Excerpt from The Onion's Our Dumb Century:

President Orders Brando to Gain 250 Pounds

Star's Raw Sexuality Too Dangerous at Present Weight, Ike Says
Responding to what he termed "an unacceptable and increasingly dangerous caliber of brooding, smoldering sexuality," President Eisenhower took executive action Thursday against Marlon Brando, directing him to gain 250 pounds.
"Mr. Brando, your talent as an actor is undeniable," Eisenhower wrote in a letter to the star of On the Waterfront. "But your overt masculinity and alluring dissatisfaction with the comforts of modern American life pose a clear threat to our domestic security."
The president called for an immediate fattening of the actor, asking Brando to gain no fewer than 250 pounds, and to "let yourself go completely and without restraint."

Can you name the last good movie Marlon Brando made while trying to keep his kid from going to jail. And the old people in the street are telling me you don't become like me but everyday you creep a little bit closer. and I guess we shoulda done like James Dean did instead of putting on weight and singing down down down...
Dan Bern - Too late to die young

Update: Marlon Brando, April 3rd, 1924 - July 1, 2004. R.I.P.

Marlon Brando Jr. was born on April 3rd, 1924, in Omaha, Nebraska, the only son of Marlon and Dorothy. He has two sisters, Jocelyn and Frances. Highlights of his childhood include his parents separating when he was 11, and then getting back together when he was 13. When he was 16 he was sent to Shattuck Military Academy, a military boarding school in Fairbult, Minnesota. He eventually got expelled for insubordination, after which he dug ditches until his father offered to finance his education.

After arriving in New York in 1943, he enrolled in a course at the Dramatic Workshop of the New School for Social Research, directed by German emigrant Erwin Piscator. His teacher at the Workshop is Stella Adler. She taught the members of the left-wing Group Theatre using "method acting", according to which actors have to examine the emotional motivation of the characters, and act accordingly. Brando is one of the most famous actors who use the “method.” In 1944 Brando got his first role with the Rodgers and Hammerstein Broadway production of I Remember Mama, by John Van Druten; it was very successful and ran for 2 years.

In 1946, Brando played in Maxwell Anderson's Trucline Café, for which New York theater critics voted him Broadway's Most Promising Actor. Then he played in George Bernard Shaw's Candida, and in the fall of the same year has a part in A Flag Is Born, a play about the founding of the state of Israel, by Ben Hecht.

Deeply moved by what he saw of Nazi concentration camps, he joined the American League for a Free Palestine, and raised money for a radical Jewish underground movement. This is the first step of political activism that would continue though his life, and later lead to his lifelong support of the political rights of American Indians.

In 1947, he stars as, Stanley Kowalski—the brute who rapes his sister-in-law, the fragile Blanche du Bois—in Tennessee Williams's A Streetcar Named Desire.

Brando moved onto film, making his motion picture debut as a paraplegic World War II veteran in The Men in 1950. He then went on to play Kowalski again, in the 1951 film version of A Streetcar Named Desire, for which he received his first Oscar nomination. His next movie, Viva Zapata!, 1952, traces Emiliano Zapata's rise from peasant to revolutionary to president of Mexico. Brando followed that with Julius Caesar and then The Wild One in 1954, in which he played a motorcycle-gang leader in all his leather-jacketed glory. Next came his Academy Award-winning role as a longshoreman fighting the system in On the Waterfront, a hard-hitting look at New York City labor unions.

In March of 1954, his mother died at the age of 57. The next year he founded his own production company, naming it “Pennebaker Productions,” after his mother’s maiden name.

In October of 1957, he married actress Anna Kashfi. That didn’t last too long. His second marriage is to Mexican actress Movita Castaneda, in 1960. His third wife was actress and model Tarita Teripaia, although I cannot find when she married him.

The 60’s was a mediocre decade for Marlon. Most of the movies he acted in during that decade are regarded as poor. He made his directoral debut with One-Eyed Jacks in 1961. His father died in 1965. In 1966, he purchased a coral atoll in Tahiti, Teti’aroa, which he first discovered during the shooting of Mutiny on the Bounty 6 years prior. He also becomes known for his on-set tantrums, and attempts to meddle with the scripts of films that he’s appearing in. Off the set he ate way too much, gained way too much weight, and had numerous affairs. He also involves himself in the Civil Rights Movement, working towards ending racial discrimination and social injustice.

In 1971, Marlon Brando shows everyone just how good he is with his stunning portrayal of Mafia boss Don Vito Corleone in The Godfather, for which he receives his second Oscar award.

At the Oscar Awards Ceremony he sent an actress portraying an Indian, who makes the following declaration:

"To his great regret Marlon Brando feels unable to accept his award. The reasons lie in the treatment of the Indian in TV and the movies in this country, and in the recent events at Wounded Knee."

Brando’s next film was the highly acclaimed, and X-Rated, film Last Tango in Paris. His last major role would be in 1979, in Francis Ford Coppola’s Apocalypse Now. Other than that, he has been accepting minor roles in exchange for great deals of money, such as Superman in 1978.

After that he didn’t do much until the 90’s. He appeared in The Freshman in 1990, for which he received an Oscar nomination for best supporting actor. He published an autobiography, Songs My Mother Taught Me, in 1994. He costarred in Don Juan De Marco with Johnny Depp in 1995, and in 1996 costarred in the poorly received The Island of Dr. Moreau. He was also supposed to appear in Scream 2, but backed out because of health issues.

Marlon has at least 11 children, 5 split between his 3 ex-wives, 3 with his Guatemalan housekeeper, and another 3 from other affairs. One of his sons is currently serving time in jail for manslaughter in the death of the fiancé of his sister Cheyenne. Christian claimed that he was fighting with the fiancé, Dag Drollet, when a gun accidentally went off in his face. Christian had believed that Dag had been abusing Cheyenne, who was carrying his child. Cheyenne later hanged herself.

Marlon Brando passed away on Canada Day, 2004, of an apparent lung failure. He had been in frail health for a number of years, and had been facing financial difficulties for even longer.


Filmography:

Sources: Crosscity.com, Biography.com, imdb.com, Calgary Herald, July 3, 2004

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