I love Steyn as well - and have a book of his theater reviews. But this one is way off base. He concentrates on Brando’s offstage behavior which any good critic knows to avoid. Strange because Steyn is a good critic.
The fact that Brando got fat during the 70s should have no bearing on his prior work. He gave many fine film performances prior to the 1980s and Steyn knows that.
While he talks about how people think that Brando designed his wardrobe for “Streetcar,” he neglects to say that the half-hour ovation he received for that show was very odd - because he was a secondary character - not the lead. Jessica Tandy could not outshine Brando in the lead role and so he stole it from her. As Brando says in his autobiography, it was Vivien Leigh who balanced out the play and put him in his rightful place during the making of the film. A generous comment from a man not known for a tiny ego.
I also take exception to Mark’s comment that Brando had an abortionist on retainer without any sourcing. That’s a terrible thing to write about a man without a source.
Brando actually was not into Tahitian chicks as much as he was into Latinas. Rita Moreno was probably the one constant in his life. He gave up on Indians in the 1990s when he found a dirty diaper stuck down in one of the cushions of his couch in his house on Mulholland Drive. He threw all the Indians out and that was the end of THAT.
The simple problem with Brando? He was dumb. Truman Capote wrote an entire essay on this back in the late 50s and Steyn must be aware of it. But, he was a brilliant film actor and in his time, one of the great “beauties” of the cinema. RIP, Bud!
Was Brando dumb or just a bit crazy?
I watch him even in a minor work like Missouri Breaks, through which he seems to improvise the whole way, and he is unsettled and unsettling...but he never seems dumb.
I have read that even in his middle-aged years he was impulsive and extremely difficult to work with, to the point of imbalance.
During the late fifties and sixties supposedly Brando was on the outs with many Hollyweird producers who didn’t want anything to do with him. He was just not your typical ain’t-life-here-grand Hollywood actor. I remember the criticism of “One-Eyed Jacks” when it came out. I was too young to see it at the movie theater, so it was twenty or so years later after it was released before I saw it on tv. It’s one of best westerns ever. Certainly, Brando acted in a lot of crap movies and mostly ruined his talent. But when he was on, he was great.
True, but I read it as a review of his life. And I found it interesting.
When I saw Brando in ‘On the Waterfront’, only recently, I wondered what happened to him.
THe movie is brilliant. I just sent a copy to my ailing young relative.
Steyn lets me know just what happened to him, and many bitter spoiled people.