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'SOMEBODY' COULD BE A CONTENDER

review of new bio on mercurial actor Marlon Brando

Date published: 11/30/2008

JAMES CAAN, who played Sonny Corleone in "The Godfather" has said: "Any- one of my generation who says he hasn't 'done Brando' is lying."

Marlon Brando, star of stage, screen and now video games, isn't around anymore for others to mimic, but one has only to click a few times on a computer to call up his image, an offer few actors-or cinephiles--could refuse.

It's a safe bet that people will be 'doing Brando' into the 22nd century, too.

"Doing Brando" could, depending on the project, mean getting lost in character, or might connote: hamming it up by affecting a British accent; cross dressing; mumbling; ad libbing; or pausing just long enough to completely throw off the timing of co-stars.

Stefan Kanfer, author of books about Lucille Ball and Groucho Marx, has done Brando proud in "Somebody: The Reckless Life and Remarkable Career of Marlon Brando," the compulsively readable new biography of the mercurial star of "On the Waterfront," "A Streetcar Named Desire" and "Apocalypse Now."

Brando, who grew up in Nebraska and Chicago, came to New York in his teens, and studied acting with Stella Adler. Elaine Stritch, a veteran stage actress and former classmate of Brando's recalls: "Stella told us to come to class with an impersonation. [Brando] was absolutely the best, that day and every day. Marlon's going to class to learn the Method was like sending a tiger to jungle school."

And those who directed Brando are similarly unsparing in their praise.

Gillo Pontecorvo, who rode herd on "Burn," said Brando was a man who "with one expression covers more than 10 pages of dialogue. And he is the only one who can do it."

"Last Tango in Paris" helmer, Bernardo Bertolucci, said: "I had at my disposal a great actor with all the technical expertise any director would require. But I also had a mysterious man waiting to be discovered in all the richness of his personal material."

It's a good thing, however, that Brando never relied on the kindness of critics: Their expectations of him often were unattainably high.

Film scribe Molly Haskell is a notable exception. She said that Brando's "coarse language and brute force are not the impulses of a boor, but the masque of a poet, the cry of rage against the imprisoning niceties of civilization."

Most of Brando's colleagues were less ambiguous in remembering him than Elaine Stritch, who said: "There was never anyone remotely like Marlon Brando. Thank God."

Kurt Rabin is a copy editor at The Free Lance-Star.

SOMEBODY: The Reckless Life and Remarkable Career of Marlon Brando By Stefan Kanfer(Knopf, $26.95)

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Date published: 11/30/2008