(Credits: Far Out / YouTube Still)
Hollywood has always been a breeding ground for feuds. From Bette Davis and Joan Crawford to Laurence Olivier and Marilyn Monroe, there have always been sets of stars who hate each other – some more than others. Beginning in the 1960s, Burt Reynolds found himself involved in a rather one-sided feud with Marlon Brando, one of his acting icons, but that hasn’t stopped him from praising the iconic star.
Reynolds rose to fame in the 1970s with his role in Deliverance as Lewis Medlock, earning widespread praise for his performance alongside the likes of Jon Voight and Ned Beatty. Starring in everything from 1977’s Smokey and the Bandit to 1997’s Boogie Nights and even his fair share of terrible direct-to-video movies like Not Another Not Another Movie, Reynolds went on to have quite the mixed career.
Before he found success, he put in many shifts as a television star, appearing in episodes of Riverboat, Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Gunsmoke, and The Twilight Zone. In the latter, the actor gave a performance that appeared to poke fun at Brando, much to the legend’s dismay.
As the years continued, Brando continued to express his hatred for Reynolds whenever he got the chance. He even prevented the actor from portraying Michael Corleone in Francis Ford Coppola’s The Godfather, in which he played patriarch Vito Corleone, simply refusing to work with Reynolds. The same thing happened again with Coppola’s Apocalypse Now, which saw Brando play Colonel Walter Kurtz, with the actor suggesting that he didn’t want Reynolds appearing in the same movie as him.
Despite this rather one-sided feud, Reynolds has still praised Brando’s work. When asked by A24 about the greatest piece of art he’s ever seen, Reynolds responded, “There were things that Brando did early on. Street Car, certainly. He was brilliant, and it was a work of art.”
Elia Kazan’s A Streetcar Named Desire, adapted from Tennessee Williams’ play of the same name, was one of Brando’s earliest roles, but it remains one of his greatest. Playing the passionate, domineering, and brutish Stanley, Brando embodied the character perfectly, having originated it on Broadway. As the original Stanley, it’s hard for many fans of the play to separate the image of a sweaty Brando in a tight T-shirt from the character. No one has ever played Stanley quite like him, and he understandably picked up an Oscar nomination for the part.
Elaborating on his love for A Streetcar Named Desire, Reynolds explained: “It was just truth. It was truth. He was full of truth. I thought he must have surprised the actors and the director because he would constantly do things that were not scripted and I loved that.”
However, Reynolds had to end his point with a dig at Brando, adding, “But as he got older and he got richer, he got lazy and fat and tragic.” He seemed to be channelling Brando’s argumentative spirit, although nothing will top the words Brando once uttered about Reynolds, calling him “the epitome of something that makes me want to throw up.”
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