Background Information     

Marlon Brando was the most famous actor of his generation.  Brando was born on April 3rd, 1924, in Omaha, Nebraska.  His father worked for a manufacturer that produced chemical products and insecticides.  Brando's mother was a semi-professional actress.^[1]  Little did young Marlon Brando know that he was going to be famous and one of the biggest stars in Hollywood.  He was not very good at school.  He was expelled from both high school and a military academy.  However, when he joined the Dramatic Workshop at the New School for Social Research, he changed his life forever.  In the beginning of Brando's career, he started off in common plays such as Shakespeare and Moliere.  His first movie was The Men, which was in 1950.  Later on in his career, Brando earned two Academy Awards for On The Waterfront, which was filmed in 1954, and The Godfather, a 1972 movie.  Marlon Brando refused to accept his second award in protest against Hollywood's depiction of Native Americans in their productions.^[2]   Brando later had kids, but sadly though, his son, Christian, was murdered.  Later on, his daughter, Cheyenne, committed suicide.^[3]  He continued on though and when Brando was 68 and retired, he was interviewed.  He said that he actually did not enjoy the acting career.  The reason for this was because after a while, he was getting bored of it.  Brando also claimed that the only reason that he did not leave was because he was attracted to the amount of money he earned.  He made over $82,000,000 throughout his life as an actor.  He said that it was hard to walk away from.^[4]  Even though Brando did not seem to enjoy his acting career and had a poor opinion of the movie industry, many biographies and other books where published about his career.  Brando died on July 1st, 2004.  He was 80.  Many looked up to him since he was the best actor of his generation, and many still do.  

Importance     

Marlon Brando was a very important part of American history since he was the first to use method acting.  This was important because many people followed him and changed the way they acted in movies and plays.  He is also significant to American history because he was one of the three people that did not accept an Academy Award.  This was a major event since this rarely happens.  Marlon Brando changed the world in many other ways.  For example, the passion that he brought to his movies drove people to the movie theatres.  So even though Marlon Brando was not a good student and did not complete school, he was an outstanding actor and made an impact.  He changed Hollywood and the American movie culture forever.  

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