Word: marlon
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...precision. He can convey inner strength, rage and desperation without ever pushing it. People see this power and think Brando. No doubt Crowe has done so too. (In an earlier incarnation he went by the name Russ Le Roq and recorded a single called I Want to Be like Marlon Brando.) He's muscular as well, and it's earned bulk, not the pretty-boy sculpture of the body builder. Like Brando, Crowe could play a biker, a dockworker, a mafioso or Stanley Kowalski...
Early in the film, Vivien Leigh, as the Southern belle with patrician airs, lays eyes on Marlon Brando as sweaty, sexy, brutal Stanley Kowalski. That's the crucial moment when films gave up a love of the American aristocracy for a fascination with the roiling underclass, and when actors were given license to rage and mumble--to express the inchoate feelings of souls caged or adrift, doomed by society or destiny...
...Eden; in New York City. Kazan's films earned a total of 21 Academy Awards, including for best director for Gentleman's Agreement and On the Waterfront. In 1947, Kazan co-founded the Actors Studio, which spawned several generations of famous stage and screen stars. He also gave Marlon Brando, James Dean and Warren Beatty their first major roles. Kazan made numerous industry enemies by cooperating with the House Un-American Activities Committee in 1952, naming eight colleagues who, like himself, had been communists in the 1930s. Kazan later went on to write best-selling fiction. He was given...
Finally, in the '60s, when the studio system was collapsing, a few imposing actors--Marlon Brando, John Cassavetes, Paul Newman--seized the reins. In the '70s, Woody Allen (who would be the first actor to win a Director Oscar, for Annie Hall) and Clint Eastwood (who would win a directing Oscar for Unforgiven) became full-time hyphenates. Studios realized that letting a star direct could keep him happy and busy. At times it paid off in grosses and statuettes...
...James Dean; he saw Dean's signature movie, which he called "Rebel Without a Pebble," a dozen times. He was touched by Dean's sensitivity, stricken by Dean's early death (in September 1955, about the time Parker bought Elvis' contract from Phillips). In fact, though, Elvis was the Marlon Brando of pop. Everyone saw this; I did, and I was 11. Brando and Elvis both had sullen good looks: hooded eyes and full, sensuous mouths that easily formed a sneer-smile. They semaphored their menace in their movement: Brando the prowling predator, Presley the sex machine. Most important: both...