Near the end of his life Marlon Brando was asked: ‘If you could live your life over again, what would you do differently?’ Scarcely skipping a beat he replied, ‘I wouldn’t get married and I’d kill my father.’ Life is never that simple, but the great Brando might have avoided a lot of grief if he’d done just that. Marlon grew up terrified of his own father, Marlon Brando Sr, a man of unpredictable mood swings and often fierce rages. He was a travelling salesman and threw his money around in whorehouses and speakeasys, fucking or drinking anything he could lay his hands on. Rumours of his wayward lifestyle filtered back to the simple house in Omaha, Nebraska, that Marlon shared with his two elder sisters and his mother Dorothy, known by all as Dodie, a fragile, creative spirit who acted in local theatre and dared to dream of Broadway success. Ashamed of her husband’s infidelity, Dodie could hit the bottle hard too, and on nights they both got loaded the lounge became a battleground where the children feared to trespass.
