Every iconic actor Marlon Brando couldn’t stand the sight of: “I hate that kid”
Marlon Brando’s disgruntled face defines many stills and posters from The Godfather. When you think of the actor in that iconic role as Don Corleone, you don’t exactly see the face of a happy-go-lucky chap, and it’s not hard to associate this image with Brando himself, too. The actor might have been lauded as one of the greatest of all time, known for perfect performances in the likes of A Streetcar Named Desire and On the Waterfront, but he wasn’t the easiest star to be around.
In fact, Brando had a lot of enemies, or at least people he simply couldn’t stand the sight of. In various instances, he ensured that he didn’t have to work with select persons, because to share a screen with them would be an insult in and of itself. So, let’s start with Burt Reynolds, the actor who could’ve played Brando’s son in The Godfather. When he got wind of this potential casting choice, he made sure that this would happen under absolutely no circumstances.
Detesting the actor’s supposed vanity, Brando once said, “He is the epitome of something that makes me want to throw up. He is the epitome of everything that is disgusting about the thespian; he worships at the temple of his own narcissism.”
Another star the actor feuded with was Frank Sinatra, the iconic singer who also did his fair share of acting. When they both went after the same part in Guys and Dolls, Sinatra frequently made pointed comments at Brando, who won the part of Sky, while Sinatra wound up playing Nathan. However, Brando was of the belief that Sinatra was responsible for a near-death experience he had, as reported in the book Brando Unzipped by Darwin Porter.
“Marlon told me, ‘One of the goons told me he was going to offer me a choice. He could kill me, a quick and easy death with a bullet in the heart. Or else he’d let me live. If he let me live, he’d castrate me and carve up my face so that no plastic surgeon could ever repair it’,” said Carlo Fiore, noting, “Marlon told me he had never been so frightened in all his life; ‘I was sweating blood’.” It’s never been confirmed if what happened had anything to do with Sinatra, but Brando’s suspicions certainly fuelled his dislike for the man.
Another co-star he hated was Hollywood wild child Dennis Hopper, whom he appeared alongside in Apocalypse Now. It’s only natural that two personalities as strong as theirs would clash, which soon occurred when Hopper accidentally insulted the cinematic legend, whom he was really excited to work with. When one of the Green Berets gave Hopper a “little red book”, this proved to be the straw that broke Brando’s back.
“I didn’t know this, but Francis [Ford Coppola] had been on him for not reading the book, Heart of Darkness, and we have to do a story conference, and there’s no ending. And I say to Brando, sitting across from him at dinner, ‘I bet you haven’t read the book’. And he thinks I am talking about Heart of Darkness, but I don’t know this at the time. He gets up and says, ‘I don’t have to listen to this! I don’t have to take this!’ And he is screaming and yelling, ‘Why do I have to hear it from him? I have to hear it from this punk!’ And he storms out of the house,” Hopper revealed.
These seemed to be the main feuds in the ill-tempered actor’s career, but there are some other actors that he stated his disdain for throughout his career, such as Clint Eastwood, a story which comes from the mouth of Eddie Murphy. While Brando never publicly shamed Eastwood, he reportedly revealed all to Murphy. Talking to the New York Times’ The Interview podcast, Murphy said, “He was going, ‘I can’t stand that kid with the gun’. I was like, ‘What kid with the gun?’ He said, ‘He’s on the poster!’ I was like, ‘Clint Eastwood?’ ‘Yeah, that guy!’”
According to Thomas Haden Church, Brando was also not a fan of Mira Sorvino, whom he starred alongside in Free Money. “Marlon and Mira did not like each other for whatever reason, and I think that made their interaction even darker,” the actor explained. We’ll probably never know why Brando disliked her, but it seems like whenever the star met with anyone who clashed with him, he was always going to let his feelings be known.
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