The only actor Marlon Brando knew he could never match: “You’ve always been better”
Even though he visibly bristled whenever it was brought up in his presence, and spent the back half of his career doing his best to piss it away, Marlon Brando knew fine well that he was a generational talent.
That’s probably underselling it when he has a stronger case than most to be named the single greatest actor in cinema history. Even if he isn’t, then he’s definitely the most influential, with the shadow he casts over the entire art form continuing to loom large, more than 70 years after his breakthrough.
Brando knew he was good, and as far as the likes of Jack Nicholson, John Goodman, Kurt Russell, and Robert De Niro can see, he’s the best of all time. When he was fully committed to acting, the two-time Academy Award winner possessed a ferocious drive to better himself, and Montgomery Clift was one of the main reasons why.
They were less than four years apart in age, they both studied at the Actors Studio within a couple of years of each other, they helped popularise the method approach, and they found themselves constantly crossing paths, beyond sharing the screen in 1958’s The Young Lions, an aptly titled movie if ever there was one.
Brando voted for Clift to win the ‘Best Actor’ Oscar for A Place in the Sun, which he didn’t, while Clift voted for Brando to win for On the Waterfront, which he did. The latter was cast in 1954’s Désirée after the former turned down the part, and Brando stepped in to replace Clift in Reflections in a Golden Eye after his death in 1966.
Professionally, they were rivals, but personally, they were friends. When Clift was struggling with alcoholism and an addiction to painkillers, Brando would visit him regularly and accompany him to Alcoholics Anonymous meetings, describing his fellow method man as “a friend with a tragic destiny.” Following Clift’s 1956 car crash, which left him needing reconstructive surgery, he was more in need of support than ever.
He wasn’t taking visitors and became increasingly reclusive until he felt he was fully healed and ready to return to the public eye. Taking the initiative, Brando turned up at his home and showered him with the highest praise anybody could hope to receive from the performer widely recognised as the finest ever to set foot on a film set.
“I am only where I am today because I have had you to compete with,” Brando told him. “If I’m good, it’s because you’ve always been better. I need to be better. I need to work harder. Because if I’m good, you will always be better. And I need you. I need to know you’re out there, beating me at my own game, because I don’t know what the hell I’m doing if you’re not out there doing it, too.”
It was well beyond words of encouragement, and the feeling was mutual. “I had no idea,” Clift told his assistant. “I had no idea he felt that way. I always felt the same way about him.” He’d scoff at the notion, but if Brando was Hollywood’s 1A, then Clift was his 1B.
