I can’t post anything articulate yet – Emails have been coming in, from all my actor-friends. “Have you heard, have you heard?”
I figured I would re-quote something I’ve posted here before: his realization that he had become famous after the opening of Streetcar on Broadway.
When “Streetcar Named Desire” opened on Broadway – the world did not know yet what had hit it. Marlon Brando had arrived. Marlon Brando had been living in cold-water walk-up flats, shacking up with ballerinas, and bongo players, and living a completely bohemian life … and it took him a while to realize what had happened as well. What “Streetcar” was going to mean. I love how he describes his moment of realization.
“You can’t always be a failure. Not and survive. Van Gogh! There’s an example of what can happen when a person never receives any recognition. You stop relating: it puts you outside. But I guess success does that, too. You know, it took me a long time before I was aware that that’s what I was – a big success. I was so absorbed in myself, my own problems, I never looked around, took account. I used to walk in New York, miles and miles, walk in the streets late at night, and never see anything. I was never sure about acting, whether that was what I really wanted to do; I’m still not. Then, when I was in “Streetcar”, and it had been running a couple of months, one night — dimly, dimly — I began to hear this roar.”
