However, Brando made a much stronger impression as an actor in 1951, in Kazan’s screen adaptation of “Streetcar Named Desire”. He was then only twenty years old, and still developing his skills as a method actor.īrando’s breakthrough acting role was on stage as Stanley Kowalski in “A Streetcar Named Desire”, directed by Elia Kazan in 1947.īrando’s first screen role was in “The Men” in 1950. He became first visible in 1944 in the play “Remember Mama”. At the Actor’s Studio the method mentor, Lee Strassberg, nurtured Brando’s talent.īrando began his acting career in summer stock roles in Sayville, New York. The approach is colloquially known as method acting. At the latter school his famous teacher, Stella Adler, introduced him to the Stanislavsky Method, an acting approach based on intellectual honesty. Around the time Brando turned twenty he went to New York City where he studied in the American Theater Wing Professional School, the Actor’s Studio, and the New School’s Dramatic Workshop. The young Brando was apparently quite rebellious and was expelled from several schools including the Shattuck Military Academy. His mother was apparently of solid Dutch background, and most of Brando’s biographical sketches refer to his primary Dutch ancestral background. It is generally agreed upon that he is from Dutch, Irish and English stock, although the family name originated in Germany and was originally spelled as Brandau. She is best known as the woman who convinced Henry Fonda to attempt to become a professional actor when he was active in the same Omaha community theater she was active in.īrando’s paternal ancestral background is somewhat cloudy. In 1937, Brando’s parents were reconciled and moved to Libertyville, Illinois, a village north of Chicago.īrando’s mother, Dorothy Pennebaker, was an amateur actress and was active in the Omaha, Nebraska thespian scene. His mother took her three children to live with her mother in California, where they lived for two years. Brando’s parents separated when Marlon was 11 years old in 1935. His father, Marlon Brando, Sr., was an alcoholic and his mother turned to the bottle herself, apparently out of frustration with her husband. His home life as a child was unhappy and tumultuous. Marlon Brando, one of the great and most enigmatic stage and screen actors of the second half of the twentieth century was born in Omaha, Nebraska on April 3, 1924.
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