FYI.

This story is over 5 years old.

Identity

Marlon Brando Played His Last Ever Role in Drag as a Mean Old Lady

As Brando was on his deathbed, he took on one last project: playing an elderly factory owner named Mrs Sour in the animated film "Big Bug Man." We spoke to his voice coach about training with the acting legend.
Photo of Marlon Brando via Wikimedia Commons; movie poster of "Big Bug Man" via Studio-Free Studio

When people reflect on screen titan Marlon Brando, they tend to visualize Johnny Strabler seductively mounting a motorcycle in The Wild One or Don Corleone's imperious jawline in The Godfather. Well, most people. "I walked in and Marlon was dressed head to toe as a woman," recalls Marice Tobias, a director and an LA-based voice coach to the stars. "His make-up made him look like Ronald McDonald in drag."

Advertisement

Struggling to breathe due to severe pulmonary fibrosis, Marlon Brando wasn't in the best shape when he met Tobias back in 2004. Yet the dying 80-year-old acting legend still had a desire to get back on the saddle. He wanted to provide voiceovers for TV commercials and harbored ambitions to record all the great soliloquies of Shakespeare, much like Orson Welles had done before him. The reality was that Brando, in the last few months of his life, needed a distraction. And Paul Doherty, the CEO of talent agency CESD, knew just the voice coach to help Brando craft a vocal demo to send out to producers.

Tobias says she was sent to Mulholland Drive in a scene that oddly mirrored Captain Willard's anxious journey up the rivers of Vietnam to meet Brando's demented Colonel Kurtz in Apocalypse Now. "The whole process was designed to make you feel like you were going to visit a great emperor behind enemy lines. There was just so much drama in the build-up. Every single time we agreed on a date, he called it off just a few hours before.

"I remember finally getting the green light and us hitting an area in Mulholland Drive they called 'Bad Boy Drive' due to its mansions being inhabited by Warren Beatty, Jack Nicholson, and Marlon. There were signs everywhere stating: 'Dogs are on patrol' and just so many psychological barriers to unsettle visitors."


Watch: Hollywood Bros Speak Their Mind


One of Brando's minders then led Tobias and Paul through corridor after corridor, until she arrived at a door. When it opened, the star was sat in the center of an enormous sofa with a black sweatshirt draped across his shoulders and a very noticeable oxygen tube. A table was filled with generous helpings of tropical fruit and chocolate bars. "It was all very staged. Paul introduced us and Marlon made it a point to ignore me. After about 30 minutes, he turns, looks me right in the eye and snaps, 'You don't miss much, do you?" I said, "I try not to," and it was like game on from there."

Advertisement

It was clear who was in charge, yet that didn't stop Tobias from mothering the veteran actor. "I quickly realized he was dyslexic, because I am too, so I showed him a technique to help with it. That built his trust so he always held my hand while recording; it was incredibly touching. He needed that support."

Vocal demo done, Hollywood quickly made Brando an offer he was all too happy to refuse. He turned down the role of Nicholas Dunderdeck, the portly, villainous owner of a sweet factory in the animated movie Big Bug Man. The film was about a factory worker (voiced by a then shit hot Brendan Fraser) who gets bitten by a bug and gains superhero powers. Brando wanted to play the smaller, comedic role of the factory's elderly co-owner Mrs Sour, crossing off playing a woman on his acting bucket list in the process. "Paul called again and said, 'How would you like to get back into the Brando business?'" recalls Tobias of the studio's offer to be voice director. "I didn't hesitate in saying yes."

Read more: Hollywood Still Sucks at Putting Women On-Screen, Unless They're Scantily Clad

The first day of recording quickly arrived. "I had a feeling he might go full method but everybody thought I was crazy for thinking that. Sure enough, I opened the door and there Marlon was dressed as a woman in a screaming blonde wig and a dress. He was posing and wanted to be admired. He effeminately put out his hand, which had on a red glove with a jewel on it, and I took it. I said, 'Why, Mrs Sour, you're so fetching today!' and it was an old lady's voice that answered me."

Advertisement

Marlon Brando as Colonel Kurtz in "Apocalypse Now." Photo via Flickr user Todd Barnard

Brando was notoriously introverted and refused to let any of the film's producers come to his mansion during the recordings for fear of being "gawked at." Tobias was often left alone with the greatest actor of all time for up to four hours a day. She says the geriatric Brando would sometimes get "frisky," hugging her and trying to persuade her to stay for a romantic dinner. At one point he took her face in his hands and said, "You know you're my muse, right?" She quipped back, "Better to be a muse than an amusement."

He even invited Tobias to his private island in Tahiti, telling her, "You have no idea what it's like to walk in the moonlight at midnight, naked across the beach." Tobias retorted, "And nor will I!" Today, this kind of behavior sounds like classic Hollywood sexism, but Tobias says she wasn't bothered by Brando's conduct. She describes it as "old school. He loved to test people. It was like a game. Occasionally, he could snap at you, but ultimately he was sweet and respected me for putting him in his place."

Even on his deathbed, Brando was still on top acting form. Tobias would call the producers to play them Brando's takes. "Their replies were rapturous. On one occasion Marlon was acting out and pulling faces while I was speaking on the phone to try to make me laugh. They asked Marlon what he thought of the film and he ironically barked, 'I haven't felt this inspired since I worked on Julius Caesar!' with a mischievous smile on his face. Who in their right mind would have taken him seriously? Well, they did. It was the quote used to sell the film in all of its PR."

For More Stories Like This, Sign Up for Our Newsletter

Big Bug Man, which had two directors alongside Tobias as voice director, remains unreleased. Although she is full of praise for Brando and the film's artwork, Tobias remembers the script as South Park with "none of the same wit or social awareness." This could explain why it still remains in production limbo, despite including the last performance of the world's greatest ever actor.

Brando's body would shut down soon after completing his recordings for Mrs Sour—in fact, he died three weeks later from respiratory failure. And Tobias, who is currently writing a stage play about her experiences working with the dying actor, regrets that Brando's last performance has yet to be seen by film fans. "Right until the very end, he was doing what he loved—acting," she says. "It was just phenomenal work. Those two months are an experience I'll never forget."