Download "The Final Days of Marlon Brando"
%3Aformat(webp)%2Fi.ytimg.com%252Fvi_webp%252F0IHTIb1vtgA%252Fmaxresdefault.webp&w=1139&q=75)
Similar videos from our catalog
%3Aformat(webp)%2Fi.ytimg.com%252Fvi_webp%252F01XSEf1MZj0%252Fmaxresdefault.webp&w=1139&q=75)
%3Aformat(webp)%2Fi.ytimg.com%252Fvi_webp%252FA4HqtrshsgI%252Fmaxresdefault.webp&w=1139&q=75)
%3Aformat(webp)%2Fi.ytimg.com%252Fvi_webp%252FXQrVKC93hrw%252Fmaxresdefault.webp&w=1139&q=75)
%3Aformat(webp)%2Fi.ytimg.com%252Fvi_webp%252F_QhEUFcyR9k%252Fmaxresdefault.webp&w=1139&q=75)
%3Aformat(webp)%2Fi.ytimg.com%252Fvi_webp%252FlBtdXAUG1co%252Fmaxresdefault.webp&w=1139&q=75)
%3Aformat(webp)%2Fi.ytimg.com%252Fvi_webp%252FwNlHCzPH-78%252Fmaxresdefault.webp&w=1139&q=75)
%3Aformat(webp)%2Fi.ytimg.com%252Fvi_webp%252F0jfw9pm8qQM%252Fmaxresdefault.webp&w=1139&q=75)
Video tags
Subtitles
Russian
00:00:09
In his final days,00:00:11
and what followed immediately
after his death, was ever much as chaotic,00:00:16
maybe more chaotic than anything
that had taken place in his life.00:00:21
Marlon Brando died on July 1st, 2004.00:00:25
The man regarded by film fans
as the century's greatest actor,00:00:28
had spent the last part of his life
enclosed in his bedroom00:00:31
in the Hollywood Hills.00:00:36
The former Adonis lay slumped in bed,
an oxygen tube in his nose,00:00:40
overcome by his obesity,
ravaged by his 80 years,00:00:44
and walled in by a celebrity.00:00:48
Up until his final days,00:00:50
he passed the time
calling his closest friends,00:00:52
his most stalwart allies.00:00:54
Like his third wife, a Polynesian,
whom he had often tormented00:00:58
and whom he summoned from Tahiti
to his deathbed.00:01:01
For the first time, he told her,
"Tarita, I love you."00:01:06
He called his friend and business manager,
for whom he reserved one last dirty trick.00:01:11
You better not have fallen asleep.00:01:13
I would wake up, and I'd say,
"Marlon, I need to get some sleep."00:01:17
He called his long-serving
Hollywood agent.00:01:20
He would call you at one
or two o'clock in the morning and say,00:01:25
"What are you doing?"00:01:26
I'd say, "What do you mean,
what am I doing? I'm asleep."00:01:29
An old flame from his youth00:01:30
to whom he said, not far from death's
door, "Let's start over."00:01:34
He used to say, "You know me better
than anybody in the world."00:01:37
I would say, "I know you may be better,
but I don't understand you at all."00:01:41
There was no understanding of him.00:01:46
He probably thought
of those he had made suffer00:01:48
and cast aside,00:01:51
such as his first wife.00:01:53
No, a vindictive person.00:01:56
Pure evil.00:01:59
Pure evil.00:02:20
Marlon kept a loaded pistol under the bed.00:02:24
He lies in bed and reaches down to get it.
He had several things under the bed.00:02:28
He had the .38 pistol,00:02:29
I understand he also had a shotgun,
but he also had his piss bottle,00:02:34
which is to say, Marlon,
even before he became ill,00:02:36
spent half his life in bed
and he was a lazy man.00:02:41
He didn't want to get up
and walk the six seven feet over here00:02:45
to the bathroom.00:02:47
Why did he call you on that day,00:02:49
his last day before he died?00:02:52
Did he call?00:02:55
With a voice and a timbre in his voice
that I had never heard before.00:03:01
Not only in his but in anybody's.00:03:03
Near hysteria, near desperation.00:03:12
He said,
"George, I just want to hear your voice."00:03:15
"I just want to know everything's okay."00:03:19
"I love you, and I'm going to cry now,
but don't worry about that."00:03:23
"It's because I'd take a bullet for you."00:03:30
I thought it was within the realm
of possibility that he was dying,00:03:37
and he wanted me to die, too.00:03:44
He had weapons, and I knew him.00:03:46
I knew how his mind
could leapfrog into something else.00:03:53
I drove up the driveway
and everything was overgrown,00:03:58
looking gray,
looking unwatered, and haunting.00:04:03
When I came into the room,
he always liked to have music playing.00:04:08
This time, [Foreign spoken audio].00:04:11
There was no chair to sit in by the bed.00:04:15
It was obvious
no one else had been there in a long time.00:04:19
Probably, he heard the knocking
at the gate.00:04:23
In discussion, you don't say, "I'm dying."00:04:27
In fact, when we talked about it,00:04:31
he said, "If it doesn't, fuck it.
I don't give a shit."00:04:35
Those were his words.00:04:38
This conversation with his greatest friend
would be the last.00:04:41
The next day,
Marlon Brando was taken to hospital00:04:44
where he died from a lung infection.00:04:48
He is an emperor
and his kingdom is unmatched.00:04:52
Among the last people he saw
was his friend Scott Billups.00:04:56
He had filmed Brando's last public
appearance two years previously,00:04:59
at an actor's workshop
the star had organized.00:05:03
The idea was basically
to just get his principals down on tape00:05:09
for posterity.00:05:12
That's all I had in mind.00:05:13
He also recorded some previously unseen
and more troubling images,00:05:17
the last of Brando alive,
just ten days before his death.00:05:22
The great American people
are people who stepped off the boat,00:05:26
and John Wayne said,
"Well, glad to have you here, partner."00:05:30
"You're a great American,
in case you didn't know it."00:05:33
-He looks in good shape.
-Acting.00:05:38
Brando accorded his friend
this last interview00:05:41
in his bedroom balcony as a farewell gift.00:05:44
We have here the gold,
the medal, the steel.00:05:48
He got his pajamas on under that,
and he got an IV in his arm.00:05:54
Right after that,00:05:55
they started pumping him full of drugs
and he just withered away.00:05:59
It was almost instantaneous, it was scary.00:06:05
That was ten days before he died.00:06:11
For whole generations around the world,00:06:14
Marlon Brando was first
and foremost the unforgettable star00:06:17
of The Godfather and that voice.00:06:20
An honest man like yourself
should make enemies.00:06:22
Then he would become my enemy.00:06:27
Then they will fear you.00:06:33
Be my friend.00:06:40
Godfather.00:06:42
For Hollywood, Marlon Brando's career
was effectively over by the late 60s.00:06:49
He had made a string of films,
many of them on contract,00:06:52
which are totally undistinguished.00:06:54
There are moments of genius
in all of them,00:06:56
but it was no longer
the great Marlon Brando.00:07:02
He tried very hard to get the role
of Don Corleone for The Godfather.00:07:07
He desperately wanted the role.00:07:12
Brando created a face and a voice00:07:14
borrowed from local Mafia bosses
he had met00:07:16
during the shooting of On the Waterfront.00:07:19
He appeared before Coppola
with Kleenex stuffed in his cheeks00:07:22
and murmured in a soft, pain-ridden voice.00:07:25
The director was won over.00:07:27
All he had to do
was convince the producers.00:07:29
Bob Evans said, "Who is that?"00:07:31
They didn't even know it was Brando.00:07:36
As soon as they heard that it was Brando,00:07:38
they said, "We want to avoid him."00:07:40
"Forget about it.
You can't even bond him."00:07:42
Francis at that point
feigned an epileptic seizure.00:07:46
He fell to the floor.00:07:47
They said,
"We'll consider Brando for the role,"00:07:49
"but you first have to get him bonded."00:07:52
Marlon had screwed up so much
with the earlier films00:07:55
that this was going to be an issue.00:07:57
He took a very low salary.00:08:00
It was a ridiculous amount of money,
it was like $50,000 plus three percent00:08:04
or 1.5 percent of the gross.00:08:07
That was the Niagara Falls?00:08:09
He was broke at that point.00:08:10
He had no money.
He had fucked up completely.00:08:14
Mismanagement of his affairs.00:08:16
He sold the points back for a pittance,
a couple of hundred thousand dollars.00:08:20
It would have been millions
and millions of dollars.00:08:22
Every time that film
is shown on television,00:08:25
Francis Coppola gets a check.00:08:27
He took revenge when doing Apocalypse Now.00:08:31
Are you an assassin?00:08:34
I'm a soldier.00:08:35
This time, Brando earned
almost one million dollars00:08:38
every ten seconds00:08:39
for a film in which he appears
for barely two minutes.00:08:43
Collect the bill.00:08:48
There is in the world of acting,
the world over.00:08:51
BB, AB.00:08:54
Before Brando, after Brando.00:08:57
He wanted my philosophy of life.00:09:02
Do it to him before he does it to you.00:09:03
This was a man
who lacked in the character department.00:09:07
He did not feel.00:09:09
I mean, there are people
who refer to Marlon as a sociopath.00:09:12
No guilt, no feeling, no power of empathy.00:09:14
Yet, what makes this
such a complicated story00:09:17
is that, as an actor,00:09:19
his sense of empathy and identification
with characters was without parallel.00:09:28
A Streetcar Named Desire
triggered a revolution.00:09:30
Never talk that way to me.00:09:32
Until Brando, actors had been clean-cut,
immaculately dressed, paragons of virtue.00:09:38
Brando represented only himself
and excelled as a brute,00:09:42
exploiting his body,
and acting from the gut.00:09:45
You loved it.00:09:46
Having them colored lights going.
Weren't we happy together?00:09:49
Wasn't it all okay
that she showed up here?00:09:52
It won the Pulitzer Prize
and the Critics Award.00:09:55
New York, London, Paris, Brussels,
and Rome all cheated.00:09:59
Brando in the role that made him a star.00:10:12
Please never leave me, baby.00:10:15
He had a natural kind of freedom
and narcissism with his body.00:10:20
When he dressed in jeans and a t-shirt,00:10:22
which became the uniform,00:10:23
the uniform from both the beat to now,
it's still the uniform.00:10:30
Yes, Brando in the portrayal
that labeled him the most exciting,00:10:34
sensual man ever.00:10:36
During Streetcar,00:10:37
when the costume designer
decided to go with the jeans,00:10:42
he said, "Make them tight."00:10:44
He wore them without underpants
so you could see the outlines of his body.00:10:48
It was a symbol of freedom
and independence.00:10:53
The Motorcycle as well.00:10:55
He was the symbol of rebellion.00:11:01
With the Wild One,
to the jeans and T-shirt,00:11:04
Brando added the leather jacket
and motorbike,00:11:07
becoming the primal icon for a fashion
that still parades the world's streets.00:11:13
What can you do for me?00:11:15
Marlon's line in the film was echoed
by disillusioned youth throughout the 50s.00:11:20
JFK himself later retorted in his own way.00:11:24
Ask not what your country can do for you.00:11:27
Ask what you can do for your country.00:11:29
It was a symbol of everything
that came later, like rock and roll.00:11:34
Presley revered Brando00:11:37
because Presley came after.00:11:39
It was Brando, Presley.00:11:44
Where did Brando's acting talent
originate?00:11:46
I remember the night.00:11:47
From a beloved woman, his mother.00:11:50
From his childhood
with an alcoholic mother,00:11:53
as he confided to his friend,
George Englund.00:11:55
I'd come home from school
in the second or third grade,00:11:58
and she'd be in a corner there,
bottle next to her,00:12:02
and I'd stare at her00:12:05
and want her to know that I was there.00:12:09
I'd say, "Mama."00:12:12
"Mama, look at me, mama,"00:12:14
"I'm Olympia, our cow."
Then I'd imitate the cow, moo.00:12:20
We would show her the big eye,
and that would wake her up.00:12:26
I'd want to follow that up
and keep her awake.00:12:31
Then I do our pig and then our dog,
and then I would imitate our neighbors,00:12:37
and Mama would laugh.00:12:40
I hated that.00:12:41
I wanted us to be like regular people.00:12:44
Mother and son.00:12:45
Come home, she's there,
has a cherry pie or something.00:12:50
His father, too, was a drunk.00:12:52
Marlon was afraid of him.00:12:53
An insensitive, violent man
who beat his wife.00:12:56
The boy had a troubled childhood.00:12:59
He failed in school,
ultimately believing he was dumb.00:13:03
His mother was a theatre fan
and had sometimes acted herself.00:13:06
She encouraged him to get on stage.00:13:09
Suddenly, he discovered
something he was good at.00:13:11
He existed and could impress his parents.00:13:18
Hey, Stella.00:13:21
Then, an extraordinary event takes place
in the life of Marlon Brando.00:13:25
His mother dies.00:13:28
Marlon nosedives.00:13:30
It's as if he no longer has to prove00:13:33
that he is a great actor00:13:35
because, of course,
he was doing all of this for his mother.00:13:43
Suddenly liberated,00:13:45
Brando no longer saw his acting career
as his priority.00:13:50
He devoted his time
to his principal interest, women.00:13:57
Well, there you go.00:14:00
Marlon Brando
no doubt conquered more women00:14:02
than Don Juan and Casanova put together.00:14:06
As the end approached,00:14:08
perhaps he reflected on the many actresses00:14:10
and mistresses
who fell for his seductive power.00:14:12
I love you.00:14:18
He was so beautiful when he was young00:14:21
that he could get anybody he wanted
and did, of course.00:14:24
The women understood that.00:14:25
I mean, one woman would knock on his door
and she'd find another woman in bed00:14:29
and she'd say,
"Oh, excuse me, I'll come back later."00:14:31
It was that kind of thing.00:14:32
However, they all understood
that they were part of this huge harem.00:14:36
I said, "Marlon, you could call any woman
out of the phonebook,"00:14:42
"and married or not,
she'd come over here."00:14:47
-Am I going to see you again?
-What for?00:14:55
-I really don't want to.
-Nice one.00:14:57
He did have tremendous sexuality.00:14:59
I don't think he was really romantic.00:15:03
He was a macho guy.00:15:04
He was a male chauvinist pig.00:15:07
I mean, certainly,
a feminist would say that,00:15:09
but I would imagine
many feminists went to bed with him.00:15:15
Fame at the ages of 23 and 24
only added to his seductive charms.00:15:28
He was famous as what they call a hunk.00:15:30
They get off the airplane and the women
would stand there with their shirts open.00:15:36
Yes, he had the most infectious,
beautiful, and seductive smile00:15:41
which I saw.00:15:42
I was a woman in Marlon's life.00:15:44
We had had this rather deep love affair
when we were very young.00:15:50
He knew how to seduce.00:15:52
In one way, he seduced us
by being more interested in you00:15:56
than anyone had ever been,
including your mother and your father,00:15:59
really studying you,00:16:01
really interested in you
and everything you said.00:16:04
He really knew everything
about the other person.00:16:08
Now, this, of course, is very flattering.00:16:12
He was very tactile.00:16:13
He always held you,
and his hands were always someplace.00:16:19
He was very tactile.00:16:21
He'd say, "Let me see your hand."00:16:27
"Give me your hand."00:16:28
He'd take it in both of his00:16:32
and start to massage it.00:16:35
However, in a way,00:16:37
that was not somebody stroking a hand,00:16:39
it was saying,
I'm virtually inside your underwear now.00:16:45
He had the women get to know each other.00:16:48
He had them.
This one came in, that one came in.00:16:50
He always had a secretary,
the cook who was always his mistress.00:16:54
After a certain amount of time,
that was the mistress.00:16:58
Then he had the girlfriends.00:17:00
There was this conflict
that went on all the time.00:17:03
Christina was his maid.00:17:07
Been here from Guatemala
or someplace for two months,00:17:10
she didn't know
any of the valuable things.00:17:12
She didn't know Marlon Brando.00:17:15
She didn't know anything about it.00:17:17
I remember the day he started telling me
about her ass,00:17:23
how extraordinary it was.00:17:26
I thought, "How extraordinary
of all the asses you know in this world,"00:17:30
"you pick hers," which was pleasant
but not distinguished in my opinion.00:17:37
It led to this marriage
he had with three children,00:17:39
and that was an enigma.00:17:41
I don't know what he was doing,00:17:43
but he certainly was hurting them,
I'll tell you that.00:17:45
I mean, the agony
that came out of me, myself.00:17:49
I had such agony with him
when I was young and even later.00:17:55
I would say that the main experience
that they all had was pain.00:18:01
Leave me.00:18:06
You kind of fool beside yourself.00:18:09
Little girl, a man holding himself
against you would break you00:18:12
like a bundle of sting.00:18:13
People went through agony.
Just drop, no excuse, nothing.00:18:16
I'd pick up the phone and call him,
but no answer, no nothing.00:18:20
He just let people go.00:18:22
You need a sound, natural sleep.00:18:26
He let himself be manipulated by women,
and then he was in a rage.00:18:31
He could not,
as he had to have women suffer.00:18:34
Every single one of them suffered.00:18:36
I see through you.00:18:40
Like you see.
Would you like me to tell you?00:18:42
I'd love for you to.00:18:44
I see you're not so young,
not so satisfied woman.00:18:50
He said it's a pity you never had a baby
because that would have kept us together.00:18:55
I said, "Marlon, I don't get myself
knocked up in order to get a guy."00:19:00
Was he violent?00:19:01
Not to me, no, never to me.00:19:04
No, but I've heard stories.00:19:08
Marlon Brando's first wife
now lives on welfare in a trailer,00:19:12
forgotten by everyone, including the son
her husband snatched from her00:19:17
and whom she has not seen
for over ten years.00:19:24
The former starlet
did not know who Brando was,00:19:26
which always gave him a kick.00:19:29
As he regarded her as the most beautiful
woman in the world,00:19:33
he thought she was rightfully his.00:19:38
I like Marlon's way of thinking.00:19:43
He was generous.00:19:44
He was kind,
not only to me but to other people.00:19:49
-What kind of a lover was he?
-A good one.00:19:54
Yes, a good and very considerate one.00:19:56
-Gentle?
-Yes.00:19:59
Then I heard strange stories
that came around,00:20:02
and thought, "Oh, God."00:20:04
What kind of stories?00:20:06
Homosexual.00:20:09
An astrologist called Ben,
came to the door,00:20:12
and he was very gay.00:20:14
Bleached hair and all that.00:20:16
I looked at him and his eyes were all red
like he'd been crying.00:20:22
He said, "This is for you
and I think you'll find this very useful."00:20:26
-What was it in it?
-With another man.00:20:29
-Who?
-Marlon.00:20:31
You opened the envelope. What did you see?00:20:34
Marlon with another man.00:20:36
-Sexually with another man.
-In bed?00:20:38
Not in bed.
No, you didn't see the bed at all.00:20:43
You feel like a goddamn fool.00:20:47
The other man happened to be Ben's lover,00:20:50
so there was a lot of jealousy going on,00:20:56
and it's tragic.00:20:58
I always kept that photograph.00:21:00
However, when Marlon got nasty with me,00:21:02
I said, "Okay, you want a problem,
I'll give you a problem."00:21:07
I left Marlon,
I left when all this nonsense came out.00:21:12
He didn't understand that,
and he couldn't believe it anyway.00:21:15
Because at that time,
it was, "I'm Marlon Brando,"00:21:18
and I said,
"That has nothing to do with it."00:21:20
This is why he became furious about you.00:21:22
Absolutely, because that never happened
in his life before.00:21:28
I just took the baby and went.00:21:30
That was it.00:21:32
Then he runs up to you?00:21:33
Oh, he was furious.00:21:35
I had to go to court to get it stopped.00:21:38
He said, it's surprising
what money will do.00:21:41
Meaning that he could persuade the judge
or anybody with money00:21:49
and he did.00:21:51
-Is this why you slapped him?
-Yes.00:21:53
He took my child away from me
and I fought back.00:21:57
That's how I had that picture from Ben.00:21:59
I gave it to Judge Ben Nelson
because he asked,00:22:03
"Do you have anything against Marlon
that I could use?"00:22:05
I said yes and I gave him that photograph.00:22:11
That's how I got my son back.00:22:15
Rita Moreno,00:22:17
his love of many, many years00:22:20
devoted, the actress
and dancer Rita Moreno.00:22:25
She literally attempted suicide
on Marlon's doorstep.00:22:27
She cut her wrists
and she collapsed on the doorstep00:22:31
outside the door.00:22:33
I don't know if she pressed the button
before collapsing.00:22:36
She was bleeding like a stuck pig.00:22:38
This was at night00:22:40
and Alice Marshak was there00:22:42
and Marlon was there.00:22:44
Marlon doesn't take her to the hospital.00:22:46
Alice takes her to the hospital.
I don't want to be bothered.00:22:49
Pina Pellicer, the Mexican actress,
he kept encouraging her to commit suicide.00:22:55
"Go ahead, do it.
If you really feel that way, do it."00:23:00
She actually did it.00:23:02
Tarita went along.00:23:04
They all went along.00:23:06
Marlon was all-powerful.00:23:09
More than any of the others,00:23:10
Tarita marked
and occupied his life until the end.00:23:15
Shooting mutiny on the bounty
opened up a whole new world for him.00:23:19
He met the daughter of a fisherman00:23:21
and was all the more affected
because he meant nothing to her.00:23:24
Fletcher Christian is my name.00:23:30
Is my name.00:23:32
No, no, no, Fletcher.00:23:36
No, no, Fletcher.00:23:39
He won Tarita in the film,
but not off-screen,00:23:42
which only spurred him on.00:23:47
When shooting continued in Hollywood,
he was able to intensify his advances.00:23:53
However, the young girl
persistently rejected his devilish charms.00:23:57
Finally, perhaps helped
by the film's success,00:24:00
and after sleeping beside him
fully clothed and untouched00:24:02
for several months, Tarita succumbed.00:24:06
She became pregnant.00:24:08
Marlon already had children
with different women00:24:11
and tried his utmost
to persuade her to have an abortion.00:24:14
She refused.00:24:16
He raged he would never
recognize paternity00:24:18
and demanded
that she conceal the pregnancy.00:24:21
Tarita returned to Tahiti alone,
where she gave birth to a son.00:24:26
Ultimately, Marlon would go there,
adopt the boy, and marry the mother,00:24:29
but he would never again share her bed.00:24:32
[French spoken audio]00:24:43
No.00:24:46
Je n'ai pas cru.00:24:48
Je croyais que c'était une blague.00:24:51
Mais ce n'était pas une blague.00:24:59
Brando fell in love with Tahiti.00:25:01
He bought an entire atoll, Tetiaroa,00:25:03
not far from Papeete.00:25:05
He returned every year to see Tarita
and lead a simple life.00:25:09
Light years from his Hollywood existence.00:25:12
A few years later,
Brando wanted another child with Tarita,00:25:16
but as he still refused
to share a bed with his wife,00:25:19
the baby was conceived
through artificial insemination.00:25:22
An adorable baby girl was born00:25:24
whom he blessed with an Indian name,
Cheyenne,00:25:27
and she became the apple of his eye.00:25:30
[French spoken audio]00:25:35
He visited Tahiti regularly,00:25:37
regenerated by heavenly family life,00:25:39
but still sleeping
in a separate house from his wife.00:25:42
[Fench spoken audio]00:25:45
He could not know
that his daughter Cheyenne,00:25:47
whom he cherished, perhaps excessively,00:25:49
who would later reproach him for this,
would be the bane of his final years.00:26:00
Brando considered his life in Tahiti
as his real life.00:26:04
He was free.
His time here was precious.00:26:07
In Los Angeles,
he hid in the Hollywood Hills,00:26:09
far from the paparazzi
and studios he detested.00:26:14
His secluded house
was surrounded by bamboo00:26:17
and guarded by every imaginable
security device and gadget.00:26:25
Being lazy by nature,
Brando spent most of his time in bed00:26:29
where he could watch and listen
to anyone who dared to pass by.00:26:35
He hated any form of celebrity.00:26:37
He used to dress up in weird costumes00:26:41
just to go out
and sit in a restaurant undisturbed.00:26:45
Brando cared so little about his image,
that he seeded to his voracious appetite.00:26:50
His Greek god looks
were transformed to those of an ogre.00:26:54
His weight reached 170 kilos.00:26:57
He was not a drinker
and the whole family were alcoholics.00:27:00
The family disease.00:27:02
His way of filling in
that that terrible loneliness00:27:05
that alcoholics have, was to eat.00:27:08
Just as simple as that.00:27:10
It really was not something
that he pursued religiously.00:27:15
He didn't take diet pills
or diet particularly.00:27:19
He had us do things
like chaining up the refrigerator.00:27:21
Well, we found out the next day
that he had called someone00:27:24
and they had a dozen Big Macs
thrown over the fence into his yard00:27:28
so he could have a midnight dinner.00:27:31
No one was allowed in.00:27:33
Screenwriters threw their scripts
over a barbed wire fence00:27:36
worthy of an American camp in Vietnam.00:27:38
Any producers who showed up
were running a serious risk.00:27:41
Do you know about the magnet
buried in the driveway?00:27:44
-Have you ever heard about that story?
-No, about what?00:27:47
The magnet.00:27:50
Beneath the entrance gate,
Brando installed a powerful electromagnet00:27:54
that could stick
intruder's vehicle to the ground00:27:56
long enough to call the police.00:27:58
On one occasion,00:28:00
one Hollywood producer found his Jaguar
removed from its wheels by the 3000V.00:28:05
For when Brando needed money,00:28:06
he responded to the studio's proposals,
but only for serious paychecks.00:28:11
The last time was four years
before he died.00:28:13
The film's producer recounts the hell
he was put through.00:28:17
We had moments of sheer terror.00:28:24
For example,
the first day we brought him to the set00:28:27
and he sat down and started playing
at the tables for five minutes.00:28:31
Then he looked up and he said,
"Oh, we don't need to rehearse."00:28:34
"It'll be fine."00:28:37
He went to his trailer
and we go, "Wow, this is great."00:28:40
Two minutes later, I got a phone call.00:28:43
Mr. Brando would like to see you
in the trailer.00:28:46
I go into the trailer and we're talking.00:28:49
He's asking about my family,
about my life, whatever,00:28:51
and he goes, "By the way, I don't want
to shoot that scene tomorrow.'00:28:56
I said, "What do you mean?"
He says, "I want to do the scene where"00:28:59
"I beat up the guy."00:29:02
I said,
"Well, that's exterior out on the street."00:29:04
"We can't get a permit.
I mean, we're not prepared for that."00:29:07
He says, "Well, that's what I want to do.
I don't want to shoot the other scene."00:29:12
I said, "I'm not sure, Marlon.
I don't think I can get a permit."00:29:15
He says, "I'll bet you $100."00:29:17
"I'll make one phone call,
and we'll get your permit."00:29:20
I said, "Well, you know what?"00:29:21
"Let me bring Frank
into this conversation."00:29:23
I said I had my concerns
about upsetting the schedule.00:29:26
He says, "Fine, go get Frank."00:29:29
Frank comes in and Marlon says,
"I want to shoot the scene."00:29:32
Frank goes,
"Oh, the one where you hit the guy00:29:34
with fire poker on the arm?"
and he goes, "What do you mean?"00:29:37
He goes, "It's in the script.
You hit him on the arm."00:29:39
He goes, "I hit the guy in the arm?"00:29:41
He goes,
"Yes, we're building a prosthetic."00:29:44
Marlon literally goes, "Oh my God."00:29:47
Frank goes, "What?"
He goes, "You're directing the movie."00:29:50
"I've never worked
with a control freak before."00:29:52
"How do you know
I'm going to hit him on the arm?"00:29:54
Frank goes, "It's in the script."00:29:56
Marlon looks at me, spins,
and he says, "Get out!"00:30:02
Literally, I walk out of the trailer.00:30:04
Five minutes later,
Frank comes storming out of the trailer.00:30:06
I don't know what transpired,
but he was furious.00:30:12
This was day one.00:30:13
A few months before his death,
Brando was preparing to make another film.00:30:18
An incredible story, a veritable fable.00:30:22
Among all the scripts
piled up at his home,00:30:24
he came across one
written by a director from Tunisia.00:30:27
Brando summoned the author to Los Angeles.00:30:31
Everybody in Tunisia,
France, and everywhere,00:30:33
everybody was making fun of me.00:30:36
Rita Bay with Brando.00:30:37
Why did Brando call
upon this unknown director00:30:40
from Kairouan, Tunisia?00:30:43
He had given money
to the burgeoning Israeli state.00:30:46
He later visited Palestinian refugee camps
and was deeply affected.00:30:53
It was no doubt
to pay some kind of moral debt00:30:55
that he welcomed the Arab director,00:30:58
the symbol of a third-world
that had always interested him.00:31:08
When Brando stepped aside
from his acting career,00:31:10
he was rich
and able to indulge his great generosity.00:31:16
For many years, he devoted his time,
his fame, and his irresistible smile00:31:20
to a number of major causes.00:31:23
-Do you think there's any chance?
-He had helped Holocaust survivors.00:31:26
Now, he would help the blacks
and Indians of his own country.00:31:30
A much larger crowd.00:31:32
He traveled to support
the civil rights movement in the South,00:31:35
in small, racist towns
where whites prevented blacks from voting,00:31:38
sometimes risking his life.00:31:41
I hope to, as a private citizen,
contribute to the protest.00:31:47
Counting neither his time nor his money,00:31:49
he defended
the radical Black Panthers movement.00:31:51
This has been demonstrated here today.00:31:55
He developed a passion
for the cause of the American Indians,00:31:59
considering they had been victims
of genocide for two centuries,00:32:02
and tirelessly fought on their behalf.00:32:11
I feel that they do have a right
to have their freedom.00:32:16
When we hear Mr. Reagan talk about…00:32:18
Well, he was political.00:32:20
I mean, look at some
of the political statements he's made.00:32:23
Not showing up for your Academy Award.00:32:26
That's a political statement right there.00:32:29
When Hollywood awarded him
an Oscar for The Godfather,00:32:33
Brando sent Sacheen Littlefeather
to attend the ceremony in his place.00:32:37
The United States should be changed,
and the motion picture industry00:32:42
has dealt with the image of Indian people
and helped to degrade it00:32:47
as much as the American government.00:32:50
When Black and Indian leaders told him,
"Marlon, you are not black,"00:32:53
"you are not Indian,
you cannot speak in our place."00:32:56
Brando fell silent.00:32:59
However, a few months before his death,
his activism resurfaced.00:33:02
He wanted to make this foreigner's film00:33:05
and talked with him at length
on seven occasions.00:33:10
It's the story of a young Tunisian
who resembles Brando,00:33:14
and who,
little by little thinks he is Brando.00:33:17
He goes to the States,
to Los Angeles to meet Brando.00:33:21
The first thing he said to me was,00:33:23
"Your script sucks. It's a piece of crap."00:33:25
There's no way that after 911
and what happened00:33:28
you can have a young man
coming to become an actor.00:33:33
For me, your character,
if he comes to meet Brando,00:33:36
he ends up at Guantanamo.00:33:39
That's the reality of America today.00:33:42
There's not going
to be another Omar Sharif.00:33:45
From the start,
your film has to be political.00:33:48
You have to be clear about that.00:33:50
Of course,
he proposed some concrete scenes,00:33:53
like the FBI pursuing this young man00:33:55
and various details.00:33:58
For example, the young Tunisian
comes to Brando's house,00:34:01
rings the bell at the main gate,00:34:04
and starts to recite a scene
from Julius Caesar00:34:06
in front of the surveillance cameras.00:34:09
He's playing the scene in the rain,00:34:11
dressed in a sheet
he's taken from his hotel,00:34:13
and Brando says to me,
"I'm in front of my screen watching that."00:34:17
Roman countrymen, lend me your ears.00:34:21
I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him.00:34:25
I loved this idea.00:34:27
The second day he said to me,
"You've chosen Brando."00:34:30
"Sick, old, and a pain in the ass."
He used that term.00:34:35
Secondly, you don't have a Jew with you
as a producer, a Jew here in Los Angeles.00:34:40
"You have no Jew, and that's a problem."00:34:42
"However, don't worry,
we'll find a solution."00:34:45
At certain moments when he was talking
with that thing for breathing,00:34:48
for the oxygen,00:34:49
I dared ask him how we would do it,
how we would film.00:34:55
He said, "I'll show you."
Then he pulled the tube out.00:34:58
I thought it would just be
for two or three minutes,00:35:01
but we did this session for an hour
and a half without oxygen.00:35:06
Then he said,
"Can I rest for a while now?"00:35:10
I was very close to him.00:35:11
He was lying on the bed
and I saw his leg with dry skin.00:35:17
I felt so badly for him,
and I dared to put my hand on his leg.00:35:25
His eyes were closed, and suddenly
he turned his head and opened one eye.00:35:30
He looked at me with his smile.00:35:34
A fabulous smile,00:35:36
and I had this lump in my throat.00:35:43
However, I also had a feeling of death.00:35:45
I wasn't thinking about death,00:35:46
but I felt that there was no need
to make the film.00:35:50
I really felt at that moment
that if I made the film,00:35:53
it would have been pure cynicism.00:35:58
Brando's death two months later
prevented him from making the film00:36:02
and realizing his dream.00:36:08
There was one magical place Brando missed
above all others towards the end.00:36:12
The countryside where he sought refuge
at his friend Joann's.00:36:16
He adored the charm of the place.00:36:19
A bungalow and a bed
were always ready for him here.00:36:23
When he could not be there, he spent hours
calling his closest friends on the phone,00:36:27
and increasingly so as the end approached.00:36:31
He would call and ask for Simba.00:36:35
-Simba, the dog?
-Simba is the dog.00:36:37
I would put the phone up to Simba's ear00:36:39
and Marlon would talk to Simba
and never so much to say hello to me.00:36:47
-Hi, Simba.
-He had a conversation with the dog?00:36:50
Oh, yes, he had a conversation with him.00:36:52
Simba, do you want to talk to your dad?00:36:55
Yes, see, it's your dad.00:36:58
Do you want to talk to Marlon?00:37:00
No.00:37:01
Chacha, do you want to talk on the phone?00:37:04
-Do you want to say hello.
-Hello?00:37:07
Hello?00:37:09
On the phone.00:37:10
Yes, do you want to talk on the phone
and say hello?00:37:13
Hello?00:37:16
Well, people will probably think
I've gone mad.00:37:22
We still have Momma's chickens00:37:26
and Marlon would call me
and have me take the speakerphone00:37:31
and go up to the chicken pan,
and he would want to talk to the chickens.00:37:39
Hello.00:37:41
These extravagances
perhaps enabled him to ward off00:37:44
more painful and distressing thoughts
concerning the disaster00:37:47
of his family life.00:37:49
This was Jekyll and Hyde.00:37:50
Marlon as the father.00:37:52
One day, he would nourish Christian.00:37:56
I mean, I spent hours
listening to Christian tell me00:37:59
that the very best times
that his father had,00:38:03
and also Christian had with his father,
was in Tahiti00:38:08
when they would be running a bulldozer
together, building the airstrip.00:38:12
Back in Los Angeles,
when Christian was 15 or 16 years old,00:38:16
there were times when Marlon
would throw him out of the house00:38:19
and Christian would sleep in the street.00:38:21
Why? Because he didn't mow the lawn.00:38:26
Marlon was incapable
of maintaining a relationship.00:38:31
Then again, let's remember00:38:32
that Marlon himself
could never count on his beloved mother00:38:36
to be there for him.00:38:38
In 1990, Brando's world collapsed.00:38:42
His eldest son, Christian,
whom he had taken from his first wife,00:38:46
committed murder in Brando's own home.00:38:49
The victim was not a stranger,00:38:51
but the fiancée of his daughter Cheyenne,
who was pregnant.00:38:57
One alcohol and drug-fueled evening,00:38:59
Cheyenne confided to her stepbrother
that her fiance was beating her.00:39:04
Christian returned home,00:39:05
and using the pistol his father
had asked him to bring that day,00:39:08
he shot the pretender in cold blood
as he was watching TV.00:39:17
Christian was arrested and locked up.00:39:23
Yes, okay.00:39:25
You see married women over there.00:39:30
Brando appeared in court
to seek bail for his son.00:39:35
Many saw the expression of his emotion
as merely an actor's performance.00:39:41
It was not enough to mollify the judges,00:39:44
and they demanded
the astronomical sum of $10 million bail.00:39:50
He was intent
on trying to get Christian off,00:39:54
and he did it badly.00:39:56
His performance at the trial.00:40:00
Marlon basically had no morality.00:40:03
He'd never been taught that.00:40:06
He never developed it.00:40:09
Brando mortgaged his assets
and raised the ten million.00:40:14
Christian's release played out
like a movie premiere.00:40:17
I'm proud to have my son out of jail.00:40:23
Right now we're just going to go home
and relax.00:40:25
What did Cheyenne repeat to me
over and over again?00:40:29
You have seen the film The Godfather.00:40:32
My father, [French spoken audio]00:40:35
Marlon's father
was beating up Marlon's mother.00:40:37
They were both drunk.00:40:38
Marlon, who was 15
or 16 years old at the time,00:40:41
at their farm in Libertyville,
went to his father's bureau,00:40:46
took the .45 automatic
his father had from the army,00:40:49
and jammed it in his father's face.00:40:51
Was that far from killing him?00:40:54
"Don't you ever beat my mother again,"00:40:58
"or I'll kill you."00:41:02
The irony is that this is precisely
what Marlon told Christian to do,00:41:07
but Christian didn't stop.00:41:09
With his own .45,00:41:11
Christian blew away the offending,
nominally the wife beater.00:41:17
Tragedy.00:41:19
I'm not saying that Marlon said,
"Go kill Dag Drollet."00:41:22
It was basically to run them off
like he's a cowboy.00:41:25
"Run them off our land."00:41:27
-You get what I'm saying?
-Push him back to Tahiti.00:41:29
Yes, "Run them off. Get them out of here."00:41:32
"Find out if he's really beating her up,
and then get them the hell out of here."00:41:36
Christian starved
for his father's approval.00:41:42
Does just that,
but he takes it to the next level.00:41:47
It's the end of life.00:41:48
It destroys the family,00:41:51
whatever is left of the family.00:41:56
The day of the trial arrived.00:42:02
The whole family was present.00:42:04
Brando was confident
he had hired the best lawyers.00:42:09
For the decedent,
pay respects to the decedent00:42:12
and then clean up the room.00:42:14
Christian was finally sentenced
to ten years in prison.00:42:17
Brando could breathe again.00:42:20
However, not for long.00:42:25
After her fiance's murder,00:42:27
Cheyenne returned to Tahiti under escort
to give birth to a baby boy.00:42:34
However, the young mother
was far from well.00:42:37
Tarita placed her
in a psychiatric hospital,00:42:39
first in Tahiti, then in France.00:42:43
Marlon soon arrived to take over.00:42:46
He removed her from the clinic
and retired to a chateau,00:42:49
devoting all his time to her,
perhaps excessive in his attentions.00:42:55
He brought Cheyenne back to California,00:42:57
entrusting her to a local clinic
where she went insane.00:43:02
Later on, returning to Tahiti,00:43:05
Cheyenne made several suicide attempts,00:43:08
finally succeeding
and hanging herself in her mother's home.00:43:16
At the Papeete cemetery,
where Brando's absence was glaring,00:43:19
Cheyenne joined her fiancé in the grave.00:43:26
Brando was through with Tahiti.00:43:29
He would never return.00:43:32
The father had lost
his most precious jewel,00:43:35
the star, his Paradise.00:43:39
He was a terribly unhappy man.00:43:42
Cheyenne's death was Shakespearean.00:43:44
He had a knife in his heart
after her death.00:43:49
What I did
was always trying to give Marlon hope.00:43:52
I felt that the best thing
that I could offer him was hope.00:43:56
Even being sick and dying,00:44:00
we were designing a garden
to plant the following March.00:44:04
The deep, bottomless sadness of it
is that he wound up fucking himself.00:44:09
He wound up screwing himself
out of any chance of happiness.00:44:12
In point of fact, by the very end,00:44:15
when his estate is taken over,
his identity is taken over by an impostor,00:44:20
it's a matter of fact
that 13 days before Marlon's death,00:44:26
there came into being a codicil
to Marlon's will00:44:29
which replaced the two designees,00:44:32
one being Alice Marchak,00:44:34
who had worked for Marlon
more than anyone,00:44:37
and then Jo An Corrales and these people
were kicked out of their place.00:44:42
Then total strangers
or relative strangers in Marlon's life00:44:46
who've come out of the woodwork
and are presenting themselves00:44:48
as the best friend of Marlon Brando,
you have a circus,00:44:52
and they're all feeding00:44:54
on the 300-pound decaying corpse
of Marlon Brando.00:45:01
Two weeks before his death,00:45:02
Brando confided the administration
of his estate to a trio of newcomers,00:45:07
including a businessman00:45:08
and a Hollywood lawyer
he had only rarely frequented.00:45:10
This signature
is not the same as that signature00:45:15
signed on the same day, 18th of June 2004,00:45:22
two weeks before his death.00:45:24
How could he have signed his name that way00:45:28
on the same date as this way?00:45:33
I don't think either one
is Marlon's signature.00:45:36
A number of suits have been filed
to annul the will.00:45:39
The outcome is still unresolved.00:45:40
He was near death.
He couldn't read very well.00:45:43
At the end of his life,
everything had to be read to him.00:45:47
It was just very strange
the way it all took place.00:45:50
The man was lying in a bed
with tubes coming out of him00:45:54
and on oxygen,
can hardly turn over by himself,00:46:00
and you telling me that he was cognizant
of what he was doing?00:46:05
Furthermore, where were the witnesses?00:46:08
Drugs, they drugged him.00:46:10
Who did it?00:46:12
The people who locked the gate00:46:17
and the codes didn't work anymore.00:46:20
None of his friends
could get in to see him.00:46:23
We were literally locked out
of the compound.00:46:26
I got a call from him and he said,
"Come on over."00:46:31
I didn't even know who it was.00:46:35
Then I went over there
and the code didn't work anymore.00:46:40
I think it was engineered.00:46:41
I don't know if he was killed
but I know he was helped.00:46:45
Nobody was preventing it.00:46:46
It could've been prevented,
you saw him ten days before.00:46:49
He was sharp as a tack.00:46:50
Great American people or people
who stepped off the boat,00:46:53
and John Wayne said,
"Well, glad to have you here, partner."00:46:58
"You're a great American,
in case you didn't know it."00:47:02
A lot of people are interested
in finding out the truth.00:47:07
Particularly, the last two years
were distinguished00:47:11
by the absence of morality,
his will, the mess, the anarchy,00:47:16
and the chaos that he left.00:47:17
It was not characterized
by morality in any way.00:47:23
It was the absence of a reason for living,
whether it was love, commitment,00:47:28
or loyalty to something.00:47:31
At the end of his life,
he showed the absence of acuity of that.00:47:37
When we were sitting there that last day,
when we talked about death,00:47:42
it was always his presumption
that I was going to die first.00:47:45
He'd say, "Georgie, what am I going to do"00:47:48
"when there's nobody to laugh with?"00:47:50
"That's how it's gotten us through.
That's what's made it possible."00:47:54
"You're going to die, aren't you?"00:47:57
"I'll try not tomorrow but…"00:48:08
Marlon Brando could have had a funeral
worthy of The Godfather.00:48:12
Hollywood would have organized
an extravaganza,00:48:15
but his wishes
were to be cremated anonymously00:48:18
and for his ashes to be rapidly scattered
in the Death Valley desert.00:48:21
He said, "Promise me that you will not let
anybody see me dead."00:48:27
He said he wanted them to remember him
the way they saw him00:48:31
in their favorite movie or whatever,00:48:33
but he didn't want anybody
to see him dead.00:48:36
A few relatives carried out his wishes.00:48:39
However, on that day in July 2004,00:48:42
a dust storm was blowing
through Death Valley,00:48:44
making any ceremony impossible.00:48:46
In his urn,
Brando must have been delighted.00:48:51
Finally, as they could see nothing,00:48:52
his friends put half the ashes
in a paper bag00:48:55
and released them through a car window.00:49:09
Tarita took the other half back to Tahiti
and cast them into the Tetiaroa lagoon.00:49:15
Here and in California,00:49:16
Brando ended up as he had dreamed,
gone with the wind.00:49:27
What would he have thought if he learned
that his atoll was sold off to a developer00:49:31
to build a hotel for billionaires?00:49:35
The new executors sold it
for just two million dollars.00:49:38
It is worth 30 times more.00:49:42
Brando had never wanted
to sell his island jewel,00:49:45
even when he needed money.00:49:47
He had wanted to leave it to the Tahitians
and to nature lovers.00:49:54
However, if you measure the genius
that he had, oh, what a man!00:49:59
However, in the end,00:50:03
only Shakespeare could have taken care
of somebody like Marlon.00:50:07
The legend is going to build
and build and build.00:50:10
If for no other reason,
then he's so difficult to pin down,00:50:15
to explain away.00:50:16
I mean, fame is a function,
always a mystery.00:50:19
Fame is what we don't know.00:50:22
What more is there for us
to learn about this person?00:50:26
With Marlon,
it just goes on and on and on.00:50:30
From the depths of his seclusion,00:50:32
Brando had thought about his own legend
in a rather surprising way.00:50:37
He had the idea, the first to do so,
of making his actor's face eternal,00:50:42
thanks to digital technology.00:50:43
This is the first full-body scan.00:50:48
-Of his face?
-Of his face.00:50:49
-This is all CG.
-You did it?00:50:51
Yes, I did,
and then we did some plastic surgery.00:51:00
-On the waterfront?
-Yes.00:51:04
His idea was, he didn't really like going
to the set so much,00:51:09
and if we could make him digital,00:51:12
that he could play any role, at any age,
at any weight, in perpetuity.00:51:20
Posterity is more of an ego thing.00:51:23
Perpetuity means it goes forever.00:51:26
Posterity is when people
remember you forever.00:51:29
He just wanted to live forever.00:51:32
He didn't want to necessarily
be remembered forever.00:51:35
There's a big difference.00:51:41
-He didn't, like…
-Make him run a little bit.00:51:43
He didn't like glamour.Description:
In his final days, Marlon Brando, regarded as one of the greatest actors, spent his time bedridden, calling close friends and expressing emotions. He passed away on July 1, 2004, from a lung infection. Brando's career was marked by iconic roles in "The Godfather" and "A Streetcar Named Desire," though later marred by personal tragedies and financial issues. He was an advocate for civil rights, and his enigmatic life continues to fascinate audiences.
Mediafile available in formats
* — If the video is playing in a new tab, go to it, then right-click on the video and select "Save video as..."
** — Link intended for online playback in specialized players
Questions about downloading video
How can I download "The Final Days of Marlon Brando" video?
http://univideos.ru/ website is the best way to download a video or a separate audio track if you want to do without installing programs and extensions.
The UDL Helper extension is a convenient button that is seamlessly integrated into YouTube, Instagram and OK.ru sites for fast content download.
UDL Client program (for Windows) is the most powerful solution that supports more than 900 websites, social networks and video hosting sites, as well as any video quality that is available in the source.
UDL Lite is a really convenient way to access a website from your mobile device. With its help, you can easily download videos directly to your smartphone.
Which format of "The Final Days of Marlon Brando" video should I choose?
The best quality formats are FullHD (1080p), 2K (1440p), 4K (2160p) and 8K (4320p). The higher the resolution of your screen, the higher the video quality should be. However, there are other factors to consider: download speed, amount of free space, and device performance during playback.
Why does my computer freeze when loading a "The Final Days of Marlon Brando" video?
The browser/computer should not freeze completely! If this happens, please report it with a link to the video. Sometimes videos cannot be downloaded directly in a suitable format, so we have added the ability to convert the file to the desired format. In some cases, this process may actively use computer resources.
How can I download "The Final Days of Marlon Brando" video to my phone?
You can download a video to your smartphone using the website or the PWA application UDL Lite. It is also possible to send a download link via QR code using the UDL Helper extension.
How can I download an audio track (music) to MP3 "The Final Days of Marlon Brando"?
The most convenient way is to use the UDL Client program, which supports converting video to MP3 format. In some cases, MP3 can also be downloaded through the UDL Helper extension.
How can I save a frame from a video "The Final Days of Marlon Brando"?
This feature is available in the UDL Helper extension. Make sure that "Show the video snapshot button" is checked in the settings. A camera icon should appear in the lower right corner of the player to the left of the "Settings" icon. When you click on it, the current frame from the video will be saved to your computer in JPEG format.
How do I play and download streaming video?
- in video formats, hover your mouse over "Streaming Video**";
- right-click on "Copy link";
- open VLC-player;
- select Media - Open Network Stream - Network in the menu;
- paste the copied link into the input field;
- click "Play".
- copy the video address (URL);
- select "Open Network Stream" in the "Media" item of VLC player and paste the link to the video into the input field;
- click on the arrow on the "Play" button and select "Convert" in the list;
- select "Video - H.264 + MP3 (MP4)" in the "Profile" line;
- click the "Browse" button to select a folder to save the converted video and click the "Start" button;
- conversion speed depends on the resolution and duration of the video.
For this purpose you need VLC-player, which can be downloaded for free from the official website https://www.videolan.org/vlc/.
How to play streaming video through VLC player:
To download streaming video via VLC player, you need to convert it:
Warning: this download method no longer works with most YouTube videos.
What's the price of all this stuff?
It costs nothing. Our services are absolutely free for all users. There are no PRO subscriptions, no restrictions on the number or maximum length of downloaded videos.