The greatest comedy actor of all time, according to Marlon Brando: “He understood the myth”
Although he was renowned as a practical joker, and many co-stars found him hilarious when the cameras weren’t rolling, Marlon Brando was hardly known for being a gifted comedian.
Even the greatest actors of all time have flaws in their arsenal, and for the star who single-handedly changed the profession forever, he wasn’t what anyone would call hilarious. Not that he wanted to be, though, with Brando only appearing in a handful of comedically inclined movies.
He was admittedly in great form in The Freshman when poking fun at the baggage he’d carried into the film from The Godfather, but unless there was a romantic angle, his rib-tickling outings weren’t much to write home about, which didn’t matter in the grand scheme of things when he ended his career as the consensus pick for the all-time greatest.
The two-time Academy Award winner still appreciated the art of comedy, and he felt that Mickey Rooney was the most undervalued star in the business, even if it’s somewhat ironic that when he worked with the icon he considered the single finest comedic performer in cinema history, he fucking hated them.
“Charlie Chaplin was one of the few actors who had the intuitive sense to consciously create a myth about himself as the Tramp, and then he exploited it,” he wrote in his memoir, Songs My Mother Taught Me. “Chaplin was an actor I had always admired greatly. Some of his films, such as City Lights, still move me to tears as well as laughter.”
Reflecting on the seminal caper’s “hilarious” introductory scenes, Brando then singled out the ending as not only one of the best scenes he’d ever seen in a comedy movie, but a masterclass that every actor should aspire to emulate. “The moment is magical, one that reaches into the audience’s unconscious, which only the best acting can do,” he praised. “Chaplin knew exactly what the audience would experience.”
City Lights has always been regarded as Chaplin’s masterpiece, and the ending is right up there with the most unforgettable finales ever committed to the screen. The multi-talented actor and filmmaker held viewers in the palm of his hand from beginning to end, and Brando was mesmerised at how he’d mastered the art of manipulating their emotions.
“I don’t know if it was conscious or instinctive,” he pondered. “But he understood the myth he had created with the Little Tramp and attached himself to it tenaciously.” There’s a very good reason why they say you should never meet your heroes, though, something Brando would discover first-hand in the late 1960s.
When he worked with Chaplin on A Countess from Hong Kong, he found him to be a tyrant, a monster, and one of the ugliest human beings he’d ever encountered. Since he’d been a fan for as long as he could remember, that must have stung, with Brando’s hero worship being knocked down a peg or two when he discovered how the silent film savant ran his productions.
