Sunday, July 4

A contender

My mom woke me up on Friday morning to tell me that Marlon Brando had died. (My mom loves to wake me up with bad news.) Sometime during my teen years, I became a raging Brando fan. Like most dorky young girls who love movies way too much, I started watching old movies and realized that they did indeed make them better back then. I first noticed Brando in Guys and Dolls, if you can believe it. (Oddly enough, my love of Brando coincided with my musicals phase.) I loved him as Sky Masterson, perhaps because I'm always a sucker for a bad-boy-good-girl combination, but more likely just because he was damn beautiful and damned good. Late-night cable revealed his lesser roles to me first: Desiree, Sayonara. And then I saw On the Waterfront, and I was never the same.

I didn't want to write this until I'd had a chance to watch it again, to fix him in my mind the way he was. He was somebody.

No comments: