Marlon Brando

For my money, "One-Eyed Jacks" was Marlon Brando's best movie. Great supporting cast (Karl Malden, Slim Pickens, Ben Johnson), but the movie almost always gets short shrift when the Brando filmography is rehashed, as it did today once word spread that the actor had passed on. It was the only movie he ever directed, and his last, since he shot over 1 million feet of film and turned in a 5-hour movie to the studio. He hated the finished product, saying that the editing made all the characters "black and white" with no shades of gray.

Like Elvis, Brando had an addiction. But Elvis had dual addictions, food and pills. Brando evidently stuck with food. The obits today even included quotes from interviews in which Brando said he headed straight to the "icebox" when he was troubled. This brings to mind a scene from "One-Eyed Jacks," when the Brando character gets the drop on the Slim Pickens character in the jailhouse. After the Brando character whips the Pickens character, he tells him, "Get up you big tub of guts..."

The food problem (emotional eating is what Oprah calls it) is foreshadowed way back in 1957 in a story written by Truman Capote for The New Yorker. Brando is in Japan filming "Sayonara" when the noted writer spends an evening with the actor at his hotel. Brando talks about having to lose weight for the role, then orders a room service meal that most certainly would not have pleased the movie's costumer. He eats not only his own apple pie a la mode but also Capote's. Here's the New Yorker piece.
Brando appeared twice on Larry King Live. Highlights of both shows will be shown on Sunday, King said on his show Friday night.

One-Eyed Jacks
New York Times obit
Kenneth Turan on Brando