There are plenty of stars who die young, fade into character roles, stop working, or turn into beloved comic figures, like Marlon’s onetime paramour Zsa Zsa Gabor. But Brando’s career is unprecedented in Hollywood – a James Dean who turned into Zsa Zsa, a man who ballooned into an immobile blob uncastable in anything other than toga romps about the later Roman emperors and yet somehow kept working in smaller and smaller roles for bigger and bigger fees.
Usually, no matter how bad they get, stars still look great. Brando looked terrible, picked awful movies, and yet retained his legend: the ultimate movie star and the ultimate lardbutt, all in one.
