15 Insane Facts About Marlon Brando, One Of The Weirdest Actors Ever
In addition to being one of cinema's all-time greatest actors, Marlon Brando ranks as one of Hollywood's all-time great weirdos. Insane Marlon Brando tales from the set of films like The Island of Dr. Moreau go great lengths to telling just how bizarre weird-ass method actors get. Indeed, a spate of crazy Marlon Brando facts reveals he ranks among the great Hollywood lunatics, alongside Dennis Hopper, Sean Penn, Nic Cage, and even Steven Seagal.
These crazy facts, about the insane - yet brilliant - Brando, who revolutionized the craft of acting, range from his obsession with farting to tales of his difficult and strange on-set behavior and his plans to harness the electrical power of eels. Brando was indeed one of a kind, the linchpin between old and new Hollywood, and yet, like the scandals of old Hollywood, many of his eccentricities have vanished in the fog of time, replaced by his totemic image in the iconography of American film legends.
This Entire Larry King Interview, Which Ended with a Kiss
Upon the release of his autobiography, Songs My Mother Taught Me, Brando was stunned and upset to discover he was contractually obligated to do at least one media appearance to promote the book (during the interview, he called the process "beating a drum for some product"). He chose Larry King Live because King was “forthright, sincere, and direct and unexploitative”, and their chat became one of the most iconic of King’s 50,000+ interviews.
Brando was playful and relaxed during the conversation. He kicked off his shoes and put his bare feet up on an ottoman (and said, "You can't see my feet, can you? I forgot to put my shoes on."). He sang the songs his mother taught him (King sang with him, and Brando said "You're off key" in the middle of their duet). He said, "If the dog hadn't stopped to pee, he might have caught the rabbit." On The Godfather, Larry King said "You're not a mafia kingpin," to which Brando replied "Yes I am."
What else happened? Brando tried to get King a tissue to wipe away his sweat (and mused aloud why King sweat more than him), said he took up acting because it pays really well and he didn't know what else to do, suggested he would say no to the role of Jesus Christ playing Mary Magdalen, and asked King whether or not he (Brando) was a product being sold on the show. He also tried to turn the interview around, and when King said "The subject is you," Brando replied, "Not necessarily, because the audience would really like to know what it is that makes Larry King tick."
The warm, bizarre, endearing affair ended with a legendary kiss between King and Brando. Unexploitative indeed!
He Spent Many of His Final Days at Neverland Ranch and Fled 9/11 with Michael Jackson
In his final, ailing years, Marlon Brando formed a friendship with Michael Jackson, and came to consider Neverland Ranch his second home. Brando’s son Miko worked as a security guard at the ranch, and remarked after his father's death, “the last time my father left his house to go anywhere, to spend any kind of time, it was with Michael Jackson.”
It was later reported that, on September 11, 2001, Marlon Brando, Michael
Jackson, and Elizabeth Taylor shared a rental car to escape New York City.
Brando and Taylor were in New York at the time to appear as guests at
Jackson's shows at Madison Square Garden, and the trio allegedly drove all the
way to Ohio together. According to Vanity Fair's Sam Kashner, "Brando
allegedly annoyed his colleagues by stopping at every KFC and
Burger King they passed along the highway. One can only imagine the shock
their appearance caused at gas stations and rest stops across America."
The story of the weirdest road trip of all time has recently (and unfortunately) been disputed by those who claim Taylor was never in the car.
He Loved to Prank Jack Nicholson, and They Starred in a Batsh*t Insane Movie Together
For the last thirty years of Marlon Brando’s life, he was next door neighbors with Jack Nicholson. In a 2004 obituary, Nicholson wrote about the decades he spent sharing a driveway, and friendship, with Brando. He remarked Brando was “a brilliant man with a very eclectic mind," and gave “new meaning to the phrase ‘Good fences make good neighbors.’”
What stood out most to Nicholson was Brando’s love of pranks. Nicholson writes most of the pranks must remain private. "Some of those pranks will have to remain private. I'm lifelong trained not to talk much about Mr. Brando – that's the way he liked it, and that's the way I always was about him. It's private stuff."
Nicholson does, however, share a favorite April Fools’ Day Prank Brando pulled, during which he convinced Nicholson he was selling his home to someone Nicholson hated. After the prank was revealed, “Marlon never stopped laughing about that time he got me to go completely crazy.”
The two also starred in a film together, 1976's The Missouri Breaks, a notorious flop criticized by Vincent Canby of the New York Times for Brando's "out of control performance," which includes a scene of him feeding a carrot to a horse for his own mouth then barking "I don't love you, you harlot. I'm not even speaking to you." at a nearby donkey before playing a song on a harmonica with his back to the horse (because he loves her so much he can't look her in the eye). The horse proceeds to pee during the performance, to which Brando says "Well, that's a fine thing. You've pissed right in the middle of my love song."
For a brief period of time in 2001, a recently separated Nicholson actually moved in with Brando. During their time as roommates, the 63-year-old Nicholson and 76-year-old Brando were said to have gotten along just fine.
He Gave Patricia Quinn a Human Scalp and Allegeldy Had an Affair with Bob Dylan
Northern Irish actress Patricia Quinn, who appeared in such groovy counter culture films as Rocky Horror Picture Show and Adolf Hitler: My Part in His Downfall, recalls an especially scandalous story in Marlon Brando, a biography by Peter Manso, about the time Brando gave her a necklace made of human scalp.
Quinn, a romantic partner of Brando’s in the '60s, visited Brando’s trailer on the set of The Appaloosa with Bob Dylan. "The first thing Marlon did was take this thing from around his neck and put it around mine," recalled Quinn. "I looked down and it was a scalp, a real human scalp. Possession is nine-tenths of the law—he was claiming me."
Quinn also claims Dylan asked for a bottle of coke, which Brando opened with his teeth, after which romance blossomed between Dylan and Brando (who was openly bisexual). "I never saw anything, but the word going around then was that Dylan was swinging both ways."
He Wanted to Be a Dolphin in the Island of Doctor Moreau, and Requested a Sidekick
So much can, and has, been written about the complete disaster that was production of The Island of Dr. Moreau. Brando spent hours in his air conditioned trailer while extras and crew members waited in the heat of an Australian jungle. He didn’t memorize lines, instead wearing an earpiece so someone could feed him dialogue (it also occasionally caught messages from a local police radio). If that weren't enough, Brando wanted to shut down production for six to eight weeks to rewrite the script, so he could include the following detail: Dr. Moreau wears a hat throughout the film, and in the final scene takes the hat off to reveal he's actually a dolphin. And he wanted to wear an ice bucket on his head.
To top it all of, Brando demanded a sidekick for all his scenes, which wasn't part of the script. From the moment he saw Nelson de La Rosa, 71 centimeters tall and one of the shortest actors alive, who was on set at the behest of the makeup team to play a monster, he was obsessed. Brando was even quoted as saying: “You’re telling me there’s a man in there!?” He asked that de la Rosa be included in all his scenes, as his personal sidekick, and wear matching clothes.
He Suggested Playing Superman's Dad as a Bagel
Before Superman director Richard Donner met Marlon Brando, who was set to play Superman’s father, Jor-El, he was given this warning by studio executive Jay Kanter: “He's going to want to play it like a green suitcase.”
Kanter explained to Donner “[Brando] hates to work and he loves money, so if he can talk you into the fact that the people on Krypton look like green suitcases and you only photograph green suitcases, he'll get paid just to do the voiceover. That’s the way his mind works.”
When Donner met Brando, the legendary thespian played the role of eccentric lunatic to a T: “Why don't I play this like a bagel?... How do we know what the people on Krypton looked like?”
Donner replied, “There isn't a kid in the world that doesn't know what Jor-El looks like, and he looks like Marlon Brando.” Brando relented, was apparently very courteous with everyone on set, and the world was denied the first bagel superhero.
His Final Role Was Voicing a Woman in an Unreleased Brendan Fraser Animated Film
On The Waterfront. The Godfather. Apocalypse Now. Big Bug Man.
After a career spanning some of the most iconic cinematic roles in history, Marlon Brando’s final role was a supporting voice performance in an unreleased Brendan Fraser animated superhero film called Big Bug Man.
Originally, Brando was approached to voice the villain, evil Nicholas Dunderbeck. But Brando - who had always hoped to play a woman - insisted he voice Mrs. Sour, an elderly candy company founder. Brando recorded the role at his home, in a dress, wig, and make-up. He told the films co-director the recording was the most fun he’d had on a film since Julius Caesar, despite having to pause after every few lines to take a hit form his oxygen tank, given the poor state of his health at the time.
He Loved Farts So Much He Compared His Fart Machine to God
Brando was a well known fan of flatulence, and once considered creating a Dial-A-Fart phone line you could call, hear famous people farting, and guess which celebrity was which by the sound of their farts.
When asked by Johnny Depp why he loved farts so, Brando responded, “because they are blatantly anti-social.” Depp gave Brando one of his prized possessions: a fart machine. When Brando received it, he reportedly said: “I’ve found God!!!”
The full story, in Depp's words:
"My own tear-filled laughter gave up the charade. I reached into my pocket and revealed the culprit. Marlon’s face lit up like a Christmas tree, the smile of a five-year-old. I handed the fart unit to him, he held it up to the light and exclaimed, “I've found God!!!” I was so proud that, after a couple of years of being on the receiving end of Marlon’s practical jokes, I was finally able to swing back and connect big-time. But we were both winners, as the fart machine became a source of entertainment for many years."
His Mastiff, Doctor Tim, Handled Interview Requests for The Score
When it came time to do publicity for The Score, Brando did Brando, staying holed up in his house with no company other than two English mastiffs. Of the two dogs, Doctor Tim was Brando's favorite. If any reporter wanted a response to an interview request, they directed correspondence to Doctor Tim, via fax. A New York Times reporter told to fax Doctor Tim recalls, "Half an hour later, a fax comes fluttering back with a message saying, in effect, 'Marlon Brando is unavailable.' It is signed 'Doctor Tim.'"
Fun fact: Tim appears in the Larry King interview, about 38 minutes in, and Brando requested a close up of him before cutting to commercials.
Buttergate
In late 2016, a furor arose around Marlon Brando and director Bernardo Bertolucci, for allegedly conspiring to rape Brando's Last Tango in Paris co-star Maria Schneider for a scene in which Brando uses butter as a lubricant for non-consensual anal sex. The controversy arose after an old interview with Bertolucci was unearthed, in which he mentioned surprising the actress with the scene.
Bertolucci responded quickly to the scandal, saying:
“Several years ago at the Cinemathèque Francaise someone asked me for details on the famous. I specified, but perhaps I was not clear, that I decided with Marlon Brando not to inform Maria that we would have used butter. We wanted her spontaneous reaction to that improper use [of the butter]. That is where the misunderstanding lies."
The film's director of photography, Vittorio Storaro, also offered commentary on the issue via the Guardian:
“I was there. We were doing a movie. You don’t do it for real. I was there with two cameras and nothing happened. … Nobody was raping anybody. I think the journalists are making an issue that is not really an issue. I read that there was a kind of violence made on her but that’s not true. That’s not true at all.”
Still, the fact remains that notorious crazy man Marlon Brando, who was 48 at the time, rubbed a stick of butter on 19-year-old co-star Maria Schneider's bare ass without telling her first.
He Showed Up Naked from the Waist Down for The Score and Called Frankz Oz Miss Piggy
By all accounts, Brando was an absolute nightmare on the set of The Score, his final on-screen role, for which he received $3 million for three weeks work. Things went wrong from day one, when he “turned up to the set naked from the waist down - a ploy, apparently, to ensure [director Frank] Oz could not film him below the shoulders and reveal the full measure of his corpulence.”
Arguments between Brando and Oz, who Brando referred to as Miss Piggy due to the director's work as a puppeteer on the Muppets Show, became so heated Brando refused to go on set when Oz was present; Robert De Niro had to direct Brando’s scenes. One fantastic (but possibly anecdotal) insult Brando lobbed at Oz was: "I bet you wish I was a puppet so you could stick your hand up my ass and make me do what you want."
Which begs the question, what if Brando had played Yoda?
He Challenged a Mexican Actor to a Pissing Contest for a Mexican Role (and Won)
In Viva Zapata!, Marlon Brando played Mexican revolutionary hero Emiliano Zapata and Anthony Quinn, who was born in Mexico during the revolution to an Irish father and Mexican mother, played his brother Eufemio. According to tales from the set, Quinn believed he should play the lead, so Brando challenged him to a pissing contest. Literally.
According to this piece of Hollywood lore, Brando and Quinn held a contest over the Rio Grande; whoever pissed furthest won. Brando’s pee carried the day, and he retained the lead role. Quinn remained as Eufemio, a role for which he won an Oscar.
He Was Circumcised in His 60s, and Wanted to Use Mind Control in Place of Anesthesia
Not only did Brando decide to be circumcised in his '60s, he also requested it be done without any anesthetic or painkillers.
Late in life, Brando took up meditation, saying it helped with many emotional and physical problems. He believed so strongly in his ability to push away pain, he wrote about a discussion he had with a doctor in his autobiography.
“When I decided a few years ago to be circumcised, I asked the doctor to do it without a pain-killer. I assured him that I could eliminate the pain using mind control during the operation. He was skeptical, but said it would be an interesting medical experience...”
In the end, when Brando arrived at the hospital he was very disappointed to discover the doctors refused to perform the circumcision without anesthesia.
He Stole His Best Friend's Ashes from His Widow and Secretly Conversed with Them
Brando was close friends with actor Wally Cox (the voice of Underdog), and after Cox passed away, Brando was asked by Cox’s widow, Patricia Shapiro, to scatter his ashes. Only Brando didn’t. Instead, he secretly kept the ashes in his home, and often had conversations with them.
Three years after Cox’s death, Shapiro learned through a Time Magazine interview that the ashes were not spread in Cox's favorite hiking places, per her request. Brando was quoted as saying: “"He was [like] my brother. I can't tell you how much I miss and love that man. I have Wally's ashes in my house. I talk to him all the time."
He Wanted to Power His Home with Electric Eels (Which Shocked His Son's GF)
Actor Ed Begley Jr, a famous proponent of alternative energy sources, spoke at Brando's memorial service in 2004, telling a story of the time Brando informed him of his desire to harness the power of electric eels.
According to Begley Jr, he was summoned to Brando's house to discuss an "urgent matter." When he arrived, Brando excitedly informed him of his goal to gather thousands of electric eels in his swimming pool to power his house. When Begley Jr. seemed skeptical, Brando replied: “Everything’s no with you.”
Still, Brando collected some eels on the island he owned in Tahiti. One day, while he was cleaning their tank, Brando stored the eels in his swimming pool. His son brought a girlfriend over to swim, she jumped into the pool with the eels, and got shocked to hard she went flying into the air, away from the water. Everyone was fine in the end.
