TCM today is playing Marlon Brando movies. God I loved 50’s Brando. Streetcar Named Desire, Julius Caesar, On the Waterfront, Guys and Dolls, Sayonara. Couldn’t stand him as a kid. Then I started to actually watch him in Streetcar and Waterfront. Waterfront ended up being one of my favorite movies of all time.

Something I didn’t understand at the time was that Brando was a macho, stud muffin kind of guy then. You’d never know that if all you knew him from was Godfather and Last Tango In Paris. But what was funny about that was who his best friend in life was, Wally Cox. They grew up together in Evanston, Illinois, and later New York.

At the link they tell the story I first heard on NPR. When they were about 9 and newly met, the much more physical Marlon tied Wally to a tree and left him overnight. That would have been about 1933, heart of the Great Depression. He felt horrible about it and Wally didn’t seem to hold a grudge. Their friendship was just kind of a cool story.

Turns out he didn’t have a great friendship with his G & D costar Frank Sinatra. Frank resented the On the Waterfront role going to Brando, and especially the musical role of Sky Masterson going to Brando instead of him. By the end of filming they were only talking through intermediaries.

Then one of the most bizarre stories of their (Liz Taylor, Michael Jackson, Marlon Brando) later lives was those 3 taking a cross country road trip incognito in Brando’s classic ’71 Cadillac (I might have the wrong year of Caddy). Shoot, he’s still great in The Chase (1966).