Marlon Brando

From the beginning to the end of his career, his private life was as striking as his acting.



I wasn't alert to the beginnings; on Broadway, where only those who went to New York plays would have known about him, nor yet his first films, "A Streetcar Named Desire" and "On the Waterfront." I don't remember even hearing about them from the older women in my life. They may have been just a bit too gritty for ladies of New England. It was easy to catch up later when his fame was so broadly drawn that everybody knew who he was and had an opinion. The image would not have been attractive to me, a girl who was scared to death of bad boys. It would have attracted attention, however. His image both on and off screen always attracted attention.

He could look beautiful.



He could look dangerous.




He could even look like the boy next door to someone,




but certainly not me. None of the boys next door to me were ever that fascinating and none of them ever had the possibilities you could smell radiating from Brando.

In the end, he looked like this. He was 77 years old when this was taken.



He was one of America's best actors, and sort of a poster boy for the American bad boy. Unlike James Dean, he lived on to show us just how bad bad could be without ever getting to evil.