Saw only tiny pieces of the Godfather, have apocalypse now, his cameo was bad in it, as he was about 380lbs then. Never got into the gangster type of films. However, I imagine he will be missed by many.

I was going to, but didn't get round to it.

one of my fave Hollywood stars, not just because of his acting but his beliefs and his attitude to life. In his day one of the greatest actors ever, he openly admitted acting was just work to him and there were a lot of things he'd rather do instead. You never got publicist crap with Brando, he really didn't give a sh*t what people thought and he didn't care to try to impress them. Very self-critical of all his performances. His insights into the creative process (he was an accomplished artist in other media) gave him a reputation for being difficult and un-directable, but he was usually right; for example, he persuaded Coppola to reduce the appearances of Kurtz in ApocNow to the end of the film, to increase the dramatic impact, remain truer to the original story, and (so he claimed) to give himself less work to do.

brando was a cock.
his performance in apocalypse now was dire, in fact its the worst bit of the film for me. Sure he's been in some belters, but of the films i've seen him in, i dont really rate him too highly

I think it came from the fact that you place someone on a pedestal and call them incredible..........and eventually it will affect their ego, and teh effect will be an egotistical person who is full of themselves. No doubt, Brando was a very very accomplished actor, and his earlier films were great.

however, ego wise he was almost unparalleled as well.

Superman - demanded, and got, the most incredible pay package for the shortest cameo at the time. I don't want to think what "modern day" conversions of figures would be, but astronomical would certainly be around the right mark

Appocolypse now - it was because he was ashamed of his size and appearance, and the effect it would have on him from public perception of him that made him be restricted to the end of the film, and always in the shadows too. He didn't want the adoring public to think of him as a bloated fat ugly man, he wanted to be remembered as a youthful good looking guy. It works too, as i cannot really think what he looks like! Unless i remember him in Godfather, my memory is of him in younger years

Yeah. And he called Krypton "Kryptn" with that fake English accent he pseudo adapted to sound like a "Kryptnian" .

Having been brought up with Brando as part of the Hollywood constellation of stars, I'd only known him from the hype until, of course, his personal life self destructed in public with his son's, Christian's, premature death and stories about his lechery possibly even directed at his own daughter.

His gluttony, well, was pretty obvious but you wonder whether his eating was due simply to vice or whether it was a reflection of his guilt over what had happened.

In fact, thought, I thought that his decision to turn down the Academy Award in 1974 for Godfather was a pretty ballsy move. It did reflect that Brando had some principles ... I just don't know where all that fits with what the scandal sheets have printed and which, unfortunately, the legitimate press has come to confirm in large part.