Sir Laurence Olivier on the 'Genius' of Marlon Brando
Time magazine designated Brando as the "Actor of the Century" in 1999 while Sir Laurence Olivier is considered one of the greatest stage and screen actors of all time. Sir Laurence Olivier' 1948 motion picture adaptation of Hamlet is considered the best portrayal of the mad prince put to film. Hamlet became the first non-American film to win the Academy Award for Best Picture; Olivier won the Best Actor award.
Often there can be a degree of professional jealousy among actors, sometimes having to do with technique, sometimes for more personal reasons. On The Dick Cavett Show in 1973, legendary actor Sir Laurence Olivier offered up his opinion on Marlon Brando's acting ability.
"The first time I saw him, " Olivier recalls about Brando. "He went on as an understudy in what was the final performance of quite a short run, I think, of Katheryn Cornell in Antigone. A version that Anouilh and directed by her husband Guthrie McClintic.
"The man who usually played the messenger on this one night alone was playing the chorus and the understudy was playing the Messenger. And I went to see this and this fellow came on the stage and I can only tell you he simply set it alight. It was Brando. First time I'd ever seen him, I think the first time anybody had ever seen him."
Not long after, Brando was on his way to superstardom. "He was palpably a great star in the making," Olivier continued. "He has, he has... it's a dangerous word, I think, to use to do with our work because I don't really like the word 'genius' applied to the theater. I don't think the theater can quite cope with genius, I think it's too practical a business to have to worry with genius. I think, if anything the height of ambition is to have genius for practicability. But Marlon has the sort of genius, I think, that is able to play a genius. I mean, his Napoleon I think was immesurably the best ever Napoleon I think I've ever seen, it was a simply marvelous - simply because of his own particular quality of being so easy, so easily, bringing a sense of genius to a character was a genius. And also he - he's got an astonishing gift."
Olivier also credited Brando as, "A great technician."
Having studied with Stella Adler in the 1940s, Brando is widely credited with being one of the first prominent actors to bring the Stanislavski Method Acting approach to the theater and motion pictures. The American Film Institute ranked Brando as the fourth-greatest male movie star whose screen debut occurred in or before 1950.
Brando received an Academy Award, for his performance as Terry Malloy in On the Waterfront.
WIKI: After a hiatus in the early 1970s, Brando was generally content with being a highly paid character actor in cameo roles, such as in Superman (1978), as Colonel Kurtz in Apocalypse Now (1979), and in The Formula (1980), before taking a nine-year break from film. According to the Guinness Book of World Records, Brando was paid a record $3.7 million ($16 million in inflation-adjusted dollars) and 11.75% of the gross profits for 13 days' work on Superman.
Not long after, Brando was on his way to superstardom. "He was palpably a great star in the making," Olivier continued. "He has, he has... it's a dangerous word, I think, to use to do with our work because I don't really like the word 'genius' applied to the theater. I don't think the theater can quite cope with genius, I think it's too practical a business to have to worry with genius. I think, if anything the height of ambition is to have genius for practicability. But Marlon has the sort of genius, I think, that is able to play a genius. I mean, his Napoleon I think was immesurably the best ever Napoleon I think I've ever seen, it was a simply marvelous - simply because of his own particular quality of being so easy, so easily, bringing a sense of genius to a character was a genius. And also he - he's got an astonishing gift."
