Brando's Smile: His Life, Thought, and Work
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112Brando emended this scene in the “First Draft,” Young Lions script, suggesting that his character recommend delaying the attack until sunrise. “Christian says this and is complimented by Hard,” he writes, p. 84.
113Brando discusses his work on The Young Lions in Lindsey Interviews.
114See quotes from Liliane Montevecchi and Parley Baer in Manso, Brando, pp. 455–56.
115Letter from Otto Preminger to Marlon Brando, February 1958, quoted in Christie’s catalogue, The Personal Property of Marlon Brando: Thursday 30 June 2005, p. 172. Stanley Kauffman, “A Young Lion,” The New Republic, April 28, 1958, pp. 21–22.
116Correspondence between Brando and Mary Motley, Brando Estate Archives.
CHAPTER FOUR. THE EPIC MODE, 1960–1963
1See, for example, Sam Spiegel’s argument for signing Brando for On the Waterfront, quoted by Kazan, A Life, pp. 515–16. See also the Paramount executive who said, “We feel that anything is worthwhile so long as we get a Marlon Brando picture. This young man . . . is one of the few actors left people want to see. . . . Look at how much money he brought in with Sayonara and The Young Lions,” “Brando’s Bargain Beauty,” Ottawa Citizen, October 4, 1960. Brando’s costar, Pina Pellicer, claimed she’d “be happy to pay Brando for the experience” of working with him.
2Brando’s efforts to align filmmaking with idealism are discussed in chapter 8. Brando discusses aims of Pennebaker Productions in Lindsay Interviews, Brando Estate Archives.
3Songs, p. 233. Brando Sr.’s ill-fated investment in a cattle ranch is documented extensively, Brando Estate Archives.
4Letter quoted in Songs, p. 114.
5George Englund, the friend, describes the incident in The Way It’s Never Been Done Before.
6Brando’s extensive notes are on the back cover of Indians and Other Americans by Harold E. Fey and D’Arcy McNickle (New York: Harper, 1959). Brando’s heavily annotated book, which includes an inscription by D’Arcy McNickle, is in a private collection. Brando’s “Notes on Indians Sept. 3, 1963 Tahiti,” Brando Estate Archives.
7Brando’s copies of James D. Horan’s The Great American West (1959); John Collier’s The Indians of the Americas (1948); The Indian in Modern America (1956), edited by David Baerreis; Don Russell’s The Lives and Legends of Buffalo Bill (1960); and Bruce Grant’s The Cowboy Encyclopedia (1951) would all have aided his work on One-Eyed Jacks.
8Pat F. Garrett, The Authentic Life of Billy the Kid (New York: Macmillan, 1927), p. 21; Manso, Brando, p. 484, on Brando’s reading of biographies.
9Brando, quoted in One-Eyed Jacks Information Guide, Paramount Pictures, 1961.
10Notes on Manila Hotel stationery are in the One-Eyed Jacks collection, Herrick Library, Beverly Hills.
11Marlon Brando Sr., in letter to Marlon Brando Jr., April 11, 1957, Paramount Inter-Office Communication.
12Charles Neider, The Authentic Death of Hendry Jones (New York: Harper and Row, 1972), pp. 23, 34, 180, 205, 64, 86, 3, 225.
13Neider, Hendry Jones, p. 11.
14Malden, When Do I Start?, p. 275.
15Brando’s papers reveal a passion for lists of all kinds, but especially lists of favorite phrases, sentences, aphorisms.
16“One scene was played between a Mexican mother and daughter. Because he believed it would enhance their performances Mr. Brando let them play it in Spanish. The stunned producer waited until the scene was completed and then suggested to Mr. Brando: ‘How about doing it in English now for the Spanish-speaking countries.’ The section remained in Spanish and Mr. Rosenberg now concedes he was wrong on this point.” Murray Schumach, “‘One-Eyed Jacks’ Wasn’t All Work,” New York Times, February 20, 1961.
17Malden, When Do I Start?, pp. 274–75, and “‘One-Eyed Jacks’ Wasn’t All Work.”
18“Kubrick Resigns Brando Film,” New York Times, November 20, 1958, p. 43. The Miami News (March 28, 1960, p. 122), for instance, reported on the costs of making the fiesta scene. Sheilah Graham made her predictions in the Deseret News, February 3, 1961, p. 6.
19Hollywood Reporter and New York Daily News, quoted in Manso, Brando, p. 496. For other reviews, see, for example, The Sun, June 13, 1961; Los Angeles Times, July 2, 1961; Washington Reporter, April 15, 1961; Ottawa Citizen, May 23, 1961; Vancouver Sun, June 13, 1961. See also more recent academic treatments: Jonathan Bignell, “The Method Western: The Left-Handed Gun and One-Eyed Jacks,” in The Book of Westerns, edited by Ian Cameron and Douglas Pye (New York: Continuum, 1996), pp. 99–110, and Simon Petch and Roslyn Joly, “The Radical Vision of One-Eyed Jacks,” Film Criticism 29 (fall 2004), pp. 38–64.
20Hollywood Variety reported, on August 23, 1961, “Another big money maker abroad is Paramount’s One-Eyed Jacks.”
21Carlo Fiore recalled a six-hour director’s cut: Bud: The Brando I Knew, pp. 267–68. Frank P. Rosenberg referred to a four-hour and forty-five-minute version, “Eyeing ‘Jacks’: A Producer Scans a Hectic Three-Year Stint with Star-Director Brando,” New York Times, March 26, 1961. Manso cites a three-hour version in Brando, p. 494.
22Martin Asinof, interview with the author, June 5, 2013, with follow-ups July and August 2013.
23Songs, p. 265.
24Lindsey Interviews and Songs, p. 229.
25One-Eyed Jacks collection, Herrick Library, Beverly Hills.
26Observations about Marlon Brando Sr. in Frances Brando Loving, Notes for MB Autobiography, and in Lindsey Interviews, Brando Estate Archives.
27Bosley Crowther, New York Times, April 15, 1960; Marjory Adams, Boston Globe, November 16, 1962; Brendan Gill, The New Yorker, November 16, 1962.
28“Meet Ernest Hemingway,” hosted by Leon Pearson on NBC Radio, December 19, 1954.
29Hemingway’s The Old Man and the Sea, KBL, Box 85.
30Brando talks at length in both the Robert Lindsey and the Lawrence Grobel interviews, as well as in Grobel, Conversations with Brando (New York: Hyperion, 1991), about the importance of Tahiti in his life. His commitment to Tahiti and his island is discussed in chapter 6.
31These details were written into the contract between Arcola Picture Corp. and Marlon Brando, dated October 3, 1960, Brando Estate Archives.
32Lindsey Interviews; “Lying for a Living” Transcripts; Songs, p. 270.
33Mutiny on the Bounty scripts from September 24, 1960, in private collection.
34Crowther, Mutiny on the Bounty, movie review, November 9, 1962.
35Brando had an enormous file of research materials for the film, including a set of research notes prepared by Robert E. Lewis, a magazine editor with a passion for the Bounty story. These twenty-five pages of notes conclude with a section on writings by Samuel T. Coleridge, including a comparison between the Bounty story and The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, Brando Estate Archives. See also: Pitcairn Island Study Center, Pacific Union College, http://library.puc.edu/pitcairn/bounty/encyclopedia.shtml; Australian Dictionary of Biography, http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/bligh-william-1797.
36Excisions of curses from Mutiny on the Bounty scripts of the following dates: 1/21/61, p. 134A1; 1/17/61, p. 134E; 7/27/61, pp. 153A/154. Other revisions appear in Mutiny on the Bounty scripts: 11/21/60, pp. 52, 64B, in private collections. Mutiny on the Bounty was notorious for its multiple scripts, most of which were sold at the 2005 Christie’s sale.
37Brando wrote: “Christian’s attitude not what was agreed to,” and “there is absolutely no point of view of the Tahitians,” Mutiny on the Bounty script, 7/10/61, pp. 147, 156, 164, 165, in a private collection.
38Mutiny on the Bounty script, 11/21/60, pp. 58, 64A, in a private collection.
39Mutiny on the Bounty scripts: 1/21/61, pp. 134F–134G, 136, 142, 148; 10/18/61, pp. 189B, 189D, 189E, 189F, 189H, 189I, in a private collection.
40Brando’s excisions for the water-cask scene from script 5/30/61, p. 104; 5/21/61, p. 104A; and 5/30/61, p. 104B. His handwritten note of the dialogue between Bligh and Christian over the Cape Horn route, entitled “Vegetable Cart,” is in a private collec
tion.
41Brando’s lines in Apocalypse Now in the second revised, second draft script, 6/25/79, are consistent with his speeches in the film, which were all credited to Brando by those who worked on the film. See chapter 8 for more on Apocalypse Now.
42Mutiny on the Bounty script, 11/21/60, p. 70, in a private collection.
43Mutiny on the Bounty Script, 7/5/60, pp. 10, 80, 82. Reproduced in Christie’s catalogue, The Personal Property of Marlon Brando: Thursday 30 June 2005, p. 156. “Tips it,” Brando wrote at another point, “surprise is more effective”; “in scene below decks let Christian be afraid of isolation and state his determination fully”; “lets have a little something of a conflict” “save this for a glorious announcement. Important fact” “build gag.” Mutiny on the Bounty scripts, 7/10/61, pp. 145, 146, 147, 155, 156; 11/22/60, pp. 63, 64A, 66, 84B, in a private collection.
44“In general there is nothing to keep story alive,” Brando wrote, “cuts to warriors with spears could build tension to contrast with gaiety”; “maybe he should disappear and then come back making his entrance dramatic and build to shots of him walking alone, cut back to men waiting, waiting.” Mutiny on the Bounty script, 11/21/60, pp. 51, 57, 65, in a private collection.
45“Leading Woman Never Heard of Brando!” “No Dating or Dressing-Up Problems for Tahitian Teen-agers”; Mutiny on the Bounty (1962), Pressbook, pp. 6, 7, http://www.tcm.com/tcmdb/title/12737/Mutiny-on-the-Bounty/tcm-archives.
46Mutiny on the Bounty, script from 8/26/60, p. 118. Reproduced in Christie’s catalogue, The Personal Property of Marlon Brando: Thursday 30 June 2005, p. 157.
47Richard Hough, Captain Bligh and Mr. Christian: The Men and the Mutiny (New York: Dutton, 1973), p. 128, KBL, Box 47.
48Mutiny on the Bounty, Notes handwritten by Brando prior to and during filming. Reproduced in Christie’s catalogue, The Personal Property of Marlon Brando: Thursday 30 June 2005, p. 151.
49Cours de Tahitien, B. de Bermingham, KBL, Box 87.
50Mutiny on the Bounty, Notes handwritten by Brando prior to and during filming. Reproduced in Christie’s catalogue, The Personal Property of Marlon Brando: Thursday 30 June 2005, p. 151.
51KBL, Box 87.
52Hook, Political Power and Personal Freedom, pp. x–xi, 15, KBL, Box 64.
53These letters, some addressed to Brando, some copied to Eugene Burdick, May 16, 1960; from Eugene Burdick to Brando, May 11, 1960; from Richard Drinnon to Brando, May 19, 1960, files on capital punishment, Brando Estate Archives. Three hundred thousand signatures were required to force a vote in the state legislature.
54Chessman Case Files, Brando Estate Archives. Files include dozens of contemporary magazines, political pamphlets on abolishing the death penalty, and pages of Brando’s handwritten notes. Reed is quoted in Manso, Brando, pp. 518–19.
55Elizabeth Hardwick, “The Chessman Case,” Partisan Review (June 1960), pp. 503–13. (List of famous protesters on p. 504; Kierkegaard epigraph on p. 503.) KBL, Box 64.
56Brando’s notes for his lawsuit against the Saturday Evening Post, Brando Estate Archives.
57He was also reading various books on religion, including Alfred Metraux’s Voodoo in Haiti (1959), Ross and Hills, The Great Religions (1959), and Joseph Gaer’s How the Great Religions Began (1962). Evidence of this comes from photographs used as bookmarks, women’s names and phone numbers scribbled on frontispieces, front and back covers, etc. KBL, Box 78, has the books on religion: Metraux; Ross and Hills; Gaer. For other contemporary books, Brando’s annotation style helps date his reading. Those familiar with his reading habits confirm that he usually bought books new and read them around the time he bought them. Avra Douglas, interviews with the author, February 29–March 4, June 18 and 19, 2012, and June 23 and 24, 2013, and Patt Morrison, interview with the author, April 22, 2011.
58Avra Douglas confirmed “dio” meant “dialogue,” Avra Douglas interviews.
59Brando also owned and annotated Malinowski’s Magic, Science and Religion and Other Essays (1948), KBL, Box 78; Sex and Repression in Savage Society (1953), KBL, Box 79; and Crime and Custom in Savage Society (1951), KBL, Box 87.
60Brando’s annotations on Mutiny on the Bounty script, 3/5/61, pp. 71, 71A, 71B; 3/6/61, pp. 91F, 91G; 5/11/61, p. 86B; 6/6/61, p. 86C. Editing of the love scenes between Christian and Miamiti, both in a private collection.
61Variety review of Mutiny on the Bounty, December 31, 1961; The New Yorker, November 16, 1962.
62Brando’s handwritten notes for Mutiny on the Bounty. Reproduced in Christie’s catalogue, The Personal Property of Marlon Brando: Thursday 30 June 2005, p. 151.
63“Brilliant—That’s the Word for Brando,” Sunday Express (London); “Superb Film, New ‘Mutiny’ Bounty for Brando Fans,” Fort Worth (Texas) Star Telegram; “Mutiny Sails in Triumph with Brando,” Chicago Tribune; “One of the great screen spectacles,” “Brando is still the most fascinating actor around,” and “knows what he’s doing,” AP wire, November 9, 1962. See other reviews in Mutiny on the Bounty Pressbook, http://www.tcm.com/tcmdb/title/12737/Mutiny-on-the-Bounty/tcm-archives.html.
64Peter Manso gives the highest figure—$30 million—in Brando, p. 554; Life, December 14, 1962, p. 113, reported $20 million; Variety, January 17, 1962, reported $18 million “or thereabouts,” while also providing weekly numbers on box office grosses: 12/26/62; 1/16/63; 1/30/63; 2/6/63, etc.
65“‘Mutiny on the Bounty’ Causes Sellout for Saturday Evening Post,” Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer press release, June 15, 1962, Brando Estate Archives.
66The files from Brando’s defamation suit from Mutiny on the Bounty in the Brando Estate Archives are voluminous. They include all the interviews given by cast and crew from the production during Brando’s legal case. Among the statements in the press that are contradicted by this record of interviews is that Brando was on bad terms with costars Trevor Howard and Richard Harris. Both defended Brando’s point of view and remained friends with the actor long after the production. Howard appeared with Brando in Morituri and in Superman. Dave Jampel’s Variety interview with Brando, from January 1963, is quoted in Thomas, The Films of Marlon Brando, p. 163. Brando also appeared on the Today Show and made the same point. Brando was subsequently quoted in Variety on January 16, 1963, praising the accuracy of the printed interview with Jampel.
67Avra Douglas, Brando’s assistant, and Rebecca Brando, his daughter, confirmed this in interviews with the author.
68Collections of newspaper articles about his life and career are in the Brando Estate Archives. Brando explained a new dedication to countering distorted, libelous accounts following the births of his children, in an interview with David Susskind on Open End, April 21, 1963.
69The Bobby Hutton incident is discussed in chapter 8. Brando’s books on the media and free speech were scattered among his larger collection and included in books on political science and language. See KBL, Boxes 5, 11, 12, 41, 46, 75, 82.
70Brando on the Today Show, April 19, and on Open End, April 21, 1963. Tapes in Brando Estate Archives.
71Lindsey Interviews. Chapter 8 describes Brando’s discovery and purchase of his Tahitian island and plans for its development.
CHAPTER FIVE. POLITICAL FILMS, 1963–1969
1In a frank letter of April 17, 1964, a friend named Gene Frenke, who never worked for Brando, spelled out the actor’s dilemmas as he saw them. Noting that Brando was “one of the great personalities in the picture business today,” he pointed out that he was in a position to select the best projects, producers, and directors. Instead, he suggested, Brando was being “moved, used and mis-used, mostly by second and third rate talent.” Frenke’s examples were Brando’s two most recent films, Mutiny on the Bounty and The Ugly American, Brando Estate Archives.
2Lindsey Interviews; Songs, p. 194; Manso, Brando, p. 573.
3Brando articulated these points in audiotaped discussions on the film typed up as transcripts, in notes, and in marginalia in The Ugly American by Lederer and Burdick, as well as in Lind
sey Interviews and in Songs, pp. 232, 234–35, 288–89. See also Englund, The Way It’s Never Been Done Before, pp. 69–71, 99–101.
4“Remarks on The Ugly American,” May 19, 1959, United States Senate, J. William Fulbright Papers, Series 71, Box 16, File 5, University of Arkansas Libraries. Fulbright’s remarks on the film quoted in Indiana Evening Gazette, March 23, 1962, p. 16.
5These books were in Brando’s personal collection. KBL, Boxes 29, 82, 36, and 68. He annotated The Nation on the Flying Trapeze and Community of Fear extensively, and On Guerrilla Warfare slightly. Brando mentioned Mao in audio commentary that he recorded at the time of the making of The Ugly American in which he discussed the plot, dialogue, and storyline, Brando Estate Archives.
6“We must present in full the criticism that is leveled against us. We dare not minimize it,” he wrote. “It has great shock value, the ramifications of our failure in Cuba, which lost us the economic conference which followed, or severely damaged it.”
7All quotations are from typed and handwritten notes on the film, variously entitled “Criticism for Ugly American” (typed), “Notes Ugly American Outline” (handwritten), in private collections. Page numbers are cited when available.
8Brando notes for The Ugly American script, typed, untitled, in a private collection.
9Brando’s annotated copy of The Ugly American by William Lederer and Eugene Burdick (New York: Norton, 1958), in a private collection. Comment on “drama in Chinese,” p. 87.
10Brando, audio commentary on Ugly American, Brando Estate Archives.
11Englund, The Way It’s Never Been Done Before, p. 113.
12Stern quoted in William Baer, “On Rebel Without a Cause: A Conversation with Stewart Stern,” Michigan Quarterly Review, vol. 38, no. 4 (fall 1999).
13In the scene where Homer Atkins, the good American character supervising the road, reports the death of his young native engineer, Punjit, for example, Brando recommends: “Callousness to life on part of [Ambassador] should be equal to that of com.—Atkins should tell him off strongly, say he sounds like communist official.” In the film, MacWhite softens his callousness with a dose of sympathy. Brando’s recommendation in handwritten notes, in a private collection.