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Marlon Brando - Last Tango in Paris
Marlon Brando in Last Tango in Paris
Marlon Brando in Last Tango in Paris

The last word on Brando

This article is more than 16 years old

Mike Medavoy strikes a rare downbeat note at the launch of Brando: The Documentary. The veteran producer befriended Brando in his later years and is executor of the actor's estate; the keeper of the flame. Without Medavoy there would presumably have been no documentary. Yet even now he seems unsure he's done the right thing.

When Marlon Brando died in 2004 he left behind a fascinating legacy of triumph, waste and tragedy. It's all there in TCM's definitive 165-minute portrait, which charts his rise from troubled midwestern teen to the family traumas - his son's conviction for manslaughter, his daughter's suicide - that marred his final years.

All told, it's quite a ride. But while the documentary's makers are bubbling with excitement, Medavoy appears more circumspect. "The film has negative associations for me because I don't know whether Marlon would approve of it," he says. "But it's also positive because it has brought his family together. There is a certain dysfunctionality in that family, a lot of which has to do with the way things panned out in his life. But they've seen the film and they're happy with it. So I guess I feel vindicated."

Medavoy says that he and Brando used to speak on the phone every day. "But I'm not sure I ever got to know him well. Very few people did." And despite all the stellar testimonials contained in the film, he feels that the final word on Brando should go to his sister Jocelyn, who spoke at his funeral. "She was the last person to speak, and she said, 'I just want you to know that I loved my brother. But Marlon is dead. Let him go'."

Around the table, the film-makers keep singing from a different hymnsheet. To misquote Marc Anthony, they have come to praise Marlon Brando, not to bury him.

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