(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).
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