Marlon Brando Personally Annotated Script and Autograph Letter.

BRANDO, Marlon.

Item Number: 33029

Culver City, California: Metro-Goldwin-Mayer Pictures, 1955.

Personally annotated script for the 1956 Metro-Goldwin-Mayer Pictures film The Teahouse of the August Moon given as a gift from Marlon Brando to Jim Schendel with a personal type-script letter on Marlon Brando’s letterhead. Dated September, 25, 1956 and addressed to Jim Schendel 4509 Hampton Road Minneapolis 22, Minnesota. “Dear Jim, Your letter took awhile to reach me, but I was most happy to receive it. Thank you for enclosing the interesting article. Your sounds lie a mighty interesting hobby, and I’m pleased to be one of the people you wrote to. It is my hope that you might find some interest and entertainment in this script of the motion picture I have recently finished. This picture took me for some months to the Orient and I learned many new and wonderful things. Perhaps the script will give you some feeling of post war Okinawa. Keep up your good efforts to get well. It would be very nice if some day you’re able to visit in California. Thank you again for your nice letter. My very best wishes to you. Sincerely, Marlon Brando.” Accompanied by Marlon Brando’s personal script of The Teahouse of the August Moon. 132 pages with a Metro-Goldwyn Mayer Script Department with “Marlon Brando” in pencil in another hand. Annotations in Brando’s hand throughout include phonetic spellings of Japanese words, additions to dialogue and a sketch of a face in profile in blue pen on the reverse of page 75. In very good condition with light handling and wear. Rare and desirable.

Marlon Brando attended the Shattuck Military Academy in Fairbault, Minnesota after being expelled from his local high school for reportedly riding a motorcycle through the halls of the school. He lasted a brief period at Shattuck before being expelled again, after which he followed his two elder sisters to New York to study acting at the American Theatre Wing Professional School with influential German director Erwin Piscator. Brando's early career began on Broadway with the drama I Remember Mama in 1944 and his first screen role was as a paraplegic veteran in The Men in 1950. He played Sakini, a Japanese interpreter for the U.S. Army in postwar Japan in the satirical comedy The Teahouse of the August Moon in 1956 and spent two months studying the local culture, speech, and gestures to prepare for the role. Brando was known for his wild nature and refusal to memorize scripts (he preferred the use of cue cards) to keep his acting real and spontaneous, his performance as Stanley Kowalski in A Streetcar Named Desire is regarded as his greatest and earned him his first Academy Award in 1951.