Burt Reynolds and Marlon Brando’s 40-year feud: “He makes me want to throw up”
Cinema history has been littered with feuds for the ages, but few have proven to be quite as one-sided in their dynamic as the bad blood between Burt Reynolds and Marlon Brando, which carried on for decades without the former saying anything outwardly untoward about the legendary actor, even if he did get a couple of televised licks in.
Reynolds was a big star in the 1970s, but he could have been a whole lot bigger if he hadn’t developed a habit of turning down major roles. As well as knocking back the chance to play James Bond as Sean Connery’s replacement, he wasn’t interested in being Star Wars‘ Han Solo, rejected the One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest part that won Jack Nicholson an Academy Award, and said no to Richard Gere’s Pretty Woman gig.
Arguably the most famous of all was The Godfather‘s Michael Corleone, which was offered Reynolds’ way during the arduous casting process that eventually settled on Al Pacino. However, Brando – who was the first major name to be cast as the iconic Vito – threatened to walk away from the production where the moustachioed menace was hired to play his on-screen son.
The reasons why Brando was so dead against Reynolds had been festering away for a decade and can be traced at least partly back to when the Smokey and the Bandit star appeared in an episode of The Twilight Zone that aired in 1963. In ‘The Bard’, Reynolds openly mocked Brando’s signature performative style, accent, and mannerisms as the character Rocky Rhodes, which may have gotten underneath his opposite number’s skin.
Almost two decades after The Godfather, Francis Ford Coppola was once again considering Reynolds for one of his ensemble, this time Apocalypse Now. Naturally, when word filtered through to Brando, he was less than enthusiastic at the prospect, with audio footage recorded on the set capturing the Oscar-winning legend letting rip at everything he despised about his apparent arch-nemesis.
Calling him “the epitome of something that makes me want to throw up”, Brando then doubled down on his disdain by labelling Reynolds as “the epitome of everything that is disgusting about the thespian”, largely driven by the belief “he worships at the temple of his own narcissism”. A touch ironic for somebody who could rarely be bothered learning their lines and regularly showed up completely unprepared and out of shape, but such levels of hate can do a funny thing to a person.
Reynolds responded in kind by once again skewering Brando via parody, this time on Saturday Night Live. In the sketch, Gilda Radner’s television host Baba Wawa attempts to interview the fictional Brando while he’s lying in bed, but things don’t go to plan when the actor spends the entire time stuffing his face with food. Although Reynolds never openly trashed his enemy in the press, his impersonations said more than a thousand words ever could.
He did admit to Andy Cohen how he was “very flattered” by Brando’s raging dislike of him, although he conceded he was “flattered he was upset” more than anything else. It takes a lot to irritate an acting heavyweight to such an enduring degree, but it’s clear Reynolds had that special something in spades.
