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Marlon Brando has been a movie icon for five decades. Born in 1924 in Omaha, Nebraska, Brando attended the Dramatic Workshop in New York for one year. Following a season of summer stock on Long Island, he made his 1944 Broadway debut as Nels in I Remember Mama. Two years later he was seen in the Broadway plays Truckline Cafe, Candida, and Ben Hecht's salute to Isreal, A Flag is Born, which starred Paul Muni.

In 1947, Brando exploded into Broadway stardom with his forceful portrayal of the screaming, cursing, scratching brute Stanley Kowalski in Tennessee Williams' A Streetcar Named Desire. His naturalistic style of acting and casual, mumbling delivery under the guidance of Elis Kazan heralded the arrival of The Method as a fashionable style of acting. In the late 1940s, he became an early member of the Actors Studio, a workshop for professional actors under the direction of Lee Strasberg. In 1960, Brando brought his Actors Studio training and magnetic, rebellious personality to the screen. In his film debut he played an embittered paraplegic in Stanley Kramer's The Men. He was nominated for Best Actor Academy Awards in four successive years for performances in A Streetcar Named Desire (1951), Viva Zapata! (1952), Julius Caesar (1953) and On the Waterfront (1954). He won the Oscar for On the Waterfront and also received the New York film Critics Award and the Cannes Film Festival prize.

Throughout the 1960s, Brando's charisma, both on and off screen, made him an artistic and social force. Young audiences acclaimed him as the rebellious, nonconforming prototype of the Beat generation' older audiences often saw him an an anti-social menace, unkempt and unrestrained, but audiences and critics agreed that he was one of the most original and compelling personalities to appear on the screen in a long time.

The early 1970s brought superb performances in two extremely diverse roles. His powerful portrayal in the title role of Francis Ford Coppola's The Godfather brought him a second Oscar, which he refused to accept in protest of the plight of Native Americans. He won another Oscar nomination as well as unanimous acclaim for his study of middle-age sexuality in Bernardo Bertolucci's Last Tango in Paris. After a long absence, Brando returned to the screen in 1989, promptly garnering year another Oscar nomination for A Dry White Season. He was also nominated for seven British Film Academy Awards, with three wins for Viva Zapata! Julius Caesar and On the Waterfront. Brando's other film credits include The wild One, Sayonara, The Young Lions, Mutiny on the Bounty, The Ugly American, The Chase, The Missouri Breaks, Superman, Apocalypse Now, The Freshman, Christopher Columbus: The Discovery, Don Juan DeMarco, The Island of Dr. Moreau and The Brave.