I feel instantly ancient when I watch old movies and movies stars whose entire life history I know appear on the screen young, beautiful. This happened when I saw Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton in Taming of the Shrew, now as I watched Marlon Brando as Marc Antony and James Mason as Brutus in Julius Caesar. {They were SO handsome!]. And this afternoon looking at a vital [if much made up] Laurence Olivier as Richard III. It's not fair that they remain so young and beautiful on screen. And I look in my mirror and see someone who looks so different than I once did. In fact today I dug into a box in which I'd packed various tax documnets [because it's getting to be THAT time of year] and found I'd packed in the same box an album of pictures from the 70s. Was that dark haired woman me? If only I'd been a movie star I'd be immortalized as that slender, long haired brunet.
I have a Brando story that will never be known if I don't tell it somewhere: A friend of mine who was an early Actors' Theatre member, told me this story: Back in the 50s, in NYC, he was dating a girl whose roommate was dating Brando. My friend arrived a the girls' apartment one evening for a date and both girls were still showering and dressing. Brando was also waiting for his date. The guys were bored so they decided to play cards since there was a deck on the coffee table. At some early point my friend realized Brando was cheating at the game. He said. "Marlon, you're cheating." Marlon said, "Well, isn't winning what this is about?"
I thought of that story in the scene where Brando is planning the effect of his "Friends, Romans, Countrymen" speech. The look on his faee was all about winning.
1 comment:
Fabulous story ~
says so much about the man
and his methods.
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