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This is Later with Lee Matthews The
Lee Matthews Podcast more what You Hear Weekday

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Afternoon's on the Drive. Burt Kurns
is an award winning producer, director,

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writer, journalist and author. His
latest book, Marlon Brando Hollywood Rebel,

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is out now and everywhere you get
books. Let's start, Burt Kerns with

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what brought you to Marlon Brando?
I mean, I know he's one of

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the most iconic actors of all time, but is there something particular about him

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that interested you? Well? First
of all, Brando was admittedly one of

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the most influential actors of his generation. And it came to the point where

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we were getting close to his one
hundredth birthday, one hundred years since his

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birth, twenty years since his death, and as a longtime journalist, I

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just started looking back into Brando's career
and started to see the influence that this

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guy had because of the films he
made, because of the lifestyle choices that

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he made, how he continued to
influence popular culture in ways far beyond acting,

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from politics to sexuality, to art
to music. He even you know,

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he influenced Elvis. He even really
gave name to the Beatles. How

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so, Well, we go back
to this film called The Wild One.

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You know, it was Brando's fifth
film. His first four films were all

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very serious roles. He had Academy
Award nominations for three of them. Then

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he decides to make what we call
now a biker flick. He plays the

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leader of this motorcycle gang. Well, he plays the leader of a group

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called the Black Rebel Motorcycle Club there
in a town, and then their rivals

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show up, another motorcycle gang which
is led by Lee Marvin. And Lee

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Marvin comes in and he recognizes Brando's
character and says, Johnny, we missed

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you, man, We missed you. The Beatles missed you. And the

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Beatles were the groupies that were hanging
around with Lee Mar's motorcycle gang. Well,

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as the story goes, John Lennon
and Stu Sutcliffe, an original member

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of the Beatles, really loved this
movie. They loved the image of Brando

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as the Wild One. If you
remember, the Beatles in their early days

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all wore leather jackets and leather suits
that all came from Brando and The Wild

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One, and they kind of pomadors. Yeah yeah, and and and so

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they were looking for a name for
the group, and they wanted something cool,

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you know, beat with the with
an EA and you know Beatles like

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Buddy Holly and the Crickets. And
Paul mccartty even said in a recent interview

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that that's really where it came from
from this film. And if you don't

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believe it, look at the cover
of Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club band.

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That's where the Beatles are dressed up
as the Sergeant Pepper Group, and behind

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them is a collage of famous people
well standing to their right are the wax

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dummies for Madam Tissou's gallery of the
Beatles in their early years, and over

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their shoulder is Marlon Brando as Johnny
Strabler, the wild One, Marlon Brando

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Hollywood rebel, Burt Kerrs as the
Writer. And what got Marlon Brando into

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acting? I mean, I know
he really I think he took the method

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acting to another level that nobody had
ever seen before in that era. But

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what got him into acting. He
got into acting because he got kicked out

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of military school and his parents wanted
him to be able to do something to

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make a living, and acting was
something that came very easily to him.

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He did it when he was at
summer camp as a kid, and he

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joined the theatrical society when he was
at military school, and he was good

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at it and it was easy for
him. So they shipped him off to

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New York. He went to the
New School for Social Research where they had

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an actor's workshop, and he fell
under the spell of a woman named Stella

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Adler, who was part of a
great acting Yiddish acting dynasty. She taught

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Brando. She was one of the
people that taught this thing that became known

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as the method. And Brando,
you know, Brando revolutionized acting because before

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that people would go on stage and
recite the line and you know, play

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a character and talk very loud.
Brando would mumble on stage. If his

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buttched, he would scratch it on
stage. If he had a cold,

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his character had a cold, and
people have never seen this before. This

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is a whole new kind of realism
that he brought to Hollywood. Was he

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also the type of method actor that
would get into the character and stay that

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way all day on set. He
would at times. He was somebody that

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did great preparation that actors didn't do
at the time. You know, when

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he first came out to Hollywood,
he didn't check into the Beverly Hills Hotel.

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He didn't, you know, get
a bungalow in Hollywood. He checked

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himself into a veterans hospital because he
was portraying a paraplegic war veteran in his

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first film, The Men, and
he wanted to get into character. So

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he lived in this hospital for a
month as a paraplegic, got around in

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a wheelchair. The other patients thought
that he was one of them. Marl.

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People didn't do that back. No, no, Marlon Brando, Hollywood

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rebel. And they probably thought when
they found out, what a weirdo.

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Well that's what they thought in Hollywood. They thought he was a weirdo.

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They made fun of him, but
they also couldn't deny his talent, so

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he was able to get away with
it. He acted, he was very

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different. He didn't go, he
didn't show up with the nightclubs with Starlit's

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he didn't you know Genia flect to
the gossip columnist. But he got away

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with it because he was so talented. Marlon Brando, Hollywood rebel. Burt

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Kerns is with us. He's the
author of the book, and Marlon Brando

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didn't mind. I mean, at
this point, if you were an actor

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and you got into a genre like
westerns or heart throb movies, you stayed

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there because it was a steady paycheck. Marlon Brando didn't mind challenging himself in

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different roles. I mean even in
Guys and Dolls. Where did he not

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do his own singing In Guys and
Dolls? Unfortunately, he did his own

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singing. But Frank Sinatra pretty he
pulled it off. Frank Sinatra given the

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supporting role. Sinatra thought he deserved
the role, of course, so they

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wrote a few extra songs for Sinatra. But yeah, he did, you

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know, he went. He played
a Japanese interpreter in Tea House in the

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August Moon. He did a Jerry
Lewis type character in Bedtime Story. You

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know, he played a repressed homosexual
Army major in Reflections in a Golden Eye.

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He took chances that other actors wouldn't, No, not at all.

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And and then on the water Front
and uh, and then oh the Tennessee

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Williams street car name Desire, Yeah, street car name is uh. You

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know, he won the Oscar for
on the Waterfront. He he got he

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was nominated for for a street car, you know. Then then, of

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course, you know, there was
The Godfather, the movie everybody knows,

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believe it or not. The studio
did not want Marlon Brando to play The

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Godfather. He was box office poison. They wanted Franks and Lawrence Olivier,

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maybe Ernest borgnine, but they were
not interested in him. You know.

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One of the people I spoke to
in this book was the assistant producer on

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The Godfather who won the Academy Award
for producing Godfather Too. And that's great,

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Fredrickson from Oklahoma City. Gray passed
away while we were doing the book,

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but great, you know, told
me a lot about Brandon and working

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with Brando, and how when Brando
showed up to play The Godfather, he

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was only forty seven years old,
and he was buff. He was in

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great, the best shape he'd ever
been. So what did he do.

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He patted himself up, He put
the cotton balls in his cheeks, put

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on, you know, some fake
teeth, and they, all of a

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sudden, before their very eyes,
this guy turned into Don corleone. Did

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he do the research for that or
did he did? Was this his interpretation

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of the character. In this case, it was his interpretation of the character,

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you know. And he showed up
and although rahaps the studio didn't want

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him when he got on set and
there's you know, there's James Cohn and

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Al Pacino and John Cazal and Robert
Devada, like, this is what we're

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working with Marlon Brando. We can't
believe it. I know. No,

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Brando made them very comfortable. It
made them very comfortable because throughout the entire

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shooting he engaged in mooning contests and
he and he was the king of the

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mooners. Apparently he won the contest
because when they shot that, you know,

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the wedding scene at the beginning of
The Godfather. Yeah, uh,

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there there was a lull in the
action. Gray told me this, and

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Brando decided to moon seven hundred extras
from the stage. Well. He also

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did a bunch of things off camera. And I interviewed ed Begley Junior not

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long ago, and ed Begley Junior
told the story of how Brando had this

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bright idea to raise electric eels in
his swimming pool, thinking he could power

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his house with it, and Edley
Junior had to tell him it doesn't work

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that way, Marlin. So he
did some things off camera as well.

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It were a lot of fun.
Yeah, he was an inventor. You

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know. One of the part of
this legacy is the island in Tahiti that

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he owned, Teddy Aroa, which
is it's a hotel now a luxury hotel

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called the Brando, but it's also
a research lab for you know, coral

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reef preservation and ecological issues, and
that was something that was very very close

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to his heart, much more than
acting. Was Marlon Brando Hollywood rebel.

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Burt Kerns is the author. It's
going to be a great summer read if

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you like the behind the scenes stuff
like I do. And thanks for joining

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us today. Hey, thanks thanks
for having me. Thanks for listening to

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Later with Lee Matthews, the Lee
Matthews Podcast, and remember to listen to

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The Drive Live weekday afternoons from five
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