Meet Marlon Brando (1966)

Marlon Brando: Self

Photos 

Quotes 

• Marlon Brando : I don't think that we should believe what we hear - even if it's a good report. Even if it's a bad report. We have to make up our own minds about it. I think that's essential. And you shouldn't make up your mind about that picture until you see it.

• Marlon Brando : [when asked what he might have done if he wasn't an actor]  I might have been a masseur... I might have been a forest ranger. Could have been a drummer. I drummed for awhile. I did a little manual labor. I hated that. I don't know.

• Marlon Brando : People don't realize that a press item, a news item, is money. And that news is hawked in the same way that shoes are or toothpaste or lipstick or hair tonic or anything else. And if you put something in the paper about Elizabeth Taylor or Richard Burton, everybody's going to buy it. You know, everybody wants to know about that. So, it becomes an item and it becomes a sellable item. It's the merchandising aspect of the press is not really fully recognized by the public. And when you don't cooperate with those merchandising systems, people who sell news, like Hedda Hawker - that's a good mistake - Hedda Hawker...

  [laughs] 

  Marlon Brando : ... You know, it's sort of an unwritten code if that you don't cooperate with those people and tell them about the intimacies of your personal life, then, you've broken the rule and you have to be publicly chastised for it - or chubicly plastized for it, if you like - and - that's the way of the world out there. But, I've found, by and large, that people make up their own minds.

• Marlon Brando : When was the last time you saw me nude?

• Marlon Brando : [when asked from a reporter how he keeps from getting scars]  I don't. I got a scar here.

  [pointing to his eyebrow] 

  Marlon Brando : And I got a scar on my knee. And a few scars on my soul.

• Marlon Brando : I can't sing any better than a kangaroo.

• Marlon Brando : You've got the longest fingernails of anyone I've ever seen.

  Bill Gordon : No. Only on one side. I play classic guitar.

  Marlon Brando : Oh really?

  Bill Gordon : So, you have to have long fingernails on your right hand to play the strings and short fingernails to fret. That's what I do for my kicks. What do you do?

  Marlon Brando : Oh, I fret a lot.

  Bill Gordon : I bet you do.

  Marlon Brando : But, I don't fret for kicks.

• Marlon Brando : I think that people who are looking at me right now, these Puerto Ricans, and the people who are passing right on this street and you who are the camera,

• Marlon Brando : One can be confused in this day and age. It's permissible.

• Marlon Brando : Certainly, I'm not an expert in the field, but, most education today seems to be aimed toward supplying people with information, giving people information on how to make money - to prepare themselves for making money - and very little to do to preparing them for the problems they're going to meet in life, at an emotional level, at a philosophical level.

• Marlon Brando : I've found that when I talk about the American Indian to people, I've been amazed about how little *anybody* knows about them. Nobody knows that, for instance, the mortality rate of Indian children is 5 to 1 in comparison with any other minority group here in America. I think it would benefit all of us to realize what the American Indian is, what his position is, and I hope to make film on the subject.

• Marlon Brando : What can I tell you about it?

  Self - Interviewer : Oh, would you like to tell us something about behind the scenes while you were making the picture?

  Marlon Brando : How far behind the scenes?

  Self - Interviewer : Oh, just some interesting things that audience would like to hear about.

  Marlon Brando : Well, eh, Bernie Wicki smokes the worst cigars of anyone I ever knew.

• Marlon Brando : Please, do tell us about your movie.

  Marlon Brando : Well, why?

  Self - Interviewer : Because we're looking forward to seeing it in Boston.

  Marlon Brando : Are you?

• Bill Gordon : First remember, Marlon Brando in the 20th Century Fox motion picture, "Morituri". It's a great picture and he's a great actor.

  Marlon Brando : [sarcastically]  For God's sake, go see that, will you. You really won't know how to proceed in life without seeing, "Morituri."

  Bill Gordon : It's one of the most important things you'll ever do.

• Marlon Brando : The future is difficult to predict.

• Marlon Brando : I think you asked me before if the American Government is responsible for the progress of negroes and I said no.