Charismatic Rebel Transformed Movies

Gielgud invited Brando to join him in stage work, but Brando said he had no desire to return to the theater. "It's been said I sold out," biographer Patricia Bosworth quoted Brando as saying. "Maybe that's true -- but I knew what I was doing. I've never had any respect for Hollywood. It stands for greed, avarice, phoniness, crassness -- but when you act in a movie, you act for three months and then you can do what you want for the rest of the year."

He won the Oscar for best actor in Kazan's "On the Waterfront," marking an early pinnacle of his career with his performance as a conscience-stricken former boxer. Brando delivered to his screen brother, Rod Steiger, the "I coulda been a contender" speech, considered one of the great film moments of all time.

He relied on star power to carry many of his next films. He played Napoleon Bonaparte in "Desiree" (1954), gambler Sky Masterson in the musical "Guys and Dolls" (1955), the Asian interpreter in "The Teahouse of the August Moon" (1956) and a sympathetic Nazi in "The Young Lions" (1958).

Tiring of such commercial fare, he began looking for offbeat projects. He was the wandering musician in "The Fugitive Kind" (1959), an adaptation of Williams's play "Orpheus Descending," and the antihero in "One-Eyed Jacks."

Stanley Kubrick was originally slated to direct "One-Eyed Jacks," but he grew increasingly frustrated with Brando's concept for the film and instead went off to direct "Spartacus." The Western's budget, originally $2 million, zoomed to $6 million as Brando took over directorial duties and emphasized improvisational acting techniques, even with the extras in the cast. The studio cut the five-hour-long film, angering Brando and triggering one of his eating binges.

After another fiasco with "Mutiny on the Bounty" (1962), he spent more time on his social activism and entered his longest commercial slump as an actor with a series of films casting a critical gaze on American society.

He was a diplomat in "The Ugly American" (1963); a sheriff in a town of southern vipers in "The Chase" (1966); a square politician in "A Countess From Hong Kong" (1967), directed by Charlie Chaplin; and a repressed gay Army officer in "Reflections in a Golden Eye" (1967).

Brando considered his most successful role, by the measure of both acting and social protest, his turn as a British emissary sent to investigate a slave revolt in Gillo Pontecorvo's "Burn!" (1969). Again, it failed with the public.

Dealing with film and marital woes, he became depressed and began another of his increasingly habitual eating binges. He retreated to Tahiti, which he had discovered as a peaceful retreat while filming "Mutiny." He bought an entire atoll in 1967 for $270,000.

Out of nowhere, author Mario Puzo sent Brando the "Godfather" script, hoping he would play Don Vito Corleone. Brando agreed, seeing the part as a statement about corporate greed. Onscreen, he emulated the pinched voice of organized crime figure Frank Costello during a 1950s Senate hearing led by Estes Kefauver (D-Tenn.) and ate a large dinner with underworld potentates to copy their mannerisms.

He also was inventive on camera, supplying many memorable ad-libs, such as the orange slice he places in his mouth to amuse his screen grandson.

"The Godfather" and his next film, "Last Tango in Paris," in which he has a fatal fling with a young Frenchwoman, prompted a massive rethinking of Brando's career. "Last Tango in Paris," which received an X rating, featured a highly improvisational Brando using many autobiographical details to flesh out his character.

In her New Yorker review, critic Pauline Kael wrote that director Bernardo Bertolucci and Brando "have altered the face of an art form" and called the film revolutionary.

Brando said he made many of his later films for the money -- he reportedly was paid $3.7 million for 12 days of work on "Superman." But he never seemed anything short of mesmerizing, whether as a cross-dressing hired gun in the Western "The Missouri Breaks" (1976) or as a mischievous Mafia don in "The Freshman" (1990), spoofing his role in "The Godfather."

Critic Hal Hinson, writing about "The Freshman" in The Washington Post, said, "Brando is never less than a miraculously magnetic camera subject; just to have him in front of the lens is, in most cases, enough."

He earned his final Oscar nomination, for best supporting actor, as a lawyer in apartheid South Africa in "A Dry White Season" (1989).

Morbidly obese and depressed after the deaths of family members and friends, he spent the last decade more as an object of media curiosity than as an actor looking for his next challenge. He largely resigned himself to insubstantial parts in panned films such as "The Island of Dr. Moreau" (1996).

Ever the mischievous performer, he was said to spend his spare time as a ham-radio operator. He used vocal mimicry to talk to the outside world, but always in disguise.

His marriages to actresses Anna Kashfi, Movita Castenada and Tarita Teriipaia ended in divorce. He also had a long relationship with his former housekeeper, Christina Ruiz.

Survivors include a son from his first marriage, two children from his second marriage, a son from his third marriage and several children with Ruiz.