|
Marlon Brandon, left, and Wally Cox
The year was 1973, and Marlon Brando was still riding
the success of his legendary performance in The Godfather. In a few
weeks, he would win a second Oscar.
On this particular night, Brando was secretly
ensconced in a back bedroom in the hills above Los Angeles' Bel-Air. In a scene
that would have made Don Corleone proud, the actor quietly accepted visitors
out of view of the celebrity-studded gathering just outside the door.
Many of those in attendance were never even aware of
Brando's arrival at the wake for his closest friend, actor and comedian Wally
Cox. That's because Brando had crept in through a back window at Cox's
residence and hidden out in the room where Cox had died.
Brando ``was heartbroken, of course'', recalled Cox's
widow, Patricia. ``Everybody was there,'' she added, including celebrities from The
Hollywood Squares game show, on which Cox was a regular, as well as Tom
and Dick Smothers, Vincent Price, Ernest Borgnine and Twiggy. ``But Marlon
didn't come out.''
Philip Rhodes, the actor's long-time make-up artist
and close friend since the mid-1940s, said he still remembers Brando's unusual
response when Rhodes asked Brando about his whereabouts during the wake.
``Wally was my friend,'' the actor told him. ``Nobody
else's.''
Marlon and Wally. Wally and Marlon.
One had been a handsome, rebellious movie icon. The
other, a droll, owlish comedian. Yet the bond that existed between these
physical opposites would survive decades, from their boyhoods in Evanston,
Illinois, and even beyond Cox's death in February 1973 of a heart attack. He
was 48.
In the years that followed, Brando made a practice of
keeping Cox's remains nearby, sometimes tucking the ashes in a drawer at his
home on Mulholland Drive or under the front seat of his car. He did so against
the wishes of Cox's widow, who said she considered suing Brando for selfishly
keeping the ashes that he had accepted under the guise of scattering them in
the hills where Cox loved to hike. After Brando died suddenly of lung failure
on July 1 at the age of 80, his family scattered both men's ashes in Death
Valley, where the pair had often gone rock hunting.
The odyssey of the ashes is one of the more unusual
stories to emerge since the death of the eccentric and intensely private actor.
Brando had a history of stormy relationships, attributed to a troubled
childhood and his upbringing at the hands of a distant father and an alcoholic
mother. Much also has been made of his countless liaisons, reputed to be both
heterosexual and homosexual, and failed relationships.
Some friends and family of both men insist Brando's
relationship with Cox was platonic. Regardless, their bond offers a different
perspective on Brando, one of the world's most famous, yet little-known, men.
Marlon and Wally were nine years old when their
parents introduced them - Marlon's mother and Wally's stepfather were friends
in Chicago, where the stepfather worked for NBC. The boys became fast, albeit
unlikely, friends, said Eleanor Robinson, Cox's sister.
``Marlon was a rough little boy,'' she said. ``He tied
Wally to a tree one afternoon and left him. I'm surprised they remained friends
but they did.''
A few years later, Wally's family moved to New York
City. The Brandos, coincidentally, followed in the 1940s, and Brando began
studying acting. Cox made jewellery in those days, using a pillowcase to lug
his wares around to private parties. Cox would perform impromptu monologues at
those parties, and people urged him to put together a nightclub act. Soon he
was making appearances in New York and Hollywood and doing guest stints on Ed
Sullivan's show.
His career took off in 1952, when he starred as the
bookish high school science teacher Robinson Peepers in the TV series Mr Peepers.
The series ran until 1955. Years later, he was a regular on The Hollywood
Squares and also provided the voice for the animated superhero
Underdog, who would famously declare, ``There's no need to fear! Underdog is
here!''
Marlon Brando during filming of Last Tango in Paris
AFP
Brando's career, meanwhile, was white hot, and he
was well on his way to solidifying his reputation as a legend, an actor's
actor. He had wrapped up his electrifying performance in A Streetcar Named
Desire. Still on the horizon were On the Waterfront, which would
land him his first Oscar, and The Wild One. Although Brando and Cox were
often the toast of New York and Hollywood, the two always returned to the
company of each other.
``Marlon was fascinated with how funny Wally was, and
I'm sure Wally was fascinated by how handsome Marlon was,'' Robinson said.
``They envied each other for what each didn't have.''
But it was more than that, she added. ``The same
things amused them; there was always much laughter when they were together. And
they had similar attitudes toward fame and publicity. They were among the first
generation of actors who fled from the press and hid from the public. And they
were both intellectuals and extremely intelligent and had lofty conversations
on unusual subjects. They were birds of a feather.''
Joan ``Toni'' Petrone, a long-time friend of Brando's
who worked as his assistant for 12 years until 2003, said Cox and Brando each
had a ``mischievous sense of humour''.
``They liked to play jokes on people and also liked to
explore the mental processes of personalities,'' she said. ``They would do
imitations of people.'' Cox was known for breaking into a yodel, she added.
``Marlon liked him because he was fun and would make him laugh.''
Often, the men gathered at each other's home,
sometimes in the company of the late actor Sam Gilman, who appeared in a number
of Brando's films, including The Missouri Breaks.
There was always much game-playing when the three men
got together, said Gilman's widow, Lisabeth Hush.
To those who knew him closely, Brando could be both a
marvellous friend and a moody tyrant, gracious to a fault yet jealous and
exasperating. Brando could also be temperamental and didn't hesitate to take it
out on everyone else.
``He could cause a freeze in your living room if he
came in a bad mood,'' Hush said. ``He could make you feel uncomfortable in your
own skin.''
Hush recalled that Cox would fume - privately -
whenever Brando turned his aggression on someone.
``Marlon would do his number on people and Wally would
be furious, but he couldn't take Marlon on,'' she said. ``It was a strange,
tough relationship among tough and weak people.''
The actor could be very possessive of his friendships
and had earned a reputation for trying to bust up relationships.
``He, of course, was after my wife right away,'' said
Rhodes, the actor's make-up artist. ``That was part of his background. He
disliked his father very much, and Marlon tried to break up his father and
mother for many years. He did the same thing with other people. He'd go after
somebody's wife to break them up. That was just one of his hang-ups.''
Hush, Gilman's widow, said Brando also tried to
interfere in her relationship with Sam.
``He was really mad when Sam took up with me,'' she
recalled. ``He was furious. He'd call up at 2 in the morning and want Sam to
crawl around the coffee shops with him. But Sam wouldn't do it. Marlon also
wanted to know about our sex life, and Sam just hung up on him.''
Cox, who had married three times, also struggled with
Brando's demanding nature, two of his former wives said.
Milagros Tirado ``Millie'' Beck, Cox's second wife,
said Brando was often ``generous in spirit'', but he also could turn ``totally
vicious, mean, almost bitchy''.
The first time she met Brando, she recalled, he
arrived with an entourage at Cox's home in rural Connecticut. ``He comes in and
doesn't say a word. He was sulky and very rude and I sensed, absolutely, that
he was like a brother being jealous of an intruder.''
Cox's third wife, Patricia Cox Shapiro, said much the
same.
``He didn't want Wally to marry me,'' Shapiro said.
``He was very possessive of Wally.''
Beck said Brando and her husband would often wrestle
like kids. It would start with arm wrestling and progress to full-on wrestling.
Her husband may have looked slight and weak, but ``Wally would beat [Marlon]
every time, pin him down,'' she recalled.
Beck and Shapiro said they were aware of the rumours
that Brando and Cox had a homosexual relationship, but never believed it.
``I never had a sense of that,'' Beck said. ``I had a
sense of true brotherly love.''
Shapiro added: ``I never saw [evidence of] that. I saw
two guys pillow fighting. First of all, I knew Wally pretty well. Even though
Marlon had orgies, Wally never participated in them. I trusted Wally
implicitly. They'd do all sort of athletic things together, like swimming,
motorcycles, hiking, Indian wrestling.''
At the time of Cox's death, Brando was in Tahiti. He
rushed back to the United States when word reached him.
``He took over as I knew he would,'' Shapiro said,
adding that Brando was a wonderful comfort. ``I said to Marlon, `Can you pick
up the ashes at the mortuary?' It was an honour to him. They had been childhood
friends. They loved and trusted only each other.''
Shapiro asked Brando to scatter Cox's remains in his
favourite hiking places. But three years after her husband's death, the widow
happened to be reading an article about Brando in Time magazine and came
across these quotes by the actor as he recalled Cox: ``He was my brother. I
can't tell you how much I miss and love that man. I have Wally's ashes in my
house. I talk to him all the time.''
``I went, `What?''' Shapiro recalled. ``I couldn't
believe it. I felt so hurt that he lied to me. I wanted to sue, but the lawyers
wouldn't do it. They laughed.''
The ashes of Brando and Cox were not the only remains
scattered in Death Valley by the Brando family this year. After Gilman died at
the age of 70 in 1985, Gilman's widow gave Brando a portion of his remains in
honour of the long friendship between the men. Miko Brando, Brando's
second-eldest son, said those ashes also were sprinkled at Death Valley.
Hush said she has a theory why Brando kept the ashes
of both friends. She recalled that although Brando wasn't particularly
religious, he was spiritual. ``I think he communed with them. I believe that.
You don't just collect ashes for ashes.''
LOS ANGELES TIMES
|
