courts today,'" Kearns said.
"He was a very troublesome person from a young age," he adds. "I don't want to fall into cliché, but as a teenager he was a rebel looking for a cause." And he puts the spotlight on a well-known moment: "When he received the Oscar for Best Actor for The Godfather, he sent Native American rights activist Sacheen Littlefeather to turn him down. No one had ever done anything like this before: George C. Scott had relinquished the statuette he won for Patton a few years earlier, but on the grounds that the actors shouldn't compete with each other. But Brando did so as a protest at the way the country treated its native people. That divided the public and the country itself: on the one hand, people like John Wayne, who said how can anyone dare to do something like that; on the other, those who went their way. For example, he raised his voice that films did not include black people and that if no one included them, he would start making films in which there were." It is, he points out, a case similar to that of John Lennon, who was in a hotel bed for a week playing the guitar for peace: "He was laughed at, but he started a movement that is still going on. The parallels don't end there: in his personal life, Lennon was sarcastic and violent towards women. Brando had his own problems with women, sometimes with cases of abuse. But again, he tried to turn it around.”
Asked how we view his myth today, Kearns replies, "Marlon Brando would be canceled today, but I don't think he would care." For him, "in a way, he was cancelled at the time because he was a weird guy, someone who could be caricatured. In fact, at the end of his life his best friends were Michael Jackson and Elizabeth Taylor."
ESPIDO FREIRE:
"CHARACTERS LIKE
KOWALSKI FORM A LINE
OF IRRESISTIBLE DESTRUCTIVES
THAT IS IN GOOD HEALTH TODAY”
And would it be possible for a Marlon Brando to emerge today? The writer Espido Freire, who collaborates in the collective volume The Universe of Marlon Brando (Notorious), responds in the affirmative, where she analyzes "the animal and primary part" of Kowalski's character in A Streetcar Named Desire, "which does not contradict the attraction he emanates, and which makes it even more complicated to differentiate what is evil in him and what is vulnerable." For her, "cancellation is rather a superficial movement, like a lip service, which from time to time rests its gaze on one work or another: the history of literature, like that of art, is nourished by horror, by the dark side of the human being as much as by the light." Although the revision of certain prestiges or facts "is necessary and fair", the author adds, "there is a need to address and look at the horror that will prevail, because to do otherwise would be to reduce oneself to the banal". Thus, Kowalski "belongs to a long tradition of destructive and irresistible men who populate literature (think, for example, of the sentimental novel today) and not only has not disappeared but enjoys good health and presence." Kearns, for his part, refers to what happened with Johnny Depp, whom he sees as a transcript of today's Brando.
ASEXUATED SEX. Similarly, his idea of sexuality remains uncomfortable. "He said that sex was asexual," says the author of his biography. "He didn't think much of having sex with women or men since his days at the military academy, when he had an affair with a male cadet while sleeping with the girls who worked at the base. Similarly, when he made Julius Caesar (1953), John Gielgud gave him some Shakespearean lessons and slept with him as a way of thanking him, as I was told by those who are still alive from that shoot. 'They appreciate it, so I'm happy to do it,' he said.
"Whether Cary Grant was gay or not, his characters never were. But Brando made a spectacular breakthrough in this regard. No major player had ever been involved in something like this before," he adds.
More controversial is his participation in Last Tango in Paris (1972), especially as a result of the accusations of his co-star Maria Schneider (1952-2011) of how the director, Bernardo Bertolucci, had created an environment in which the boundaries between interpretation and acting were blurred. "Ingmar Bergman said that the film is not about a man and a woman, but about two homosexuals," Kearns recalls. "People who highlight the scene in which Brando sodomizes Maria Schneider overlook another in which he teaches her how to cut her nails so that she can insert her fingers into his anus. There he is, again Brando, changing the rules of masculinity in society. I'm not saying that he made the world a safe place for that kind of exploration, but that he did it for himself. He just lived his life, followed his inspiration, and, no matter what anyone thought, revolutionized sexuality." He adds: "What happened was cruel. Even more so when you consider how young she was. But I found an article in the New York Times in which she said that when she met him, he told her, 'We need to get to know each other and be friends. After all, you're going to have to shove your fingers up my ass.’"
Signed copies of Marlon Brando: Hollywood Rebel are available exclusively at LarryEdmunds.com
Friday, March 29, 2024
Library Journal: Marlon Brando Hollywood Rebel is “an entertaining and enlightening study"
Library Journal, the trade publication for librarians in the United States, has high praise for Burt Kearns’s new book, Marlon Brando: Hollywood Rebel, The review by Lisa Henry states that despite numerous books about the great actor, author Kearns “successfully manages to focus on the impact Brando had on a dizzying array of societal and cultural topics.” The “verdict”? “An entertaining and enlightening study iof Brando’s impressive influence."
The review, for subscribers can be found here.
Marlon Brando: Hollywood Rebel
by Burt Kearns
Applause, April 2024
One of the greatest actors of the 20th century, Marlon Brando (1924–2004) had a larger-than-life screen persona and a personal life dominated by his passions for acting, activism, and sexual activities. These are all well-documented in numerous biographies, including his memoir. But Kearns (Lawrence Tierney: Hollywood’s Real-Life Tough Guy) successfully manages to focus on the impact Brando had on a dizzying array of societal and cultural topics. It begins with his tweaking of Method acting (he never memorized his lines), which reinvented the profession and forged the path to stardom for everyone from Jack Nicholson to Ryan Gosling. His character in The Wild One influenced the careers of Elvis Presley and John Lennon, provided inspiration for Andy Warhol, and kicked off the punk rock culture. As he publicly worked through his internal dilemmas, Brando is credited with normalizing the discussion of psychoanalysis and breaking sexual boundaries. He was an early supporter of gay rights. His purchase of a French Polynesian island eventually led to the boom of ecotourism, and his willingness to protest for Indigenous peoples, support opportunities for Black people, and more brought attention to topics considered verboten.
VERDICT An entertaining and enlightening study of Brando’s impressive influence.
Reviewed by Lisa Henry, Mar 29, 2024
Monday, February 5, 2024
Publisher to release two books by Burt Kearns in 2024: Tierney to Brando to SHEMP!
 |
| Shemp! |
While gearing up for the release of his new book, Marlon Brando: Hollywood Rebel, author (journalist and television and film producer) Burt Kearns already has another book ready to be launched in 2024. After his acclaimed biography of tough guy actor Lawrence Tierney, his forthcoming study of Brando’s influence on popular culture, what other actor and iconic Hollywood figure could round out this trio of giants? None other than Shemp! Shemp Howard of the Three Stooges.
Publishing giant Rowman & Littlefield has announced that Kearns's book (and second of 2024), SHEMP! The Biography of The Three Stooges’ Shemp Howard, The Face of Film Comedy, will be unleashed on October 1. Like Hollywood Rebel (due April 2, the day before Brando’s centennial), Shemp! is on the publisher's Applause Theatre and Cinema Books imprint.
The publisher describes the book:
Shemp Howard is one of the most recognizable faces of the twentieth century. He was also one of Hollywood’s most influential comic actors. An original member of the Three Stooges, Shemp, along with his brother Moe and vaudeville violinist Larry Fine, perfected a brand of raucous, lowbrow, slapstick comedy that had audiences rolling in the aisles of vaudeville houses, Broadway theatres, and movie palaces, and left an indelible imprint on the face of popular entertainment. Then he walked away... and the new Three Stooges – Moe, Larry, and brother Curly – made history.
But Shemp didn’t disappear. He made Hollywood history on his own, in a successful and -- until now –- unexplored career in more than a hundred movie shorts and features. He appeared in comedies, dramas, mysteries, Westerns, and musicals -- alongside the biggest stars of the Golden Age, including W.C. Fields, John Wayne, James Stewart, William Powell, Abbott & Costello, Lon Chaney, Jr., Myrna Loy, and Marlene Dietrich.
Shemp! is the first book to challenge the “official” version of Three Stooges history that’s been repeated for decades, shattering myths as it uncovers the surprising and often unsettling facts behind the man’s unlikely story: how the child of Jewish immigrants, racked with severe anxiety and a supposed fear of automobiles, dogs, and water—could conquer vaudeville, Broadway, and Hollywood. And it’s more than a biography: author Burt Kearns digs into the shorts and feature films he did on his own—more than a hundred of them—and, through interviews with fans, family members, scholars, experts, filmmakers, and celebrities, examines the “cult of Shemp” that thrives today.
We’re told to "expect to be surprised” in this new, critical, and journalistic look at an often-overlooked comedy star.
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