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Marlon Brando, 1924-2004
Marlon Brando had long been a popular box office attraction, but he was also one of the industry's most challenging personalities: difficult with directors and often lax in memorizing his lines or following the script. When Time reported in depth in January 1973 on his most recent performance, scores of readers wrote to voice their revulsion to a film that included "frontal nudity, four-letter words, masturbation, even sodomy." One reader suggested that all Time needed to say was that "Marlon Brando is making a real dirty movie with Maria Schneider, and it is called Last Tango in Paris." Two months later, Brando would win a Best Actor Oscar for the critically acclaimed film, The Godfather (1972). But he refused to accept the award in protest of Hollywood's stereotypical portrayal of Native Americans.
Robert M. Peak, 1973
Time cover, January 22, 1973 |