1924–, American film actor, b. Omaha, Nebr. Regarded as the foremost practitioner of method acting as taught at New York's Actor's Studio, the young Brando combined a rough sex appeal with a naturalistic performance style. He made his film debut as a bitter paraplegic in The Men (1950). His reputation was firmly established in Tennessee Williams's A Streetcar Named Desire (1947), a role he later committed to film (1950). His early film roles included a Mexican revolutionary in Viva Zapata! (1952), Marc Antony in Shakespeare's Julius Caesar (1953), a battered dockworker in On the Waterfront (1954; Academy Award), and a singing and dancing Sky Masterson in Guys and Dolls (1955). He made his directorial debut with One-Eyed Jacks (1961), in which he also starred. Among his most acclaimed films are two from 1972, The Godfather, in which he played a memorable Mafia patriarch and for which he won and subsequently refused the Academy Award, and Last Tango in Paris, an erotic tour de force that created considerable controversy at its release. Brando has continued to appear in many films, including supporting roles in Missouri Breaks (1976), Apocalypse Now (1979), A Dry White Season (1988), and The Freshman (1990) and as a costar in Don Juan DeMarco (1995), The Brave (1997), and The Score (2001).

See his autobiography, Brando: Songs My Mother Taught Me (1994); L. Grobel, Conversations with Brando (1991, rev. ed. 1999); biographies by D. Downing (1984), R. Schickel (1991, rev. ed. 1999), N. Bly (1994), P. Manso (1994), P. Ryan (1994), and P. Bosworth (2001); studies by T. Thomas (1973), B. Braithwaite (1977), and R. Tanitch (1994).

The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition Copyright© 2004, Columbia University Press. Licensed from Lernout & Hauspie Speech Products N.V. All rights reserved.

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