Went looking for more information about Karl Malden and came across the transcript from a Larry King interview on CNN on the death of Marlon Brando in July 2004. Fascinating to see the comments of these great actors on the greatest. Karl and Marlon worked closely together for years on stage and on film.
Karl Malden, ACTOR: I did two plays with Marlon in New York before we did the films.
KING: How was he on stage?
MALDEN: On stage, the first play that we were in together was a play written by Maxwell Anderson called “A Truckline Cafe.” It was a play that only ran for eight days, but we were both playing very small parts. I was in the first two acts, and he was in the third act. And in the third act, he came in as a ex second world war hero, and he was talking to his wife in this truckline cafe, and said, “let’s go walk on the pier.” They went out and walked on the pier. And he came back in about 15 minutes, soaking wet, and he had a scene at the table. It lasted about five minutes, and when it was over, and he stood up to make an exit, the play couldn’t go on for at least a minute and a half.
Other people had to just sit there and wait until they stopped. There was screaming, shouting, stamping of the feet. I’ve never seen it before. And from that time on, I thought this boy should be looked at. I’ve got to see whether it’s for real.
This is a classic example of the adage there are no small parts, only small actors (sometimes attributed to Milan Kundera or Stanislavsky). Brando’s commitment to his preparation involved running up and down a flight of stairs prior to this entrance. Charles Durning described seeing this production: “I thought he [Brando] was a guy they pulled in off the street. Too good to be an actor.” (from wikipedia) The play was directed by Harlod Clurman and produced by Elia Kazan.
Karl Malden (on Larry King) …
And in “A Streetcar Named Desire,” when we did the play, which ran for two years, and we shared a dressing room together for two years, he absolutely, when he came on stage, the difficult part is nobody looked at anyone else.
Marlon Brando in Streetcar Named Desire 1948 (photo by Van Vechten)
More from the interview, here’s Robert Duvall talking about the 1966 film The Chase, directed by Arthur Penn based on the Horton Foote play adapted by Lillian Helman.
Larry King: Robert Duvall, what was it like to work with him?
Robert Duvall, ACTOR: Well, it was terrific. I worked with Marlon three times. And I worked with him first on “The Chase,” and what I learned from him specifically was, he was talking with somebody having coffee. They called him to do a scene, they said action, he did the scene, and they said cut, he came back to the table. You know, it was all the same. He eliminated that sense of a beginning.
So in other words, he eradicated that sense of a beginning, so it was all one thing. And I learned that from him. And it was great working with him, because, you know, you really can’t break the mystery down. I think he had a certain facile sense of irreverence that he used to negate all nervousness. He paraphrased Shakespeare by saying, you know, if it’s too important on your face, then it can become negative, this and that, you know, nervousness, whatever. So I think that irreverence that he knew how to use so skillfully, really, really neutralized all that sense of any kind of a nervousness or whatever. So it was really just him in the moment. Beautifully.
Marlon Brando and Harry Dean Stanton both appeared in the Missouri Breaks 1976.
Larry King: Harry, he was also very playful. He was funny. He was…
Harry Dean Stanton, ACTOR: He was one of the most multifaceted personalities I’ve ever seen in my life.
King: He’d call you on the phone and talk?
Stanton: He’d call me at 3:00 in the morning. We’d talk for two hours. He taught me the monologue from “Macbeth.” A tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury signifying nothing. And then we’d give a segue into that…
from Larry King show Aired July 2, 2004 – 21:00 ET (http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0407/02/lkl.01.html)
interesting to read the entire transcript with more comments about Marlon from these actors as well as by Eve Marie Saint, Matthew Broderick and columnist James Bacon
