MARLON BRANDO
Marlon Brando (April 3, 1924 – July 1, 2004) was an American actor, film director and activist. He is credited with bringing a gripping realism to film acting, and is often cited as one of the greatest and most influential actors of all time. Brando is most famous for his Academy Award-winning performances as Terry Malloy in On the Waterfront (1954) and Vito Corleone in The Godfather (1972), as well as influential performances in A Streetcar Named Desire (1951), Viva Zapata! (1952), Julius Caesar (1953), The Wild One (1953), Reflections in a Golden Eye (1967), Last Tango in Paris (1972), and Apocalypse Now (1979). Brando was also an activist for many causes, notably the African-American Civil Rights Movement and various Native American movements. Brando was one of only three professional actors, along with Charlie Chaplin and Marilyn Monroe, named in 1999 by Time magazine as one of its 100 Most Important People of the Century. (More from Wikipedia)
Under the artist name Mick Farren and Jack Lancaster, 1995 brought yet another side of Mick with The Deathray Tapes, a live performance consisting mostly of spoken-word material – but this is no 1960’s flower-child poetry reading. Most of the performances go on for 6 or 8 minutes, while “Envy” is just a short verse:
I used to envy Elvis, but then he got fat and died.
I used to envy Marlon Brando, but then he got fat and his kid died.
I used to envy Jim Morrison, but then I got out of the tub.
Now I don’t envy anyone, because it causes bloating, and far too many funerals.
(March 2014/1)
