On April 3rd 1924, Marlon Brando is born in Omaha, Nebraska, the third and last child of Dorothy Pennebaker Brando and Marlon Brando, Senior; sisters Jocelyn and Frances; descended from Irish immigrants. In 1935, his parents separate, and his mother move with her 3 children to Santa Ana in Orange County, California. In 1937, his parents are reconciled again, and the family moves to Libertyville, Illinois, north of Chicago near lake Michigan. In 1940, he is sent to a military boarding school - Shattuck Military Academy in Fairbult, Minnesota, from which he is eventually expelled for insubordination.

In 1943, Brando arrives in New York; he enrolls 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 Stanislavsky's "method", according to which actors have to develop every part they play out of the emotion of their own personality - a method also later taught by Lee Strasberg, from whom Brando explicitly distances himself. In 1944, Brando has his stage debut at the Dramatic Workshops as Jesus in Gerhart Hauptmann's play Hannele. During the same the same year, Brando gets his first engagement with the Rodgers and Hammerstein Broadway production of "I Remember Mama", by John Van Druten; it is very successful and runs for 2 years.

Hollywood was impressed with Brando's performance in the film version of Streetcar (1951). From his star turn in "Streetcar", Brando went on to The Wild One in 1954, earning his first Oscar? nomination and counterculture celebrity. Brando's explosive emotional intensity was stifled by the big screen, and he was displeased with his Oscar?-winning portrayal of Terry Malloy in Elia Kazan's On The Waterfront (1954), even though it sealed his reputation as an American icon. Says Brando of his famous "I could've been a contender" scene: "People spoke about that, 'Oh, my God, what a wonderful scene, Marlon, blah blah blah blah.' It wasn't wonderful. Everybody feels a sense of loss about something. That was what touched people. It wasn't the scene itself. There are some scenes, some parts that are actor-proof." During On The Waterfront, Brando made forays into improvisation, a technique he embraced for the rest of his career.

During the 1960's, Brando's career slowed down as his political activity revved up. He spent time with Bobby Seale of the Black Panthers while researching Burn! (1969) and took up the Native American cause. In rejecting his Oscar? for The Godfather (1972), Brando cited Hollywood's indifference to the plight of Native Americans as his reason for not accepting the Oscar?, which he called "a door prize." Brando describes his controversial role in Bernardo Bertolucci's Last Tango In Paris (1973) as "the first time I have felt a total violation of my innermost soul," and after his tortured performance in this masterpiece he distanced himself from his art. Since then, he has primarily appeared in character and cameo roles, notably in Apocalypse Now (1979), The Freshman (1990), and Don Juan DeMarco (1995). After penning his autobiography, "Songs My Mother Taught Me," Brando appeared in The Island of Dr. Moreau (1996), The Brave (1997), Free Money (1998), and The Score (2001), which teamed him with fellow Method actors Robert De Niro and Edward Norton. Marlon Brando died on July 2nd, 2004.