The actor Marlon Brando hated most in the world once played him on TV: “A marvellous imitation”
It’s one thing to become caught up in a decades-long war of words with somebody you can’t stand, but it’s something else entirely to have them blatantly imitate you on national television. Obviously, that’s not going to happen to everyone with an arch-nemesis, but it did happen to Marlon Brando once.
Constantly toeing the line between genius and madness, there will never be another star like him ever again. Brando reinvented screen acting forever, became one of cinema’s all-time greats and perhaps its single most influential thespian ever, despite doing his best to sabotage his career and reputation.
Eccentric probably doesn’t quite cover it, with the two-time Academy Award winner becoming more famous for his on and off-set oddities than his work in front of the cameras, with performances that reminded everyone of his glory days becoming fewer and farther between the longer he continued hovering around Hollywood.
It didn’t help matters that he always had a reputation for being difficult to work with, even in his early days, where his prickly nature could at least be attributed to his immersive approach to his craft. However, the brighter his star kept shining, and the more his legend was enhanced, the more likely he was to make enemies, and he made quite a few.
Frank Sinatra, Dennis Hopper, Mira Sorvino, Clint Eastwood, Richard Stanley, Frank Oz, and Lewis Milestone are just a few of the names who ended up on Brando’s bad side for one reason or another, but he reserved a very special ire for Burt Reynolds, whom he once called “the epitome of something that makes me want to throw up” and “the epitome of everything that is disgusting about the thespian.”
Reynolds was “flattered” when he heard that Brando had threatened to quit The Godfather if he was cast, and mercilessly skewered him in a Saturday Night Live sketch. Why did the latter despise the former so much? He never explained his reasons, but it’s not unreasonable to assume it’s got something to do with ‘The Bard’, a 1963 episode of The Twilight Zone.
Reynolds plays a character named Rocky Rhodes, who’s basically Marlon Brando. They dress the same, possess the same mannerisms, and bear a passing resemblance to each other. The future Smokey and the Bandit star did an impressive job of mimicking the On the Waterfront figurehead, so much so that it still ranks as one of the finest Brando impersonations you’re ever likely to see.
Production assistant John Conwell confessed that the only reason Reynolds was hired was “because he looked very much like Brando at the time and did a marvellous imitation of him.” Little did he know the two would become mortal enemies, and The Twilight Zone may well have been the inciting incident.
