 FEB 2:
Late film star Marlon Brando is said to have repeatedly turned
down his Oscar-winning role in The Godfather.
The actor's friend Budd Schulberg told Vanity Fair magazine
that Brando's assistant suggested he read the novel.
The actor repeatedly refused, throwing the book at her and
saying: "For the last time, I won't glorify the mafia".
But Brando, who died last July at the age of 80, eventually
took the role of Don Corleone, winning him an Oscar in 1973 which he notoriously
refused.
The actor sent a young woman dressed in Native American
costume to refuse the award on his behalf and to draw attention to the plight of
Native Americans.
Screen test
Schulberg told the magazine that Brando's assistant realised
the film star had warmed to the idea of The Godfather role when he sported a
drawn-on pencil moustache and asked: "How do I look?"
His assistant, Alice Marchak, said that he looked like George
Raft, an actor famed for playing gangsters on the silver screen.
Every time she went to see Brando from then on, she added, he
was wearing a different gangster-style moustache.
Brando was asked to screen test for the role in The Godfather,
as studio executives were said to be reluctant for the actor to play the part
following problems on the set of Brando's previous film Mutiny on the Bounty .
In fact Brando's Academy Award triumph revived his career. The
actor was nominated for an Oscar the following year for his role in Bernardo
Bertolucci's Last Tango in Paris.
Before his death, Brando granted gaming company Electronic
Arts the rights to use his voice and image in a video game based on the
Godfather film and book and recorded voice-overs which closely resembled his
role as Don Corleone.
Brando's co-stars from The Godfather, James Caan and Robert
Duvall, will also reprise their roles for the video game, it was confirmed on
Wednesday. |
