Brando_ Songs My Mother Taught Me Part 4

IN A LETTER written to my parents from Was.h.i.+ngton while I was helping the Irgun, I told them: "Was.h.i.+ngton is strongly anti-Negro and I'm getting awfully mad, so I hope we leave soon. Saw in the newsreel that the Ku Klux Klan is beginning to function en ma.s.se again.... It makes you gape in awe to think about it. When I get to Chicago, I'm going out to Libertyville to speak on the food drive. I send almost all my salary over to Europe, but I can't feel that it's enough.... No definite plans for the summer yet, but a thousand possibilities, maybe a play with Tallulah Bankhead..." written to my parents from Was.h.i.+ngton while I was helping the Irgun, I told them: "Was.h.i.+ngton is strongly anti-Negro and I'm getting awfully mad, so I hope we leave soon. Saw in the newsreel that the Ku Klux Klan is beginning to function en ma.s.se again.... It makes you gape in awe to think about it. When I get to Chicago, I'm going out to Libertyville to speak on the food drive. I send almost all my salary over to Europe, but I can't feel that it's enough.... No definite plans for the summer yet, but a thousand possibilities, maybe a play with Tallulah Bankhead..."

Edie Van Cleve wanted me to try out for a production of Jean Cocteau's The Eagle Has Two Heads The Eagle Has Two Heads, starring Tallulah, who was a close friend of Edie's. I would have done just about anything Edie asked me to because she was kind, extremely generous and helpful to me during those formative years. Besides, I needed the money.

Before Edie sent me to up to Tallulah's home in Westchester County for an audition, a friend told me that she was gay, but I quickly discovered otherwise. Tallulah was an example of a performer who wasn't much of an actress but who became a star because of a distinctive and unusual personality. She had an engaging deep voice, smelled of Russian Leather perfume and smoked English cigarettes, which she pulled out of a red box, pressed into a long silver holder, and lit slowly and deliberately, as if she were doing it onstage. She had a sharp nose and chin and a slash mouth-perfect casting for the Wicked Witch in The Wizard of Oz The Wizard of Oz. With her low, alcohol-fouled voice, Tallulah could be very entertaining. She was intelligent and witty and told funny stories. She informed me she'd recently been involved with a man with a huge nose that was covered with warts; he was truly a monument to ugliness, she said, and after she spent a weekend with him, she told a friend she had performed f.e.l.l.a.t.i.o on him.

Her friend, who knew how ugly the man was, said she was astonished. "How could you possibly have done that?"

"Darling," Tallulah said, "anything to get away from that face."

As soon as I finished the reading, Tallulah asked me to be in the play, but I think she was more interested in me for s.e.x than for the part of Stanislas. After rehearsals started I discovered that she usually got sloshed early in the day and spent the remaining hours getting drunker. She began inventing reasons for me to visit her at the Elysee Hotel, supposedly to go over the script, and I dreaded it, but she was the star of the show and I needed the money. She would spend the early part of these evenings with her eyes at half-mast, her lips lurking around the fracture of a smile, and then begin the arabesque of seduction. She was forty-three, I was twenty-two, and apparently she liked young men. I have more compa.s.sion for her now than I did then. I've since met other actresses whose beauty and attractiveness was the core of their sense of self-esteem and have had difficulty accepting the loss of it as they grew older; like Tallulah, some of them have turned to younger men to restore what they think they've lost. Tallulah was like that, although I didn't understand it then.

I wrote Frannie about Tallulah after my first encounter with her: "My mind feels like ten octopi in a s.p.a.ce the size of a matchbox, each trying to manicure just its own toenails." Frannie also saved a letter to my father: Dear Pop:I've been rehearsing day and night for about a week now.... Bankhead is O.K. to work with but she's quite despicable on social terms. I absolutely detest decadence, self-indulgence and her uncomplimentary familiarity with people. Her political views are gnarled and distorted. It's going to be a tough tour trying tactfully to avoid having her make altogether too many personal demands.I'm going to act the part of a fresh young puritan and inspire her conscience to revise her mode of living...Gee, I enjoyed having Mom here. She looks so wonderful.... I do hope she will have the time soon to do a little sitting on a.s.s and doing what comes naturally. If she writes a play, I'll get it produced. She said wonderful things about you, Pop, which made me very happy and content. Do you think there is much chance of your coming to the opening, which will be sometime in Feb? I am enclosing a schedule of our run which will let you know where I am. And Pop, I want to thank you very much for sending me the money plan and the income tax dope. The reason I didn't want to take you up on the contract was because I felt very strongly that I must learn to handle money myself or suffer the consequences.... I'm having my salary made out in deposit-check form which will be mailed to my own bank on 57th Street each week. I'm opening a savings and checking account and am really and earnestly going to make my money work for me. My grat.i.tude is much, Pop. You're d.a.m.n swell to always offer your dummy son help when he thinks he does or doesn't need it...write soon.

My love to you, Pop Bud The play opened in New England with me playing Tallulah's young lover. I don't think I was very good. Among other things, I didn't have the accent right; I hadn't studied accents yet. Worse, whenever I was onstage with her and the moment approached when I was supposed to kiss her, I couldn't bear it. For some reason, she had a cool mouth and her tongue was especially cold. Onstage, she was forever plunging it into my mouth without so much as a how-do-you-do. It was like an eel trying to slide backward into a hole. At first I was as casual as I could be under the circ.u.mstances and tried to avoid her tongue without offending her, thinking, How am I going to keep the part? Her tongue would explore every cranny in my mouth before forcing itself down my throat. I tried to back away coyly, pretending my character was bashful, then I began kissing her on the neck, trying to look appropriately romantic as the male ingenue. But she didn't like neck kisses and lowered her head and pursued my mouth with her lips. I tried eating a lot of garlic, but that didn't stop her, so I asked a stagehand to buy me a bottle of mouthwash, and after each time I had to kiss her I went offstage and took a swig, but that didn't work either, so I bought a very strong astringent lotion and began gargling with it in the wings after every kiss.

Tallulah had experienced a lot of suffering and unhappiness in her life and liked to talk about it. I couldn't help feeling sympathy for her; she'd had it tough. I've always thought that if she hadn't been so banged up emotionally, she could have been a great actress and an extraordinarily attractive person, but I think she really cared more about f.u.c.king and alcohol than about performing. Unfortunately, a spy informed her that I was gargling after kissing her, and she was offended by this along with my refusal to visit her room anymore. She told the producers I wasn't right for the part, and after about six weeks of out-of-town tryouts I was fired, my virtue still intact. I would rather have been dragged over broken pottery than make love to Tallulah.

I was through with acting, I decided. After being fired, I wrote this letter to my parents from New Haven: Dear Folks:I leave 'Eagle Rampant' with this prayer: the next time T. Bankhead goes swimming I hope that whales s.h.i.+t on her. G.o.d preserve the lizards and let Tallulah die! It is almost over and so is my life. Horrors of horror...I'm going to school when I get back and take a course in piano and harmony and Katherine Dunham dance. I'm looking forward to it very much. I bought a flute and I am great great on it. I'm soon going to have an upper lip not unlike a camel's or Pop's. on it. I'm soon going to have an upper lip not unlike a camel's or Pop's.I met a little man on the train whose wife is fast becoming a drunk. I told him about A.A. and told him I would send him a book on A.A. What else should I do? When he talks to her about drinking, she gets mad and belligerent. What to do?

Love Bud The day I was fired, I had a bad cold and remember feeling vaguely depressed and relieved at the same time. On the train ride from Boston to New York that night, I fell asleep and somebody stole my wallet and about eight hundred dollars, all the money I had earned on the play. I arrived in New York with no money, holes in my socks and holes in my mind, not sure what I'd do next, but knowing I needed a job.

Then once again good luck came my way. A few weeks later I told my father about it: Dear Pop:Well, I'm all set. I start rehearsals Oct. 4th for a "Streetcar Named Desire." I'm getting $550 [a week] and second billing. Elia Kazan is directing. The female lead-Jessica Tandy. Karl Maiden plays supporting role. It's a strong, violent, sincere play-emotional rather than intellectual impact. Mom will write and tell you of my part.Pop, I want the money I make to help in a large part to take the load you've been handling. I'm not counting my eggs, but I want it known that I would like to have my money be of use. We'll talk more of it when you come.

Bud

17.

A COUPLE OF WEEKS before I sent that letter, Edie Van Cleve had informed me that Elia Kazan was planning to direct a new play by Tennessee Williams. Originally called before I sent that letter, Edie Van Cleve had informed me that Elia Kazan was planning to direct a new play by Tennessee Williams. Originally called The Poker Night The Poker Night, it had been renamed A Streetcar Named Desire A Streetcar Named Desire. Jessica Tandy had already been chosen for the female lead of Blanche DuBois, but they were having trouble casting an actor to play the male lead, Stanley Kowalski.

John Garfield was originally set for it, but he wasn't able to come to terms with the producer, Irene Selznick, the daughter of Louis B. Mayer, the head of MGM, and the wife (though separated) of movie producer David O. Selznick. Next they offered it to Burt Lancaster, but he couldn't get out of a studio contract in Hollywood. Harold Clurman suggested me for the part to Kazan, but Gadg (Kazan's nickname) and Irene both said I was probably too young, and she was especially unenthusiastic about me. In the end they decided to leave it up to Tennessee Williams. Gadg suggested that I visit him on Cape Cod, where he had a vacation house, and loaned me $20 to buy a train ticket. But I was broke and spent most of it before leaving New York, so I had to hitchhike to Provincetown. It took longer than I expected and I was a day or two late for the reading. When I found Tennessee's house, he apologized because the toilet was overflowing, so I volunteered to fix it. I read for the part, we talked for an hour or so and then he called Gadg and said he wanted me to have the role.

Years later the executor of Tennessee's estate, Lady Maria St. Just, gave me a copy of the letter he sent his agent, Audrey Wood, after the reading, which reveals much of his vision of the play. She gave me permission to reprint the letter: August 29, 1947 Dear Audrey:...I can't tell you what a relief it is that we have found such a G.o.d-sent Stanley in the person of Brando. It had not occurred to me before what an excellent value would come through casting a very young actor in this part. It humanizes the character of Stanley in that it becomes the brutality or callousness of youth rather than a vicious older man. I don't want to focus guilt or blame particularly on any one character but to have it a tragedy of misunderstanding and insensitivity to others. A new value came out of Brando's reading which was by far the best reading I have ever heard. He seemed to have already created a dimensional character, of the sort that the war has produced among young veterans. This is a value beyond any that Garfield could have contributed, and in addition to his gifts as an actor he has great physical appeal and sensuality, at least as much as Burt Lancaster. When Brando is signed I think we will have a really remarkable 4-star cast, as exciting as any that could possibly be a.s.sembled and worth all the trouble that we have gone through. Having him instead of a Hollywood star will create a highly favorable impression, as it will remove the Hollywood stigma that seemed to be attached to the production. Please use all your influence to oppose any move on the part of Irene's office to reconsider or delay signing the boy, in case she doesn't take to him. I hope he will be signed before she shows in New York.We have a full house this week, Joanna, Margo [Jones, a producer] and Marlon in addition to Pancho [Tennessee's companion] and I. Things were so badly arranged that Margo and Brando had to sleep in the same room-on twin cots. I believe they behaved themselves-the fools! We had fixed a double-decker bunk for Margo and Joanna to occupy but when Margo climbed into her upper bunk several of the slats refused to support her. Also the plumbing went bad, so we had to go out in the bushes.I had a violent quarrel with the plumber over the phone so he would not come out. Also the electric wiring broke down and "plunged us into everlasting darkness" like the Wingfields at supper. All this at once! Oh, and the kitchen was flooded! Marlon arrived in the middle of this domestic cataclysm and set everything straight. That, however, is not what determined me to give him the part. It was all too much for Pancho. He packed up and said he was going back to Eagle Pa.s.s. However, he changed his mind, as usual. I am hoping that he will go home, at least to New Orleans, while the play is in rehearsal, until December. He is not a calm person. In spite of his temperamental difficulties, he is very lovable and I have grown to depend on his affection and companions.h.i.+p, but he is too capricious and excitable for New York, especially when I have a play in rehearsal. I hope it can be worked out to keep him in the South for that period or at least occupied with a job. That would make things easier for me...

With love, Tennessee After his success with Streetcar Streetcar, Tennessee wrote other plays, but this play was the pinnacle of his career, and afterward he sort of wrote in circles, as if he didn't know where to go. He was locked in somehow. But at the height of his powers, he was an extraordinary writer as well as a lovely man, extremely modest and soft-spoken. Kazan accurately described him as a man with no skin: he was skinless, defenseless, vulnerable to everything and everybody, cruelly honest, a poet with a pristine soul who suffered from a deep-seated neurosis, a sensitive, gentle man destined to destroy himself. He never lied, never said anything nasty about anybody, and was always witty, but he led a wounded life. If we had a culture that gave adequate support and a.s.sistance to a man of Tennessee's delicacy, perhaps he could have survived. He was a h.o.m.os.e.xual, but not effeminate or outwardly aggressive about it, and he never made a pa.s.s at the actors in his plays. You wouldn't have known he was gay if he didn't tell you. But there was something eating at his insides that ultimately propelled him to his death.

A Streetcar Named Desire opened at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre in New York on December 3, 1947, after tryouts in New Haven, Boston and Philadelphia. My sister still has the telegram I sent to my father from Boston: opened at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre in New York on December 3, 1947, after tryouts in New Haven, Boston and Philadelphia. My sister still has the telegram I sent to my father from Boston: NEED MONEY BY TONIGHT SHOW SPLENDID LETTER TO FOLLOW MARLON NEED MONEY BY TONIGHT SHOW SPLENDID LETTER TO FOLLOW MARLON. After the opening night in New York, we went to the Russian Tea Room and read the reviews, starting with The New York Times The New York Times. Before long, all the reviews were in and everyone relaxed; we had a hit.

A few writers have suggested that in portraying the insensitive, brutish Stanley Kowalski, I was really playing myself; in other words, the performance succeeded because I was Stanley Kowalski. I've run into a few Stanley Kowalskis in my life-muscled, inarticulate, aggressive animals who go through life responding to nothing but their urges and never doubting themselves, men brawny in body and manner of speech who act only on instinct, with little awareness of themselves. But they weren't me. I was the ant.i.thesis of Stanley Kowalski. I was sensitive by nature and he was coa.r.s.e, a man with unerring animal instincts and intuition. Later in my acting career, I did a lot of research before playing a part, but I didn't do any on him. He was a compendium of my imagination, based on the lines of the play. I created him from Tennessee's words.

A lot of roles, I've since learned, have to be made up by the actor, especially in the movies. If you don't have a well-written story, the performer has to invent the character to make him believable. But when an actor has as good a play under him as Streetcar Streetcar, he doesn't have to do much. His job is to get out of the way and let the part play itself. Improvisation doesn't work in a play by Tennessee Williams, just as it doesn't work in a play by Shakespeare. They give actors such good lines that the words carry them along.

Admittedly it is impossible for anyone to judge themselves objectively, but I have never believed that I played the part of Stanley successfully. I think the best review of the play was written by a critic who said I was miscast. Kim Hunter was terrific and well cast as Stella, and so was Karl Maiden-a fine actor who, despite enormous success, has always remained one of the most decent men I've ever known. But I think Jessica and I were both miscast, and between us we threw the play out of balance. Jessica is a very good actress, but I never thought she was believable as Blanche. I didn't think she had the finesse or cultivated femininity that the part required, nor the fragility that Tennessee envisioned. In his view, there was something pure about Blanche DuBois; she was a shattered b.u.t.terfly, soft and delicate, while Stanley represented the dark side of the human condition. When Blanche says to Stella, "Don't hang back with the beasts," she was talking about the animalistic side of human beings. It's true that Blanche was a liar and a hypocrite, but she was lying for her life-lying to keep her illusions alive. When she said, "I don't tell truth, I tell what ought to be true" and "I didn't lie in my heart," Tennessee meant those words. He told Kazan he wanted the audience to feel pity for Blanche. "Blanche," he said, "must finally have the understanding and compa.s.sion of the audience...without creating a black-dyed villain in Stanley."

I think Jessica could have made Blanche a truly pathetic person, but she was too shrill to elicit the sympathy and pity that the woman deserved. This threw the play out of balance because the audience was not able to realize the potential of her character, and as a result my character got a more sympathetic reaction than Tennessee intended. Because it was out of balance, people laughed at me at several points in the play, turning Blanche into a foolish character, which was never Tennessee's intention. I didn't try to make Stanley funny. People simply laughed, and Jessica was furious because of this, so angry that she asked Gadg to fix it somehow, which he never did. I saw a flash of resentment in her every time the audience laughed at me. She really disliked me for it, although I've always suspected that in her heart she must have known it wasn't my fault. I was simply doing what the script called on me to do; the laughter surprised me, too.

But we had a wonderful play under us and it was a big success. An actor can never act his way out of a bad play; no matter how well he performs, if he doesn't have real drama beneath him he can act his best all day and it won't work. He could have the twelve disciples in the cast and Jesus Christ playing the lead and still get bad reviews if the play is poorly written. An actor can help a play, but he can't make it a success. In A Streetcar Named Desire A Streetcar Named Desire, we had under us one of the best-written plays ever produced, and we couldn't miss.

18.

THE INTERVALS of anxiety and depression that began when my mother left New York City continued off and on through the run of of anxiety and depression that began when my mother left New York City continued off and on through the run of A Streetcar Named Desire A Streetcar Named Desire and for long afterward. It would take years for me to escape my acceptance of what I had been taught as a child-that I was worthless. Of course, I had no idea then that I even had such feelings about myself. Something was chewing on me and I didn't know what it was, but I had to hide my emotions and appear strong. It has been this way most of my life; I have always had to pretend that I was strong when I wasn't. Nonetheless, sometime after the play opened I realized I needed help, and Gadg referred me to his psychiatrist, a well-known Freudian a.n.a.lyst in New York named Bela Mittelman, the coldest man I've ever known. I saw him for several years, seeking empathy, insight and guidance, but all I got was ice. He had absolutely no warmth. Even the furnis.h.i.+ngs in his office were frigid; I almost s.h.i.+vered every time I walked into it. Maybe he was following the rules of his particular school of psychiatry, but to me he had no insight into human behavior and never gave me any help. I was still on my own, trying to deal alone with emotions I didn't yet understand. Why these feelings surfaced when they did, I don't know, although I suppose they had something to do with my mother going away. In New York I'd had another chance to offer her my love, which I did, but it hadn't been enough for her. and for long afterward. It would take years for me to escape my acceptance of what I had been taught as a child-that I was worthless. Of course, I had no idea then that I even had such feelings about myself. Something was chewing on me and I didn't know what it was, but I had to hide my emotions and appear strong. It has been this way most of my life; I have always had to pretend that I was strong when I wasn't. Nonetheless, sometime after the play opened I realized I needed help, and Gadg referred me to his psychiatrist, a well-known Freudian a.n.a.lyst in New York named Bela Mittelman, the coldest man I've ever known. I saw him for several years, seeking empathy, insight and guidance, but all I got was ice. He had absolutely no warmth. Even the furnis.h.i.+ngs in his office were frigid; I almost s.h.i.+vered every time I walked into it. Maybe he was following the rules of his particular school of psychiatry, but to me he had no insight into human behavior and never gave me any help. I was still on my own, trying to deal alone with emotions I didn't yet understand. Why these feelings surfaced when they did, I don't know, although I suppose they had something to do with my mother going away. In New York I'd had another chance to offer her my love, which I did, but it hadn't been enough for her.

I didn't begin to understand the reason for any of these things until I was in my forties. Until then, I usually responded to emotions that I didn't understand with anger.

I've always thought that one benefit of acting is that it gives actors a chance to express feelings that they are normally unable to vent in real life. Intense emotions buried inside you can come smoking out the back of your head, and I suppose in terms of psychodrama this can be helpful. In hindsight, I guess my emotional insecurity as a child-the frustrations of not being allowed to be who I was, of wanting love and not being able to get it, of realizing that I was of no value-may have helped me as an actor, at least in a small way. It probably gave me a certain intensity I could call upon that most people don't have. It also gave me a capacity to mimic, because when you are a child who is unwanted or unwelcome, and the essence of what you are seems to be unacceptable, you look for an ident.i.ty that will will be acceptable. Usually this ident.i.ty is found in faces you are talking to. You make a habit of studying people, finding out the way they talk, the answers that they give and their points of view; then, in a form of self-defense, you reflect what's on their faces and how they act because most people like to see reflections of themselves. So when I became an actor, I had a wide variety of performances inside me to produce reactions in other people, and I think this served me as well as my intensity. be acceptable. Usually this ident.i.ty is found in faces you are talking to. You make a habit of studying people, finding out the way they talk, the answers that they give and their points of view; then, in a form of self-defense, you reflect what's on their faces and how they act because most people like to see reflections of themselves. So when I became an actor, I had a wide variety of performances inside me to produce reactions in other people, and I think this served me as well as my intensity.

I was always very close to my sisters because we were all scorched, though perhaps in different ways, by the experience of growing up in the furnace that was our family. We each went our own way, but there has always been the love and intimacy that can be shared only by those trying to escape in the same lifeboat. Tiddy probably knows me better than anyone else.

Not long ago, she wrote me a letter about my early years in New York: "You were a twenty-three-year-old when all the 'Streetcar' stuff hit the fan-a kid-and you were just trying to get along. In the beginning, you really didn't have much control of your craft. You could only follow your instincts-good ones as it turned out-but how were you to know if the choices you were making were the right ones? Can anyone remember how insecure [it is to be] twenty-three and be suddenly saddled with all the kudos and the notoriety you received? It was embarra.s.sing. You couldn't think it was deserved. You couldn't believe you were actually responsible, and Poppa had always said you'd never amount to a tinker's d.a.m.n. What the h.e.l.l was going on? Sure, it's nice to know you're doing something right for once, but can it rate all that? You became an actor because acting seemed to be the only thing you had any apt.i.tude for, the only place you'd found where people said, 'You're pretty good at that.' And it was fun and a good place to hide. Most actors hide behind the characters they play. It's a way of exploring life from a lot of other folks' point of view. It is exciting to get to 'be' all those other people without the responsibility for their actions. The trouble is that the public identifies the actor with the characters he plays, and that creates a schism right there.... Certainly the perks and the money aren't bad. They can grease the skids, but everyone should know that money and perks can't buy the important things."

Was Jocelyn right when she said that rapid success and, more important, other people's reactions to it, were hard to handle for an uncertain kid from Illinois? It's difficult for me to remember exactly what I felt so long ago. What I remember most about A Streetcar Named Desire A Streetcar Named Desire was the emotional grind of acting in it six nights and two afternoons a week. Try to imagine what it was like walking on a stage at 8:30 every night having to yell, scream, cry, break dishes, kick the furniture, punch the walls and was the emotional grind of acting in it six nights and two afternoons a week. Try to imagine what it was like walking on a stage at 8:30 every night having to yell, scream, cry, break dishes, kick the furniture, punch the walls and experience experience the same intense, wrenching emotions night after night, trying each time to evoke in audiences the same emotions I felt. It was exhausting. Then imagine what it was like to walk off the stage after pulling these emotions out of yourself and waking up in a few hours knowing you had to do it all over again a few hours later. In sports I was always a very compet.i.tive person, and there was a fundamental part of me that was determined not to fail as Stanley Kowalski, to excel and be the best, so I applied pressure on myself to act the part well every time. But it was emotionally draining, wearisome, mentally oppressive, and after a few weeks I wanted out of it. I couldn't quit, however, because I had a run-of-the-play contract. the same intense, wrenching emotions night after night, trying each time to evoke in audiences the same emotions I felt. It was exhausting. Then imagine what it was like to walk off the stage after pulling these emotions out of yourself and waking up in a few hours knowing you had to do it all over again a few hours later. In sports I was always a very compet.i.tive person, and there was a fundamental part of me that was determined not to fail as Stanley Kowalski, to excel and be the best, so I applied pressure on myself to act the part well every time. But it was emotionally draining, wearisome, mentally oppressive, and after a few weeks I wanted out of it. I couldn't quit, however, because I had a run-of-the-play contract.

What I hated most was matinee days, when I'd wake up, look at the clock, discover I was late, and have to run across town to get to the theater on time. Several times I ran all the way from my apartment at Fifty-second Street and Fifth Avenue to Forty-second Street and Broadway for a matinee only to discover that it was the wrong day: it wasn't Wednesday or Sat.u.r.day, and I could have slept longer. Most days, I got up about two in the afternoon after an adventure or two the night before, then fell asleep about an hour before I was supposed to be at the theater; when I woke up, I had to dash across town in a sweat. I was due there no later than eight-fifteen to put on makeup, but I liked to arrive a little earlier to lift some weights and work up a sweat to give Stanley the appearance I wanted for him. I usually showed up as late as I possibly could and sometimes got there late. I hated going to work.

Of course there were advantages to success in a Broadway play, and not merely the $550-a-week paycheck, which I suppose was equivalent to about $5,000 now. Although I'd told my father when I was rehearsing for The Eagle Has Two Heads The Eagle Has Two Heads that I wanted to look after my own financial affairs, he persuaded me that I was not only too busy, but too inexperienced with money to handle it properly, so I turned my check over to him; he paid my rent, gave me pocket change and invested the rest. The money that came with that I wanted to look after my own financial affairs, he persuaded me that I was not only too busy, but too inexperienced with money to handle it properly, so I turned my check over to him; he paid my rent, gave me pocket change and invested the rest. The money that came with A Streetcar Named Desire A Streetcar Named Desire was less important to me, however, than something else: every night after the performance, there would be seven or eight girls waiting in my dressing room. I looked them over and chose one for the night. For a twenty-four-year-old who was eager to follow his p.e.n.i.s wherever it could go, it was wonderful. It was more than that; to be able to get just about any woman I wanted into bed was intoxicating. I loved parties, danced, played the congas, and I loved to f.u.c.k women-any woman, anybody's wife. Sometimes I did insane things. When I lived on the eleventh floor of an apartment building on Seventy-second Street, I gave a party one night where just about everyone, including me, was smashed or close to it, and I went over to a window, opened it and shouted to my guests: "I'm sick of this world and everything in it. I can't stand you people, I'm sick of this life." I stepped out the window and disappeared. I stood on a ledge about six inches wide beneath the window, ducked and lay flat against the wall, and clung to the windowsill with my hands. Then I held onto a cement bal.u.s.trade on the side of the building with one hand and let go of the windowsill. My guests screamed. They thought I'd become a blotter on Seventy-second Street. I hid under the window giggling, then looked down, saw the street and gulped. Everyone was still screaming, and one girl finally ran over to the window and looked up and down Seventy-second Street, searching for my body before spotting me. Then she said, "Go ahead, drop. See if I care." I crawled back up, laughing. Everybody was red in the face. Their veins were popping out of their foreheads, and everyone shook their fists at me. It was nuts; I was fearless after two or three drinks. was less important to me, however, than something else: every night after the performance, there would be seven or eight girls waiting in my dressing room. I looked them over and chose one for the night. For a twenty-four-year-old who was eager to follow his p.e.n.i.s wherever it could go, it was wonderful. It was more than that; to be able to get just about any woman I wanted into bed was intoxicating. I loved parties, danced, played the congas, and I loved to f.u.c.k women-any woman, anybody's wife. Sometimes I did insane things. When I lived on the eleventh floor of an apartment building on Seventy-second Street, I gave a party one night where just about everyone, including me, was smashed or close to it, and I went over to a window, opened it and shouted to my guests: "I'm sick of this world and everything in it. I can't stand you people, I'm sick of this life." I stepped out the window and disappeared. I stood on a ledge about six inches wide beneath the window, ducked and lay flat against the wall, and clung to the windowsill with my hands. Then I held onto a cement bal.u.s.trade on the side of the building with one hand and let go of the windowsill. My guests screamed. They thought I'd become a blotter on Seventy-second Street. I hid under the window giggling, then looked down, saw the street and gulped. Everyone was still screaming, and one girl finally ran over to the window and looked up and down Seventy-second Street, searching for my body before spotting me. Then she said, "Go ahead, drop. See if I care." I crawled back up, laughing. Everybody was red in the face. Their veins were popping out of their foreheads, and everyone shook their fists at me. It was nuts; I was fearless after two or three drinks.

We did a lot of crazy things in that apartment. Sometimes my friends and I took boxes of old-fas.h.i.+oned kitchen matches and emptied them out the window. When they hit the street, they would all ignite at once and create a spectacular show. Several times we tore the New York City telephone book to shreds and threw it out the window, or we'd rip The New York Times The New York Times apart and fling the pieces out the window. I had many adventures when I lived in that apartment. One night a friend called and said, "I've got a couple of great groovy broads. They're driving around in a black Cadillac, they're well-heeled and lookin' good. You can have either one you want, but I think they've both 'got eyes.'" (In those days that was jargon for accommodating women.) The girls picked us up and I agreed with my friend Freddie that he was right. They were black, very attractive and wore sweet-smelling perfume that almost made me dizzy. apart and fling the pieces out the window. I had many adventures when I lived in that apartment. One night a friend called and said, "I've got a couple of great groovy broads. They're driving around in a black Cadillac, they're well-heeled and lookin' good. You can have either one you want, but I think they've both 'got eyes.'" (In those days that was jargon for accommodating women.) The girls picked us up and I agreed with my friend Freddie that he was right. They were black, very attractive and wore sweet-smelling perfume that almost made me dizzy.

"Where should we go?" one of the girls asked, and I answered, "I don't know. I'm happy as a pig where I am." I was already starting to fool around with the girl in the backseat.

"How about going to our pad?" she said, and I said, "That's cool. Where is it?"

"Harlem."

A red light went off somewhere in my head, but I said, "Let's go, what the h.e.l.l."

Her apartment was a third-floor walk-up. After we finished what we'd come there to do, I started playing cards with one of the girls in the kitchen while my friend and her friend returned to the bedroom. Suddenly I heard something outside that sounded like the footsteps of a raging dinosaur. I thought it was my imagination, but the dinosaur got closer and louder, then stopped in front of the door and started pounding, making me wonder fleetingly if dinosaurs had fists. The attractive woman sitting opposite me in her underwear suddenly looked at me with enormous eyes, her mouth forming a huge O. We heard louder and louder pounding on the door, and each time it caved in another inch.

"Who's that?" I asked, trying to seem calm.

"That's my daddy," daddy," she answered. she answered.

I said, "Your father?"

"Baby, that's my daddy." daddy."

I had never heard the phrase; I didn't know that some women referred to their boyfriends as their "daddies" or "my old man," but I got the drift. I looked at her as calmly as I could and said, "Do you have a fire escape in this building?"

She glanced in the direction of the bedroom, and I grabbed my clothes and shoes, shook Freddie and said, "I'm going out the fire escape because her daddy's daddy's at the door. I'll meet you down the block if you're not coming right now." at the door. I'll meet you down the block if you're not coming right now."

But Freddie also got the drift and broke off what he was doing, and we ran down the fire escape as fast as we could. When we reached the bottom and the ladder lowered us to the sidewalk, we looked up three stories and saw a head shouting, "Hey, motherf.u.c.kers, you wait right there! Don't you be running!"

We ran like h.e.l.l, but it had been well worth it. They were very attractive girls.

My pal that night was a friend I'd met in an acting cla.s.s at the New School, Carlo Fiore, although he had changed his name to Freddie Stevens because he thought it would make it easier for him to get acting jobs. He was one of my first friends in New York, and we shared a lot of girls; he'd get one and I'd try to move in on him, or I'd get one and he'd try to get her in his bed.

Freddie had a huge Roman nose, spoke from the bowels of Brooklyn and didn't have much acting talent, all of which conspired to work against his becoming a star. He had his nose operated on two or three times, the last time by a surgeon who must have used a can opener instead of a scalpel, but it didn't help. He fancied himself an intellectual and budding member of the New York literati, and was so full of himself that one of our friends, paraphrasing Shakespeare, described the stories he told as "tales told by an idiot full of sound and Fiore, signifying nothing." Later I tried to get Freddie jobs, but never had much luck unless I could give him one myself. He was charming and funny but troubled; I don't know whether his lack of success as an actor contributed or not, but he became a junkie and tried hard to get me to take heroin-a "skin pop," as he called it. When I refused, he always said, "You don't know how to live." I watched him fall deeper and deeper into the abyss of addiction while doing whatever I could to make him stop. I was with him once when he tried to go cold turkey, and it was awful. He shook, s.h.i.+vered and threw up, and finally said he had to go home to his Italian neighborhood in Brooklyn and ask his family to help him. A couple of hours later he called me from home and told me frantically that he needed some Seconal. I bought some and went to his house, where I saw something very touching. He had once told me that his mother was mentally deranged, and when I arrived I could see in his face that he was ashamed of her, but he stood next to her lovingly and put his arms around her because he didn't want to reject her.

After I'd had some success as an actor, things began to sour between Freddie and me. He became envious then resentful of me, a problem I was starting to have with other friends, a lot of whom were actors or writers, especially if their careers weren't going well. It was hurtful to experience this because I was too young to understand it. Many years later, Janice Mars told me she thought Freddie in some ways was a victim of his friends.h.i.+p with me. "Poor Carlo just couldn't survive being your sidekick, and he never carved out a life for himself.... The attraction of your fame and money was too much for him. To be too close to you could be fatal. You were quicksand for anyone without the strength to pull out. It wasn't your fault. You wanted to help people, but at the same time their availability to you took priority over their own best interests. They lost themselves. Carlo ended up being expendable, involved in drugs, a hostage to failure."

Freddie finally got off dope, but then he became an alcoholic and wrote a book about me, probably all that he had left to sell. He continued on his path of self-destruction until he died.

19.

IT STILL PLEASES ME to be awake during the dark, early hours before morning when everyone else is still asleep. I've been that way since I first moved to New York. I do my best thinking and writing then. During those early years in New York, I often got on my motorcycle in the middle of the night and went for a ride-anyplace. There wasn't much crime in the city then, and if you owned a motorcycle, you parked it outside your apartment and in the morning it was still there. It was wonderful on summer nights to cruise around the city at one, two or three to be awake during the dark, early hours before morning when everyone else is still asleep. I've been that way since I first moved to New York. I do my best thinking and writing then. During those early years in New York, I often got on my motorcycle in the middle of the night and went for a ride-anyplace. There wasn't much crime in the city then, and if you owned a motorcycle, you parked it outside your apartment and in the morning it was still there. It was wonderful on summer nights to cruise around the city at one, two or three A.M A.M. wearing jeans and a T-s.h.i.+rt with a girl on the seat behind me. If I didn't start out with one, I'd find one. There was a lovely Jewish girl named Edna whose father was very rich. She was bright, well educated and beautiful, with lovely brown hair and skin that was almost Oriental in color, and she lived with her father in a deluxe apartment on Park Avenue. For some reason, what I remember best about it were the drapes: the windows were covered with two layers of gossamer white curtains, first a lush tier of pleated satin, then floor-length folds of feathery white silk with the texture of a bridal veil. About two o'clock one morning, when I pulled up to her building on my motorcycle, the doorman looked at me as if I were a longsh.o.r.eman who'd taken a wrong turn on his way to the docks. I climbed off the motorcycle and asked him to call Edna on the house telephone and tell her that Mr. Brando wanted to see her.

"Do you know what time it is?" he asked.

I told him Edna was expecting me, which was not true, and said she would be very put out if she were informed later that I had called and not been allowed to come up.

With a doubtful look, the doorman dialed her apartment and woke her up. Over the phone, pressed to his ear, I heard a frail, sleepy voice say, "Who?" "Who?"

"Mr. Brando."

I couldn't hear the next exchange, but the man hung up the phone and said, "Take the elevator to the left."

"I know it well," I said and turned my back on him to express how annoyed I was at the delay.

Edna's father was asleep in his bedroom and we went into hers. There was a soft breeze, and the silk and satin curtains billowed behind her like the canopy of a silken parachute. She was wearing a very attractive soft satin nightgown. I pulled the sheets back and was almost paralyzed by the fragrance of her warm body.

Edna didn't say anything while I got undressed. I got into bed and she put a soft, lovely arm around me. After we made love, she asked, "Would you like something to eat?" It was about four A.M A.M. and still dark outside, although a narrow shaft of yellow moonlight pierced the curtains, casting a glow across the room. When I nodded, she went into the kitchen and fixed a tray set with Irish linen, English silver, French crystal, orange juice, eggs and perfectly done toast, all wonderfully arranged. I remember eating that breakfast with her beside me, the silver and crystal in front of me, thinking, This is the life, boy. If this ain't it, you're never gonna find it.

I had many romantic experiences like this, but I'll always remember that particular one. I don't know where Edna is now. It's been years since I've spoken to her, but I've often wondered what became of her.

After the opening of A Streetcar Named Desire A Streetcar Named Desire, Shattuck Military Academy began sending me letters inviting me to return. The commandant said that I was the most famous Shattuck man ever. "Please come back," he said, "we're really proud of you."

I always thought it was unstylish of them to do this after they had kicked me out, and I ignored the letters. I've never gone back to Shattuck and never intend to.

20.

FOR A LONG TIME I had the adolescent notion that I was a tough guy. I liked to box because of a silly idea that it would make me more of a man. I wanted to be tough like my father, who was not only a good boxer but a mean barroom fighter. I'm not saying I consciously wanted to be I had the adolescent notion that I was a tough guy. I liked to box because of a silly idea that it would make me more of a man. I wanted to be tough like my father, who was not only a good boxer but a mean barroom fighter. I'm not saying I consciously wanted to be like like my father-that was the last thing I wanted because I hated him-but I probably absorbed some of his characteristics inadvertently. He was a strong man; I may have believed that being strong meant being worthy, and, in my twenties, I considered myself a pretty decent boxer. During the run of my father-that was the last thing I wanted because I hated him-but I probably absorbed some of his characteristics inadvertently. He was a strong man; I may have believed that being strong meant being worthy, and, in my twenties, I considered myself a pretty decent boxer. During the run of Streetcar Streetcar, I often persuaded a member of the crew to spar with me between acts. I bought some gloves and we threw a few punches at each other in a room underneath the stage. It helped to pa.s.s the time and to relieve the boredom when I wasn't onstage. One night during the intermission between the second and third acts, I had about forty minutes before going on, but none of my regular partners wanted to box. I asked a stagehand I'd never sparred with if he'd join me, but he refused.

"C'mon," I said, "we're not going to fight fight, we're just gonna box a little."

He was a big guy in his early twenties with a thick mop of wavy black hair, about six foot four and 220 pounds. "I don't feel like it," he said.

"You need some exercise, and so do I," I said.

"No."

I kept it up, but he kept refusing until finally I talked him into it, probably because he'd decided I wouldn't stop pestering him until he did. We went downstairs, put on the gloves and started sparring, but he was lethargic, so I said, "Come on, give me something I can work with. I'm trying to work on defense. Hit me Hit me. I'm not going to hurt you, for Chrissake."

But he kept up his little patter of soft thrusts against my gloves until I said, "Come on, would you please throw a real punch? I'm not going to hurt-" "Come on, would you please throw a real punch? I'm not going to hurt-"

I don't remember exactly what happened next, but I felt his fist smash into my nose like a sledgehammer, and the next instant blood poured out of it in a crimson deluge. Until then I'd never been hurt while boxing, but now I was really in pain. I went upstairs to my dressing room, looked in the mirror and saw my face covered with blood. As I tried to wipe it away I took a drag on a cigarette and saw something startling: the smoke from my cigarette was billowing out of my forehead in a big, white cloud.

It struck me that something was drastically wrong. I looked again in the mirror and saw that my nose was split across the bridge and that the smoke was taking the path of least resistance.

How did I get into this mess? I asked myself, In less than a minute, I had to go out onstage. According to the script, I was coming home after having gotten drunk celebrating the birth of my child, and after arguing with Jessica I was going to pick her up and carry her off to bed. With not much choice, I wiped my face and walked onstage.

Jessica, who had always disapproved of my boxing between acts, looked up at me from behind the desk where she was sitting and ad-libbed, "You b.l.o.o.d.y fool." "You b.l.o.o.d.y fool."

We finished the scene and the third act as if nothing had happened, though when I picked her up and laid her down on the bed, I felt so nauseous for a moment from swallowing blood that I nearly pa.s.sed out on top of her. But apparently no one in the audience knew the difference; they probably a.s.sumed I'd gotten into a bar fight or other mischief while I was offstage celebrating fatherhood, and that my blood was makeup.

When we took our curtain call, blood was still cascading out of my nose and falling on my shoes, s.h.i.+rt, pants and onto the stage. Then I went to the hospital, where I was treated by a butcher and s.a.d.i.s.t. He began by trying to put my nose back together by squeezing the bones in his fingers without giving me any anesthesia. I have a high threshold of pain, but he quickly surpa.s.sed it: he kept squeezing and pressing until I was barely conscious. Finally he got the nose stabilized, put a piece of tape over it and that was that. For a long time, I wanted to break the nose of that son of a b.i.t.c.h, even though he did me a favor by ordering me to spend a week in the hospital so my bones could heal. I was delighted to have a vacation. Jack Palance took over the part and I had a lot of fun taking the nurses up to the roof. I didn't have to go to work, but still got paid for it.

After several days, the discoloration around my eyes started to fade and my swollen nose got smaller. When I began looking fit enough to go back to work, the doctor said, "Mr. Brando, I have some good news for you: I think you should be getting out of here in a day or two."

I didn't want to leave yet. I was enjoying it too much. Then I heard that Irene Selznick was coming to the hospital to see me. I asked a friend to go a theatrical supply store and buy some makeup. He brought back a rainbow of colors-yellow, green, purple, red and blue-and I made up my eyes until they looked like I'd just had a run-in with a bus on Fifth Avenue. Then I wrapped a big padded bandage over my nose, making it look as swollen as a melon.

When Irene walked into my room, I sank into my bed with the covers up to my chin, my eyes half closed, and asked wearily, "Irene, when are they going to let me out of here?"

From the frightened look on her face, I knew she was stunned. She looked down at me and said, "My G.o.d, Marlon. You can't go back to work. You stay right where you are; we'll get by without you until you're better. Get some rest. We'll tell you when it's time for you to get out."

"Please," I said. "Irene, I'm dying in here, I've got to get out." I said. "Irene, I'm dying in here, I've got to get out."

"You stay right where you are," she ordered.

So I got another week in the hospital.

21.