Why did Marlon Brando let his looks go?

Ron Richards

Studied at California State University, Los Angeles (Graduated 1968)Jan 28

Why did Marlon Brando let his looks go?

Original question: “Why did Marlon Brando let his looks go?”

Brando is a dichotomy of characters all wrapped up into one person. He was in reality the perennial bad boy from early childhood into elder adult until death.

He cared little about what others thought of him, or the way he dressed or looked. In fact, he nourished on his bad boy behavior from his childhood on.

As a high school teen he was expelled from Libertyville High School in Chicago for riding his motorcycle in the school hallways. Later he was expelled from a military academy in Minnesota for sneaking off campus.

Even before tremendous success, other actors wanted to model themselves after his method acting style. It was said that James Dean modeled himself after Brando in his role of “Rebel Without a Cause” and in his other two screen adaptations. He did, according to some, idolize Brando. And according to others actually had a real life intimate affair with him.

Many thought he was lazy, especially in later years when he absolutely refused to rehearse and memorize his lines. But for him, it was a matter of being the character and allowing that character to come to life by natural instinct and expression.

To say that Brando was hard to work with is an understatement. And yet, he was, without half trying, a genius in his ability to get inside a character and make that character live on screen.

While his style was lauded for his portrayals, he also, at times, was not all that good in movies. Especially when he was hemmed in and had to respond to strict direction. But when allowed to do it his way, he often, and generally, went way beyond expectation.

In some ways, Brando never grew up. The wayward little boy and teen always had a place in his head that survived all the intensity of the world around him. He was to remain the unruly high school teen who rode a motorcycle in the hallways in school and got expelled. The obsessive uncontrolled little boy who lived in the shell of a man.

Brando an enigma of lack of discipline but with a talent so large that even his own rebellious ways could not diminish it.

Some say, and with reason, that he was, perhaps, the greatest actor of the 20th century. While others may come along and achieve greatness, there will never be another Marlon Brando.