Marlon Brando

Hollywood’s Rogue Bisexual

UPDATED POSTING: 

Today is the 100th anniversary of the birth of Marlon Brando (April 3, 1924 Omaha, Nebraska). It's time to light a candle to this revolutionary actor.

I have revised this post with information from more recent sources. So many readers have questioned the veracity of facts presented below that I have moved my bibliography to the front of this post.

Sources: 

The Contender by William J. Mann (2019; 718 pages)

Brando's Smile by Susan Mizruchi (2014; 512 pages)

Brando: the Biography by Peter Manso (1994; 1,118 pages)

He was a tough guy with a stunningly beautiful face. At first he wanted to be a drummer. Then a dancer; he studied modern dance with Katherine Dunham in the early 40s. Turned out the only things he was good at were sports and drama, invariably coupled with a determined, rogue lifestyle. Known as "Bud," he got kicked out of high school for riding a motorcycle through the hallways. He once came to the rescue of a skinny 9-year-old kid being taunted and beaten by schoolyard thugs, helped him up, threw his arm around him and said, “I’m your new best friend.”

Thus began a bizarre, intimate relationship with fellow actor Wally Cox that would last a lifetime -- for 40 years until Cox's death. Both men were born in 1924, and for many years they were roommates. After Cox died in 1973, Brando kept the ashes for safekeeping, because he wanted his own ashes to be commingled with Wally’s when the time came. Sure enough, in 2004, Brando’s family honored his request. The Associated Press reported, “The ashes of Brando’s late friend Wally Cox, who died in 1973, were also poured onto the desert landscape of Death Valley as part of the ceremony of scattering Brando’s ashes.” Brando not only kept his friend’s ashes for more than 30 years, but, when lonely, would sometimes dine with the urn, holding conversations in which he would perfectly imitate Cox’s distinctive voice, even at times keeping the urn under his car seat.

Unlike many bisexuals (like Cary Grant), who denied their homosexual activity all their lives, Marlon Brando brazenly admitted it. In a 1976 interview, Brando said, “Homosexuality is now so much in fashion it no longer makes news. Like a large number of men, I, too, have had homosexual experiences, and I am not ashamed. I have never paid much attention to what people think about me.”

Brando was bisexual and possessed of a voracious libido. There were plenty of homosexual experiences to report – among his partners were Burt Lancaster, Laurence Olivier, John Gielgud, Leonard Bernstein, Noël Coward, Clifford Odetts, Christian Marquand (especially Christian Marquand), Tyrone Power, Paul Newman, Montgomery Clift (on a dare, they once ran naked down Wall Street together), James Dean and Rock Hudson. Striving for a balanced diet, however, his conquests also included Marilyn Monroe, Marlene Dietrich, Grace Kelly, Rita Hayworth, Shelley Winters, Ava Gardner, Gloria Vanderbilt, Hedy Lamarr, Tallulah Bankhead, Ingrid Bergman, Rita Moreno (especially Rita Moreno), Edith Piaf and Doris Duke (the world’s richest woman at the time).

By the age of 23 Brando had achieved stardom as Stanley Kowalski in Tennessee Williams's stage play, A Streetcar Named Desire (1947). When he reprised this role in the 1951 film version, Brando received an Oscar nomination for best actor. As success piled upon success, Brando had a hard time dealing with his fame and celebrity. By the time of his death, the American Film Institute had named Brando the fourth greatest male film star, and Time Magazine included him in its list of the 100 Most Important People of the 20th Century. Unfortunately, near the end of his career he had lost interest in acting; he took on roles only for the money. 

He was a generous and tireless advocate for social justice, particularly for the rights of African-Americans and Native Americans. He supported statehood for Israel, and in 1946 he performed in Ben Hecht's Zionist play, A Flag is Born. When Brando read in a newspaper that actress Veronica Lake had fallen on hard times and was working as a cocktail waitress in Manhattan, he had his accountant mail her a check for $1,000; she never cashed it, out of pride, but framed it and hung it on a wall to show to her gay friends.

The roles he lived off-screen were even more provocative than those he created on film. When filming Mutiny on the Bounty in Tahiti in the early 1960s, he fell in love with the place and purchased a private 12-island atoll. He married the Tahitian actress who played his love interest in the film and became fluent in French, her native tongue (he conducted many interviews in French). Rita Moreno, a long-term lover, responded by attempting suicide.

 
The world knew of his predilection for “dark-skinned women”, particularly those of Tahitian and American Indian descent. That Brando had a skinny, bespectacled male lover called Wally didn’t fit the image. Yet he once admitted that he had never been happy with a woman, adding: “If Wally had been a woman, I would have married him, and we would have lived happily ever after.” Wally Cox was the only person Brando allowed to berate him – many was the time that Cox would put Brando in his place.

In his youth Brando was an electrifyingly handsome and talented star. Exuding a sense of brooding power and bottled-up anger, he changed the way stars, both male and female, acted and even the way young men dressed. 

A fellow student, Mae Cooper, said after a workshop presentation, "people suddenly started looking at him. It gave you the chills, like the dawn of something great. It was like suddenly you woke up and there's your idiot child playing Mozart. It made your hair stand on end."

James Dean based his entire charisma on Brando, whom he worshiped. Marlon’s blue jeans and tight T-shirts became standard issue while  he reigned as the male sex symbol of the 1950s. But he was much more than just a rebel. He later chalked up two Oscar-winning performances in On the Waterfront and The Godfather.

In later years he admitted, “I searched for, but never found, what I was looking for either on screen or off. Mine was a glamorous, turbulent life – but completely unfulfilling.” At the time of his death at 80 years old in 2004, he weighed well over 300 pounds and was suffering from diabetes, pulmonary fibrosis, congestive heart failure, liver cancer and failing eyesight. I found a photo of a hugely bloated, fat Brando taken shortly before his death, but I couldn't bear to post it. I'd rather be in denial of what came at the end of this remarkable life.

Born 1924, Omaha, Nebraska
Died 2004, Los Angeles, California

Brilliant, stubborn, eccentric actor

A performance on the night of December 3, 1947, made theatrical history. A Streetcar Named Desire opened at the Ethel Barrymore Theater in NYC, and no one could remember an actor or actress so electrifying an audience. For days people had lined up around the block to buy tickets. Theater doyenne Jean Dalrymple said, “From the moment Brando walked out on stage, all eyes were riveted on him. He was like an animal in heat, with those tight jeans and sweaty T-shirt. His Stanley was violent and crude, totally mesmerizing. I don’t recall having seen such utter rapture in a drama. It was more than a new star being born – we were devastated by the performance, as if a quart of our blood had been drained from us. I knew that I had witnessed Broadway history – in this performance acting, and theater itself, had changed for all time.”

Marlon Brando, at the tender age of 23, gave a performance that caused people to leap to their feet in a 30-minute ovation after the curtain went down. Jessica Tandy (portraying Blanche) was furious, because she knew the applause was not for her. In the audience were Cary Grant, David Selznick, Montgomery Clift, Edward G. Robinson, Geraldine Page, George Cukor and Paul Muni – all gasping for air. Tandy, whom younger readers might know from her Oscar-winning performance in Driving Miss Daisy, somehow coped with Brando's wildly erratic performances, each varying from night to night.

Note: Elia Kazan also directed the 1951 film version. This time Blanche was portrayed by Vivien Leigh, an actress with whom Brando had greater chemistry than Tandy. For younger readers who might know Brando only from his role in The Godfather, this clip will be a revelation. But don’t take my word for it, watch Brando in action:

Marlon Brando & Vivien Leigh in A Streetcar Named Desire:

Part 1: Paul Newman Meets Marlon Brando

Paul Newman (b. 1925) was a movie star so impossibly attractive that all the most famous faces of Hollywood, both male and female, wanted to bed him. He complied enthusiastically.

In spite of being a married man with three children, Newman had affairs with Marlon Brando, James Dean, Montgomery Clift, Anthony Perkins, Sal Mineo, John Derek and Steve McQueen, among many others. Women were not neglected, and he managed to bed Elizabeth Taylor, Grace Kelly and Jacqueline Kennedy. As well, he had affairs with most of his leading ladies, apparently giving Marlon Brando a run for his money. Brando was a little touchy on the subject. I forget which web site revealed this tantalizing tidbit:

In Porter’s 2009 biography Paul Newman: The Man Behind the Baby Blues, Marlon Brando commented about Newman’s bisexuality. Porter interviewed Brando before his death in 2004, and relates this quote from Marlon: "He never fooled me. Paul Newman had just as many on-location affairs as the rest of us, and he was just as bisexual as I was. But, where I was always getting caught with my pants down, he managed to do it in the dark."

Hmmm. Most of us think of Paul Newman as the actor faithfully married to Joanne Woodward, a generous benefactor responsible for distributing millions of dollars in food for starving, homeless children. Thanks to the people at Kindle (can’t wait until they ship my Fire in a few days), sixty seconds later I found myself reading about those Baby Blues. It turns out he had three children by a previous wife, whom he ignored, leaving her home alone to raise the kids while he was out all night participating in a sexual olympics. There was more homosexual activity than hetero- in Newman’s early years, although at times he hated himself for his gay proclivities. The rest of his life was lived trying to suppress these homosexual urges, knowing what a detriment it could be to a high profile acting career. However, he continued to participate in homosexual activity well into the 1970s. Gay porn star Cal Culver claimed that he was the last man to have sex with Newman.

Newman idolized Marlon Brando and plotted to meet him. After his discharge from the Navy in 1946, Newman enrolled in the all-male Kenyon College (Ohio) at age 21, with plenty of gay sexual experience under his belt (going back to his high school days). When one of his professors returned to the school after a field trip to Broadway, he was told that Brando’s performance in A Streetcar Named Desire was a not-to-be-missed sensation. Newman hopped a train to NYC and checked into the YMCA, planning to take in as many Broadway shows as he could before his cash ran out. The closest he could get to Brando was a standing room ticket.

Newman was floored, totally swept away by Brando’s performance. He went backstage, but was not successful in getting to meet his instant idol. Newman foreswore any other Broadway shows, returning every night (with better seats) to see Brando’s mesmerizing performance. He hatched a plot to meet him. Having read that Brando rode his motorcycle around the city every night after his performance, Newman searched the alleys behind the theater until he spotted a motorcycle. An hour after the curtain, Brando appeared, and Paul nervously confronted his prey with a well-rehearsed line: “Mr. Brando, you’re the greatest thing since God granted men the right to cum.”

Worked like a charm. Next thing you know, Brando was saying, “Now get your f*cking cute little ass over here and plop it down on my cycle. I’m going to take you on a tour of the midnight sights of Manhattan.”

According to Carlo Fiore, Brando’s longtime companion, Brando later boasted, “I f*cked the kid in all known positions. He even inspired me to some new ones. The kid even resembles me. It was as if I was f*cking my younger self, even though he’s just a few years younger than me. Of course, by the time he got on that train back to Ohio, he’d fallen madly in love with me.”

Back at school, Newman wrote Brando a fan letter every week. None was ever answered. Even so, once Newman returned to college, he changed his major to Drama, and the next big change in his life came when he won a spot at Lee Strasberg’s Actors Studio in NYC, where he became caught up in an affair with fellow student James Dean.

But Brando continued to haunt his life. They looked so much alike that throughout the 1950s people came up to Paul mistaking him for Marlon and asked for his autograph. Paul obliged. Even though he had a wife and two children, Paul started an affair with actress Kim Stanley, who herself had earlier had a sexual relationship with Brando. According to one of Kim’s many other lovers, the relationship between Paul and Kim ended like this. Once, when they were having sex, she called out “Marlon,” and Newman became furious. He leapt out of bed, put on his clothes and stormed out after they argued. Kim said. “Don’t judge me. I’m trying to get over Brando. You look like him – you can help me get over him. You don’t know what it’s like to get f*cked by Marlon Brando.”

Newman replied, “You’re wrong about that. I know exactly what it feels like to get f*cked by Marlon Brando.”

Ouch.

Paul had a few other brushes with famous people at the start of his career. When Newman encountered Monty Clift leaving his agent’s office, Clift brazenly came on to him, clasping his hands (and not letting go) and asking for his phone number. Monty gushed, “Where has God’s gift been hiding all my life? It’s not every day I meet a man who’s handsomer than I am.” Monty then kissed Paul on the lips and headed out. Monty’s brother Brooks said that Paul complained about how rough Monty was in bed. “When Monty kisses, he doesn’t do it with love, but to hurt you. You come away with a bloody mouth. When I wake up in bed with him, I find myself battered and bruised. He sure likes to be the dominant one. And just when you want to kick him out, he looks up at you with those soulful eyes, and you melt.”

Shelley Winters blabbed that she once had a three-way with Brando and Newman. She later told her lover John Ireland, “In the 40s I had a three-way with Gable and Flynn; in the 50s I sampled Newman and Brando together. I can’t wait to see what the 60s will bring.”

Frank Sinatra once invited Newman to join him and Marilyn Monroe in a three-way, but first Sinatra had to feel him out, wanting to be sure Paul “was into girls.” Sinatra said he had gotten mixed reports about Newman’s proclivities. He told Newman, “Marilyn and I agree you’re one cute guy. I told her I’d f*ck you myself if I were into boys.” Paul was incredulous. Sinatra continued. “Well, even the Caesars liked a little diversion. I slipped a peek and saw your naked ass bobbing up and down while you f*cked that two-bit whore last time; it looked mighty tempting.”

Source:
Darwin Porter’s biography, “Paul Newman: The Man Behind the Baby Blues” (2009). 

To be continued...

Roger Vadim, Daniel Gélin & Christian Marquand

...sowing their youthful, bisexual oats

In 1949 Roger Vadim (photo at left) was living in Paris with his best friend, actor Christian Marquand. At the time Vadim had worked as a stage actor and journalist, but had not yet become a film director. The two were having lunch on the terrace of La Coupole, a former hangout of Hemingway and Henry Miller in Montparnasse. They noticed a startlingly handsome man seated alone at a nearby table, where he had removed his shoe to massage an aching foot. At the time Marlon Brando was having an affair with one of the waiters, Jacques Viale. Vadim and Marquand overheard Brando muttering in English and introduced themselves. They knew nothing of Brando’s recent success on Broadway, taking him for an out of work actor bumming around Paris. When Brando mentioned that he was suffering in an uncomfortable fleabag of a hotel,* Vadim and Marquand invited Brando to come live with them, and all three became intimately acquainted, if you get my drift. In fact the normally heterosexual Marquand soon became besotted with Brando. Christian Marquand (photo below) became best known to English-speaking audiences in Lord Jim (1965) and Apocalypse Now (1979). Marlon introduced his new friends to his waiter friend, Jacques Viale, who joined their circle. Viale later said that his time with Brando and his friends was the greatest moment of his life. “It was all downhill after Brando.”

Roger Vadim told his friends that during the previous month he had stayed at the legendary Hotel du Cap Eden Roc** (Antibes), where a 32-year-old man from Massachusetts claiming to be the son of an ambassador to England moved into his room, sensing that this was where all the “action” took place. Jack and Roger shared many a three-way with the most beautiful women of the French Riviera. As with Brando, Vadim did not realize the fame of his new-found friend. John Kennedy had yet to be elected Senator and, ultimately, President. Interestingly, in the late 1960s the Hotel du Cap’s address became 10, boulevard John F Kennedy, when the street leading to the hotel was renamed after him.

All this was before Vadim captivated three of the world’s most voluptuous women: in 1952 he married Brigitte Bardot, in 1961 he began an affair with Catherine Deneuve (who was 17 at the time, half his age) and in 1965 he married Jane Fonda. Vadim would later cast his friend Christian Marquand opposite Brigitte Bardot in his groundbreaking film, And God Created Woman (1956). He likewise cast wife Jane Fonda in his sci-fi film Barbarella (1968), based on French comic book stories. A real hoot, but hot stuff, nonetheless!

Vadim later wrote a book about them: “Bardot • Deneuve • Fonda: My Life with the Three Most Beautiful Women in the World (1986).”

But I digress. When Roger and Christian moved to larger quarters in Paris, they took in another actor, Daniel Gélin (at left), to help with expenses. Even though Brando and Christian were immersed in a deeply sexual and emotional relationship, Brando set his sights on Gélin, as well. He was an easy, willing target. Ironically, Gélin later had an illegitimate daughter, actress Maria Schneider, best known for playing Marlon Brando’s young lover in Last Tango in Paris (1972). Schneider met her father only three times, so took her mother’s last name. Two years after Last Tango in Paris was released, she declared her bisexuality; Schneider died of cancer in Paris earlier this year. Late in life Brando said, “I have truly loved only three men in my life: Wally Cox, Christian Marquand and Daniel Gélin. All others were merely ships passing in the night.”

In a way this youthful exploration of various facets of one’s sexuality was evocative of the atmosphere of all-male British boarding schools, where most of the students had physical and romantic relationships with each other. It was taken for granted that they would divest themselves of such activity after they left school, and women became available, but many did not. These schools were veritable hotbeds of bisexual activity.

*In fact, Brando was holed up at the Hotel d’Alsace in the very room in which Oscar Wilde had died penniless and disgraced (numbered rm. #16 today). This building now houses one of the most elegant Left Bank hotels and restaurants of Paris, named L’Hotel at 13, rue des Beaux-Arts. Once a fleabag, perhaps, but after a stunning transformation by decorator Jacques Garcia, this hotel is today an expensive indulgence. The on-site eatery (at the back of the ground floor), Le Restaurant, holds a Michelin star, but the elegant bar located between reception and the restaurant gets my vote as one of the chicest places on Paris for an early or late evening drink. A favorite pastime of mine is playing cards at one of the bar’s upholstered alcove banquettes to the left. Be sure to visit on your next trip to Paris, if for no other reason than to soak up the vibes of Wilde and Brando – not to mention former guests Salvador Dalí, Princess Grace, Frank Sinatra, Jorge Borges and Elizabeth Taylor & Richard Burton.
www.l-hotel.com

When Oscar Wilde and Marlon Brando occupied this room, it was a dreary fleapit. Now suite #16 at l'Hotel in Paris is all romantic luxury (photo below). The framed letters above the lamp on the desk are requests from management demanding that Wilde pay his bill, and the large peacocks painted above the wainscot are exceptional. Oscar Wilde died in this room in 1900, and Marlon Brando occupied it in 1949.

Note: A trip from the ground floor bar to the washrooms involves a descent by a stone semi-circular staircase to the basement. On my first visit I was astonished to find myself standing in an elegant circular subterranean  lounge with draped openings ringing the room. None was marked, and all the draperies were closed, so I went about opening them one by one, looking for the toilets. To my shock (and to that of the guests, as well), I was staring at a group of naked bathers, who were enjoying a sensual dip in the stone-walled indoor hammam pool. Oops. This hotel is small (20 rooms) and achingly romantic. The standard rooms are quite snug, but over-the-top luxurious. It's one block from the Seine on a quiet street that runs between Rue Bonaparte and Rue de Seine. It is the only hotel I know of where the (candle-lit) pool may be reserved for a guest's private use. If your budget cannot accommodate a long stay, try a night or two here before moving to less costly digs. You won't regret it.

**Unfortunately, I have yet to stay at the Hotel du Cap Eden Roc. Aware that this famous hostelry was where Gerald and Sara Murphy had hosted Hemingway and F. Scott Fitzgerald (fodder for a later post), I dropped by in the mid 1990s to inquire about a room, but was told, to my amazement, that they did not accept credit cards. Imagine! This archaic policy was not dropped until 2006.