Marlon Brando on acting, James Dean, Montgomery Clift, Marilyn Monroe, and Shelley Winters (1990) (2024)

Conversation with author James Grissom via telephone in August 1990.

You're asking me now to look deeply into a mirror, because that is what takes place when an actor speaks of acting: I cannot help but reveal a great deal of myself in taking on my peers, in talking about what others did, or try to do, or are still trying to do.

It's dangerous territory.

One of the awful traps in the world of the actor is the tendency to remain an acting student to such a degree that your work remains a laboratory of your intentions and the ministrations of your particular teacher. When you study the piano or the guitar, there comes a day when you cannot believe that you are changing chords or sight-reading or composing your own music: It seems only seconds ago that you were the plodding student, searching for keys or strings, and now you are somewhat in control of this instrument and the history that resides around and within it. This is what must happen with acting as well. It happens with dance--dancers make the moves, invest them, own them, interpret them: until they no longer can. You find it impossible to believe that once those were painfully studied steps, drawn on paper. The great dancer makes it seem a wholly unique expression of his or her soul. This is what acting should be. Must be.

Beware of the actor who speaks persistently of his or her process. This is all they have. Remember when you stood before your teacher and tried to explain why the algebra homework was not forthcoming? You mentioned a sick mother; a busted refrigerator; a high fever; power outages. The fact remained that the homework was not done; you had failed. I feel this is the same process at work when actors tell you about their journals; their biographies; their sense-memory exercises that prevented sleep; their investigations of neighbors and scholars to fully understand the character they were playing. Inevitably, the most studious of these actors will provide the heaviest lifting, the most dutiful study, and the worst performances.

This was true of Shelley Winters, whom I adore, but who is always, persistently, consistently, and proudly Shelley. She does so much work, she says, wears herself out, writes biographies, and it's all the same. Her labor is her defense for not being a better actress.

James Dean was one of the most fascinating young men I ever met. He was so uncommonly beautiful. A mess, a cat's cradle of contradictions, if that is not in itself a contradiction. James--and I always called him James, because I wanted him to grow up--craved internship: He wanted to remain a student--of anything; of everything. Whatever subject came up--gardening, the occult, cooking, oral sex, Hinduism, Christian Science, German art, Art Deco--he rushed off to learn the most and embrace it. This is not a bad way to be, but there needs to be discipline of the mind and the body. I fail at this all the time, myself, so I'm not criticizing James lightly.

James wanted to love and to be loved, and this shows in his acting. You see the ministrations, the effort: He is never any character but James trying to get your attention and your affection. He was so insanely young when he died--you grieve for the actor he might have become; you can see the seed of greatness in what he did.

You want to love him and hold him in a way you don't with Marilyn, for instance, because Marilyn's needs came with a freight no human could maintain, but James only wanted the love, the touch, the challenge to build himself up. There was a reward in whatever you gave to James.

He had an intellectual inferiority that was like Marilyn's--he read all the time, wanted to know everything. This was sweet in him--it was a good quality.

Monty [Clift] seemed almost absent of any curiosity of anything unless it was a cock or a drug or a part he might be up for. I loved Monty, even if I found myself so depressed after any time I spent with him.

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by Anonymousreply 79October 28, 2021 10:47 PM

You know, look at nature: the animal that appears to be weak and incapable of self-sufficiency is abandoned by the mother and left to either die or fend for itself. I think that James and Monty and Marilyn were like those feeble animals, and it became clear to the earth, to the world, to all of us, that they simply would not be capable of surviving, of lasting, and so they died the early deaths we all secretly expected, dreaded, scripted.

I think a similar state was expected of me, but I'm tough and mean and poor and abused, and I bought an island and tried, as much as possible, to be away from too much sickness, other than my own. I went off and healed; I took care of myself as best I could.

Of the three James had the greatest chance, I think, of survival. Had he found some sense of comfort with someone, he might have found a center and held himself together. Too much came at him too soon. He was seduced by every single lowest common denominator in Hollywood--the lowest of the low, the utter dregs.

This was true of Monty as well, but I think he knew that the dregs gave him dick and drugs and some glitter and colored lights, but he had some strong and smart women around him for balance. He was much like Tennessee in knowing that all good things come from women.

Monty was the most natural of the talents--you sometimes saw the process, but at other times you saw the utter reality and sadness of the character he was playing. He was the sweetest actor to work with--even when he was so sick and frail, he was fully there for me, rose to the occasion, wanted to get it right.

He loved the strongest all the the wrong things, and that is what killed him.

I think of Monty often. I wish he were here. Think of that--two fat, shattered men licking our wounds and trying to patch up.

I tried not long ago to watch The Misfits, that abortion in process, that necropsy of talent and intention. Absolutely no one works well in that film, a studious mess. It is an audition for dishonesty, everyone pushing themselves, but not for truth or art, but for effect, for air, for survival. I couldn't watch it. I've been in abortions like that, and I have often been the man wielding the murderous tools, but I don't have to watch it. I have to move on.

I also have to survive.

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by Anonymousreply 1October 10, 2021 2:04 AM

What do you think DL?

by Anonymousreply 2October 10, 2021 2:05 AM

James Grissom's writing has been largely discredited. There is no way he could have obtained all of these interviews, not to mention the trust of the interview subjects who supposedly opened up to him. He's another Boze Hadleigh/Darwin Porter.

by Anonymousreply 3October 10, 2021 2:08 AM

R3 I do think it’s sketchy he doesn’t have any recordings of these conversations or interviews with these people. But Marlon was known to randomly call people in the 90’s, so it wouldn’t be out of character for him to speak to Grissom. I didn’t read Grissom’s book Follies of God: Tennessee Williams and the Women of the Fog but it was well received from what I saw.

by Anonymousreply 4October 10, 2021 2:15 AM

R4, Everyone who knew James Dean, wether intimately or casually, called him Jimmy. That Grissom has Brando calling him James is a giveaway that his story is bogus.

by Anonymousreply 5October 10, 2021 2:17 AM

“Jimmy, Monty and Marilyn are my past and my present, I can’t forget them. I have loved them very much, I have needed them, and even though they aren’t here anymore, they accompany me, and I consult them. Jack [Nicholson] says I need a psychiatrist, he says my obsession for them isn’t normal. Maybe he doesn’t realize Marlon Brando wouldn’t be who he was and who he is without them”. - Marlon Brando.

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by Anonymousreply 6October 10, 2021 2:25 AM

Loved reading this. Thank you for posting, OP. Brando was stronger than the other 3, but that doesn't mean he was strong.

by Anonymousreply 7October 10, 2021 2:28 AM

R7 No problem. I agree, assuming Brando said all these things. I get what he was saying about Clift, Dean, and Monroe but Brando didn’t seem like a strong person to me either. He’s lucky he lived as long as he did.

by Anonymousreply 8October 10, 2021 2:34 AM

Everything Brando did, Clift did first. Monty was the OG and Marlon was the one who took what he did and commercialized it.

by Anonymousreply 9October 10, 2021 2:34 AM

This conversation seems like total bullshit. Marlon did respect/admire Marilyn and perhaps Monty (they were intense rivals), but he didn't seem to care much for James Dean. In fact, Marlon famously said watching Dean was like watching someone steal his thing and try to pass it off as original, or something along those lines.

Agree Monty was the best of the three.

by Anonymousreply 10October 10, 2021 2:39 AM

Y'all are forgetting John Garfield who really WAS the OG of method acting. He was brilliant and blazingly sexy.

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by Anonymousreply 11October 10, 2021 2:41 AM

R10 I don’t see the similarities between Brando and Dean at all, especially after watching On the Waterfront and East of Eden recently. I never got why Brando was so shady towards Dean.

It’s true you could sometimes see the effort in Dean’s acting, but he could be natural and effortless too like in this TV special.

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by Anonymousreply 12October 10, 2021 2:43 AM

Garfield was still old hat IMO, though he set the groundwork for the naturalism that emerged in the 50s. Clift and Brando were the first major actors to project a modernity on screen. I don't get the fuss over James Dean as an actor. He barely did anything.

by Anonymousreply 13October 10, 2021 2:44 AM

R13 Not true. Dean may have only starred in three movies but he did a substantial amount of television work, which is available on YouTube.

by Anonymousreply 14October 10, 2021 2:45 AM

They had their demons about being gay, but Dean and Clift had families while growing up. Marilyn had no father, a schizophrenic mother (intermittently), abusive foster families, a stay in an orphanage that lasted several years, and married at 16 to avoid going back to an orphanage. Her life was a living hell.

by Anonymousreply 15October 10, 2021 3:00 AM

John Garfield was the father of naturalistic screen acting. It's not up for debate.

by Anonymousreply 16October 10, 2021 3:01 AM

R15 Dean had sex with women unlike Clift, so I don’t think he was as tortured over his sexuality. His mother died of cancer when he was 9 and he was essentially abandoned by his father afterwards. He was also said to be molested by his minister as a young child.

by Anonymousreply 17October 10, 2021 3:05 AM

R10, Brando himself praised Dean in his own autobiography and said that by the time he did Giant he thinks he would have been an excellent actor.

I agree about no similarities between Brando and Dean. Dean did worshp Brando but the styles were different. Brando was softness and sensitivity at war with toxic masculinity. Dean was the original mixed up brooding kid.

by Anonymousreply 18October 10, 2021 3:10 AM

Brando sounds brilliant in this interview, though I never cared for his acting. Also, he's a jerk and too overrated.

by Anonymousreply 19October 10, 2021 2:18 PM

ME-OWWW

[quote]This was true of Shelley Winters, whom I adore, but who is always, persistently, consistently, and proudly Shelley. She does so much work, she says, wears herself out, writes biographies, and it's all the same. Her labor is her defense for not being a better actress.

by Anonymousreply 20October 10, 2021 3:16 PM

For R5.

[quote]James Dean was one of the most fascinating young men I ever met. He was so uncommonly beautiful. A mess, a cat's cradle of contradictions, if that is not in itself a contradiction. James--and I always called him James, because I wanted him to grow up--craved internship: He wanted to remain a student--of anything; of everything. Whatever subject came up--gardening, the occult, cooking, oral sex, Hinduism, Christian Science, German art, Art Deco--he rushed off to learn the most and embrace it. This is not a bad way to be, but there needs to be discipline of the mind and the body.

by Anonymousreply 21October 10, 2021 3:20 PM

From the link at R11.

Give anyone ideas??

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by Anonymousreply 22October 10, 2021 3:23 PM

Marlon despised Burt Reynolds. There's a tape of him going off on Burt when a crew member mentions that they're similar.

I never understood the animosity there.

by Anonymousreply 23October 10, 2021 3:29 PM

" but there needs to be discipline of the mind and the body. I fail at this all the time"

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by Anonymousreply 24October 10, 2021 3:48 PM

James Grissom recently did a book on Tennessee Williams, which I'd read if so many people haven't come out to say it was full of shit. He has so many amusing old timey theatre/movie stories. But I don't want to be bullshitted.

by Anonymousreply 25October 10, 2021 3:48 PM

^ Very classy, Don. Classy with a capital K.

by Anonymousreply 26October 10, 2021 3:51 PM

R23, I think Reynolds did a parody of Brando at some point and Marlon may have taken umbrage at this. Or he may have simply disliked him.

Also it’s my understanding that Brando was very defensive about Marilyn and basically refused to discuss her with anyone who pressed him for information or gossip after her death so it seems very out of character for him to diverge from that.

by Anonymousreply 27October 10, 2021 4:03 PM

R24 here he is ripping Burt apart on the Apocalypse Now set. I think the footage is of Burt's parody of Brando, or a Brando-esque actor. Brando's indignant annoyance against the man is hilarious.

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by Anonymousreply 28October 10, 2021 4:08 PM

Brando made negative comments about Burt around the time Burt was Box Office King after such popcorn fodder as Smokey and the Bandit, Semi Tough, Hooper, appearing on magazine covers and making the talk show rounds, playing up the macho stud persona to the hilt. To Brando, Burt was only in the acting profession for fame, money, and power. Brando himself played the Hollywood game early in his career, but he quickly soured on all its trappings, so he was critical of people who followed that route to stardom.

by Anonymousreply 29October 10, 2021 6:15 PM

I think the funniest part of this obviously fake interview is Marlon saying Monty was addicted to cock and drugs.

by Anonymousreply 30October 11, 2021 5:19 PM

Say what you will but Marlon was brilliant.

by Anonymousreply 31October 11, 2021 6:34 PM

R31, when Brando was committed to a character, no one could come close to touching him.

by Anonymousreply 32October 11, 2021 7:23 PM

Marilyn really wasn't a bad actress. She made you care about her and not see her as just a lifeless sex symbol or prize for the male lead. James Dean had a similar effect. Both their performances are dated now but I can see from the time context why they mattered.

by Anonymousreply 33October 17, 2021 8:10 PM

r16 John Garfield was the father of naturalistic screen acting. It's not up for debate.

I like him a lot, I think he was amazing - but think he was a little mannered and never really lost a stagy delivery. Henry Fonda was very natural (film debut in 1935), and Spencer Tracy was more naturalistic than Garfield. Back then, James Stewart was a new, naturalistic type, as well. These people became so familiar and eventualy their style no longer seemed ground breaking, but it was.

by Anonymousreply 34October 17, 2021 8:28 PM

Marlon was annoyed by James Dean. But to be fair a lot of actors didn't like him, he rubbed a lot of Hollywood people the wrong way. James Dean did mimic Brando and also mimicked Montgomery Clift, he was a massive fanboy of both of them and seemed to also have an infatuation too. Dean probably thought he was a soulmate or reincarnation, he was into New Age spiritual stuff. I don't think Brando and Dean were lovers and Dean never met Clift.

[quote] Dean had sex with women unlike Clift, so I don’t think he was as tortured over his sexuality. His mother died of cancer when he was 9 and he was essentially abandoned by his father afterwards. He was also said to be molested by his minister as a young child.

Really? There was no difference in the eyes of many between being bisexual or homosexual. You were a "sodomite" and committing an unnatural and illegal act. Being attracted to the same sex would have still been a source of turmoil back then and even today many bisexual men try to deny their homosexual desire to have straight privilege.

by Anonymousreply 35October 17, 2021 8:30 PM

@ R22

[quote] Give anyone ideas??

Yes, they're both short.

by Anonymousreply 36October 17, 2021 8:33 PM

R35 Montgomery Clift threw up after hearing the news of Dean’s death and told Bill Gunn that Dean’s death profoundly impacted on him. Dean looked up to Brando as a mentor/father figure. Brando said as such in his autobiography and in his other conversations with James Grissom (if we’re to believe they actually spoke). I get that Dean was a weird and difficult guy to be around for many people, but I still think Brando was too harsh on him. Like I said, I don’t see any similarities between them at all when comparing their performances in East of Eden and On the Waterfront. He was definitely inspired by Brando (and Clift), but I think he had his own unique style too. This is good quote from David Dalton’s The Mutant King:

“Jimmy told Dennis Hopper as they were filming Giant together, “Y’know, I think I’ve got a chance to really make it because in this hand I’m holding Marlon Brando saying, ‘Fuck you!’ and in the other hand saying, ‘Please forgive me,’ is Montgomery Clift. ‘Please forgive me.’ ‘Fuck you!’ ‘Please forgive me.’ ‘Fuck you!’ And somewhere in between is James Dean.”

by Anonymousreply 37October 17, 2021 8:55 PM

[quote] This is good quote from David Dalton’s The Mutant King

Is this fiction?

by Anonymousreply 38October 17, 2021 9:03 PM

Where is the proof that this is anything beyond the imagination of the writer who is trying to get a book deal? Grissom is an entertaining bullshit artist. But at least he's entertaining.

by Anonymousreply 39October 17, 2021 9:15 PM

[quote] 'Follies Of God' by James Grissom

If James Grissom met God, he'd know God has bigger issues than these three dead men.

Two of them didn't know to operate a motor-car and the third went insane after visiting Japan.

by Anonymousreply 40October 17, 2021 9:17 PM

R39 Idk, I went on his Instagram and a lot of people seem to find his quotes from his conversations with these actors credible, including several film critics. I didn’t see anyone calling him a fraud.

by Anonymousreply 41October 17, 2021 9:17 PM

David Dalton is a much better writer than James Grissom. Dalton's The Mutant King is very poetic writing and helped preserves Dean's icon status among young people in the 1970s.

by Anonymousreply 42October 17, 2021 9:18 PM

Part of me thinks these quotes are real just for that delicious Shelley Winters shade.

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by Anonymousreply 43October 17, 2021 9:21 PM

[quote] his conversations with these actors credible

I'm reminded of the non-credible frauds made in this—

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by Anonymousreply 44October 17, 2021 9:22 PM

[quote]Two of them didn't know to operate a motor-car and the third went insane after visiting Japan.

R40 Who are you talking about?

by Anonymousreply 45October 17, 2021 9:54 PM

John Garfield was sadly a casualty of the McCarthy's witch hunts. Ruined his career, led to depression and he died from a heart attack.

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by Anonymousreply 46October 17, 2021 11:04 PM

^ An unflattering picture. That could be Ernest Borgnine.

by Anonymousreply 47October 18, 2021 6:21 AM

I was hoping there's be some fireworks in this movie between sexy Max, Monty and Marlon.

But it was disaster. The scene on the motorbike is unintentionally funny.

Monty had lost his face. Marlon had lost his mind in Japan.

And the rest of the cast comprised of a dreary crooner and some exceedingly bland, boring females.

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by Anonymousreply 48October 18, 2021 6:27 AM

Tony Randall was cast in Dean Martin's partin The Young Lions, originally. Martin was manoevered into the role by MCA (agency), who threatened to pull Brando and Clift out of the film if Martin wasn't cast (according to Randall).

Montgomery Clift didn't look good in the film, not just because he had had his face recostructed after a car accident, but because he deliberately lost a good deal of weight and put putty behind his ears to make them stick out, basing some of the physical characterisatics of his role on a photo of Franz Kafka. But no one really noticed, they just thought he looked bad. In real life, he didn't look great, but he didn't look like he did in the film, either.

Today, if an actor did this, there would be so much publicity about it beforehand everyone would be aware of it, but it was different then.

by Anonymousreply 49October 18, 2021 4:23 PM

[quote] photo of Franz Kafka

Wow I guess he was deliberately making himself as ugly as possible to mark the loss of his beauty. His fortune was his face.

by Anonymousreply 50October 18, 2021 9:43 PM

R50 It's the way he saw the character. His fortune wasn't just his face, he was a very talented artist.

by Anonymousreply 51October 18, 2021 11:08 PM

[quote] His fortune wasn't just his face,

Tell that to all the eldergays here who worship his melting passive beauty. They start up threads here about 'A Place In The Sun' every five years to repeat their devotional vows to him.

by Anonymousreply 52October 18, 2021 11:44 PM

[quote] Tony Randall was cast in Dean Martin's partin The Young Lions

That is weird casting. That is as weird as Marlon Brando being in love with Wally Cox.

by Anonymousreply 53October 18, 2021 11:54 PM

I don't think Clift would have become obese, as fat old Brando assumes.

by Anonymousreply 54October 18, 2021 11:57 PM

[quote]R37: Dean’s death profoundly impacted on him.

Oh, fucking dear.

by Anonymousreply 55October 19, 2021 12:05 AM

I appreciate his thoughtfulness, I really do. Still, every now and then I think to myself, he’s talking about playing make-pretend.

by Anonymousreply 56October 19, 2021 12:10 AM

Clift was a skinny thing his entire life. Brando was always big, even if he was short.

by Anonymousreply 57October 19, 2021 1:03 AM

True, Brando was always a thick man.

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by Anonymousreply 58October 19, 2021 1:27 AM

[quote]Tell that to all the eldergays here who worship his melting passive beauty. They start up threads here about 'A Place In The Sun' every five years to repeat their devotional vows to him.

If you've been here long enough to witness threads being started every five years, you're no gayling yourself.

by Anonymousreply 59October 19, 2021 5:55 AM

Marlon sounds like such a prissy queen in that Burt diatribe.

by Anonymousreply 60October 19, 2021 6:19 AM

[quote]That is weird casting. That is as weird as Marlon Brando being in love with Wally Cox.

Actually, Dean Martin was weird casting, at the time, as well. He hadn't yet been a dramaric actor, then - he was known as a singer and Jerry Lewis's former partner, and his career was going nowhere post-Jerry.

by Anonymousreply 61October 19, 2021 2:09 PM

*dramatic (He had only made one movie after breaking up with Lewis - Ten Thousand Bedrooms - and it had flopped.)

by Anonymousreply 62October 19, 2021 2:11 PM

Brando and James Dean interacted a few times when they both lived in New York and they crossed paths a lot on film sets and parties. Brando gave Jimmy some acting advice but got annoyed by his clinginess and erratic behavior. Brando told Jimmy, he was mentally ill and gave him the number to his shrink and stopped talking to him. There isn't evidence they had sex but it's a possibility given they were such big sluts.

by Anonymousreply 63October 22, 2021 2:24 PM

R6, That quote seems rather odd. It doesn't sound like something Brando would say at all. Why would he "need" Marilyn? I mean she was never a major figure in his life. Nor would he have given credit to any of the three for shaping his identity as Marlon Brando. Maybe in terms of his acting style, but the only one who had any legit impact there was Montgomery Clift, who Marlon saw as his equal rival. Marilyn and Jimmy weren't on that level.

by Anonymousreply 64October 28, 2021 5:33 PM

Do we think Brando and Clift had sex? They must have right?

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by Anonymousreply 65October 28, 2021 5:44 PM

R64 I can believe the quote, since all three of them (Clift, Dean, and Monroe) were contemporaries of Brando’s and died young.

by Anonymousreply 66October 28, 2021 6:29 PM

R64 Brando was close with Monroe. He last spoke to her a few days before she died. He believed she was murdered.

by Anonymousreply 67October 28, 2021 6:30 PM

People can change. Maybe Brando felt some guilt over how harsh he was to Dean when they interacted. And now seeing what big impact Dean has had posthumously, he looks back and sees the beauty and brilliance of Dean.

by Anonymousreply 68October 28, 2021 9:30 PM

r68 now ? Brando died fifteen years ago

by Anonymousreply 69October 28, 2021 9:37 PM

R67 they were also fuck buddies for a while.

by Anonymousreply 70October 28, 2021 9:42 PM

R64 Monty and Marlon were contemporaries. Both their stars were rising in Broadway at the very same time and there was ALOT of competition between them in the beggining. Dean and Monroe came several years later after both of their fames were cemented.

by Anonymousreply 71October 28, 2021 9:46 PM

Why didn't Dean share his cooch like this current nobody?

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by Anonymousreply 72October 28, 2021 10:00 PM

Marlon was extremely talented, and at one point was extremely beautiful, but his narcissism was just insane. I cannot take him seriously as a critic of anyone else. He basically ruined every life he touched, including his children's.

by Anonymousreply 73October 28, 2021 10:25 PM

R73 Rita Moreno nearly killed herself over him.

by Anonymousreply 74October 28, 2021 10:27 PM

R74 Didn’t one of his daughters commit suicide and allege he had touched her inappropriately?

by Anonymousreply 75October 28, 2021 10:28 PM

R73 I love Brando but he was absolutely terrible to women. Not physically I don't think but psychologically. Abandonment issues galore. I truly feel for any women who ever fell for him. Or men if they ever did

by Anonymousreply 76October 28, 2021 10:30 PM

R75 His daughter did kill herself but those allegations are absolute horseshit. If she ever made them that has not been proven. The fact that her brother killed her baby daddy had likely more to do with it.

by Anonymousreply 77October 28, 2021 10:34 PM

Marlon Brando was insane from the year 1957 until his death.

His performances on screen were increasingly crazy from then.

by Anonymousreply 78October 28, 2021 10:39 PM

R78 But he was scorching hot back then.

by Anonymousreply 79October 28, 2021 10:47 PM
Marlon Brando on acting, James Dean, Montgomery Clift, Marilyn Monroe, and Shelley Winters (1990) (2024)

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