This is Later with Lee Matthews The Lee Matthews Podcast more what You Hear Weekday
Afternoon's on the Drive. Burt Kurns is an award winning producer, director,
writer, journalist and author. His latest book, Marlon Brando Hollywood Rebel,
is out now and everywhere you get books. Let's start, Burt Kerns with
what brought you to Marlon Brando? I mean, I know he's one of
the most iconic actors of all time, but is there something particular about him
that interested you? Well? First of all, Brando was admittedly one of
the most influential actors of his generation. And it came to the point where
we were getting close to his one hundredth birthday, one hundred years since his
birth, twenty years since his death, and as a longtime journalist, I
just started looking back into Brando's career and started to see the influence that this
guy had because of the films he made, because of the lifestyle choices that
he made, how he continued to influence popular culture in ways far beyond acting,
from politics to sexuality, to art to music. He even you know,
he influenced Elvis. He even really gave name to the Beatles. How
so, Well, we go back to this film called The Wild One.
You know, it was Brando's fifth film. His first four films were all
very serious roles. He had Academy Award nominations for three of them. Then
he decides to make what we call now a biker flick. He plays the
leader of this motorcycle gang. Well, he plays the leader of a group
called the Black Rebel Motorcycle Club there in a town, and then their rivals
show up, another motorcycle gang which is led by Lee Marvin. And Lee
Marvin comes in and he recognizes Brando's character and says, Johnny, we missed
you, man, We missed you. The Beatles missed you. And the
Beatles were the groupies that were hanging around with Lee Mar's motorcycle gang. Well,
as the story goes, John Lennon and Stu Sutcliffe, an original member
of the Beatles, really loved this movie. They loved the image of Brando
as the Wild One. If you remember, the Beatles in their early days
all wore leather jackets and leather suits that all came from Brando and The Wild
One, and they kind of pomadors. Yeah yeah, and and and so
they were looking for a name for the group, and they wanted something cool,
you know, beat with the with an EA and you know Beatles like
Buddy Holly and the Crickets. And Paul mccartty even said in a recent interview
that that's really where it came from from this film. And if you don't
believe it, look at the cover of Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club band.
That's where the Beatles are dressed up as the Sergeant Pepper Group, and behind
them is a collage of famous people well standing to their right are the wax
dummies for Madam Tissou's gallery of the Beatles in their early years, and over
their shoulder is Marlon Brando as Johnny Strabler, the wild One, Marlon Brando
Hollywood rebel, Burt Kerrs as the Writer. And what got Marlon Brando into
acting? I mean, I know he really I think he took the method
acting to another level that nobody had ever seen before in that era. But
what got him into acting. He got into acting because he got kicked out
of military school and his parents wanted him to be able to do something to
make a living, and acting was something that came very easily to him.
He did it when he was at summer camp as a kid, and he
joined the theatrical society when he was at military school, and he was good
at it and it was easy for him. So they shipped him off to
New York. He went to the New School for Social Research where they had
an actor's workshop, and he fell under the spell of a woman named Stella
Adler, who was part of a great acting Yiddish acting dynasty. She taught
Brando. She was one of the people that taught this thing that became known
as the method. And Brando, you know, Brando revolutionized acting because before
that people would go on stage and recite the line and you know, play
a character and talk very loud. Brando would mumble on stage. If his
buttched, he would scratch it on stage. If he had a cold,
his character had a cold, and people have never seen this before. This
is a whole new kind of realism that he brought to Hollywood. Was he
also the type of method actor that would get into the character and stay that
way all day on set. He would at times. He was somebody that
did great preparation that actors didn't do at the time. You know, when
he first came out to Hollywood, he didn't check into the Beverly Hills Hotel.
He didn't, you know, get a bungalow in Hollywood. He checked
himself into a veterans hospital because he was portraying a paraplegic war veteran in his
first film, The Men, and he wanted to get into character. So
he lived in this hospital for a month as a paraplegic, got around in
a wheelchair. The other patients thought that he was one of them. Marl.
People didn't do that back. No, no, Marlon Brando, Hollywood
rebel. And they probably thought when they found out, what a weirdo.
Well that's what they thought in Hollywood. They thought he was a weirdo.
They made fun of him, but they also couldn't deny his talent, so
he was able to get away with it. He acted, he was very
different. He didn't go, he didn't show up with the nightclubs with Starlit's
he didn't you know Genia flect to the gossip columnist. But he got away
with it because he was so talented. Marlon Brando, Hollywood rebel. Burt
Kerns is with us. He's the author of the book, and Marlon Brando
didn't mind. I mean, at this point, if you were an actor
and you got into a genre like westerns or heart throb movies, you stayed
there because it was a steady paycheck. Marlon Brando didn't mind challenging himself in
different roles. I mean even in Guys and Dolls. Where did he not
do his own singing In Guys and Dolls? Unfortunately, he did his own
singing. But Frank Sinatra pretty he pulled it off. Frank Sinatra given the
supporting role. Sinatra thought he deserved the role, of course, so they
wrote a few extra songs for Sinatra. But yeah, he did, you
know, he went. He played a Japanese interpreter in Tea House in the
August Moon. He did a Jerry Lewis type character in Bedtime Story. You
know, he played a repressed homosexual Army major in Reflections in a Golden Eye.
He took chances that other actors wouldn't, No, not at all.
And and then on the water Front and uh, and then oh the Tennessee
Williams street car name Desire, Yeah, street car name is uh. You
know, he won the Oscar for on the Waterfront. He he got he
was nominated for for a street car, you know. Then then, of
course, you know, there was The Godfather, the movie everybody knows,
believe it or not. The studio did not want Marlon Brando to play The
Godfather. He was box office poison. They wanted Franks and Lawrence Olivier,
maybe Ernest borgnine, but they were not interested in him. You know.
One of the people I spoke to in this book was the assistant producer on
The Godfather who won the Academy Award for producing Godfather Too. And that's great,
Fredrickson from Oklahoma City. Gray passed away while we were doing the book,
but great, you know, told me a lot about Brandon and working
with Brando, and how when Brando showed up to play The Godfather, he
was only forty seven years old, and he was buff. He was in
great, the best shape he'd ever been. So what did he do.
He patted himself up, He put the cotton balls in his cheeks, put
on, you know, some fake teeth, and they, all of a
sudden, before their very eyes, this guy turned into Don corleone. Did
he do the research for that or did he did? Was this his interpretation
of the character. In this case, it was his interpretation of the character,
you know. And he showed up and although rahaps the studio didn't want
him when he got on set and there's you know, there's James Cohn and
Al Pacino and John Cazal and Robert Devada, like, this is what we're
working with Marlon Brando. We can't believe it. I know. No,
Brando made them very comfortable. It made them very comfortable because throughout the entire
shooting he engaged in mooning contests and he and he was the king of the
mooners. Apparently he won the contest because when they shot that, you know,
the wedding scene at the beginning of The Godfather. Yeah, uh,
there there was a lull in the action. Gray told me this, and
Brando decided to moon seven hundred extras from the stage. Well. He also
did a bunch of things off camera. And I interviewed ed Begley Junior not
long ago, and ed Begley Junior told the story of how Brando had this
bright idea to raise electric eels in his swimming pool, thinking he could power
his house with it, and Edley Junior had to tell him it doesn't work
that way, Marlin. So he did some things off camera as well.
It were a lot of fun. Yeah, he was an inventor. You
know. One of the part of this legacy is the island in Tahiti that
he owned, Teddy Aroa, which is it's a hotel now a luxury hotel
called the Brando, but it's also a research lab for you know, coral
reef preservation and ecological issues, and that was something that was very very close
to his heart, much more than acting. Was Marlon Brando Hollywood rebel.
Burt Kerns is the author. It's going to be a great summer read if
you like the behind the scenes stuff like I do. And thanks for joining
us today. Hey, thanks thanks for having me. Thanks for listening to
Later with Lee Matthews, the Lee Matthews Podcast, and remember to listen to
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