Marlon Brando

His classic movies like "A street car named desire", "On the Waterfront", "The Wild One", "Viva Zapata", "Julius Caesar", "Guys and Dolls", "Mutiny on the Bounty", "The Godfather", "Last Tango in Paris", "Superman" and "Apocalypse Now" will always be remembered through the generations.

Born in 1924, "Bud" Brando became an actor (rooming with actor Wally Cox) after being expelled from Shattuck Military School.

He made his professional stage debut in the 1944 hit, I Remember Mama, but made theatrical history with his brutish yet complex 1947 performance in Tennessee Williams' 'A Streetcar Named Desire', which he later recaptured on film.

As Brando added to his screen credits 'Julius Caesar', 'The Wild One', and 'On the Waterfront', he became a symbol for rebellion against the stuffy American conformity of the 1950s and an idol and role model for actors everywhere.

Brando shot to fame in 1947 with his groundbreaking performance in Tennessee Williams' play "A Streetcar Named Desire" as the brutal, animalistic Stanley Kowalski.

Brando, a devotee of the Method, gave a raw, vital performance under Elia Kazan's direction that had critics swooning. Using the technique, fostered by Russian director Konstantin Stanislavsky and popularised at Lee Strasberg's Actors Studio, actors such as Brando drew on their own psychology and experience in creating roles.

Brando's first film, "The Men" (1950), earned raves but it wasn't until the 1951 film version of "Streetcar" directed by Kazan that he became a major movie star. Three years later, Brando won his first Oscar for his performance as ex-boxer Terry Malloy in "On the Waterfront," also directed by Kazan.

His roles in "Streetcar," "Waterfront" and "The Wild One" (1953) established him as an icon of the 1950s. Over the course of his career, he was nominated for eight Oscars, winning two for "Waterfront" and "The Godfather" (1972).

He followed his early success with hits in "Guys and Dolls" )1955), "The Teahouse of the August Moon" (1956) and "Sayonara" (1957), but his career went into decline in the 1960s, particularly after his mannered performance as Fletcher Christian in the 1962 big-budget flop "Mutiny on the Bounty." He also played the mad Colonel Kurtz in "Apocalypse Now" (1979), a film racked by dissent and difficulties but hailed by many as a classic about the Vietnam War.

His later films were a mixed bag. He earned a supporting actor Oscar nomination for "A Dry White Season" (1989), parodied his "Godfather" role in "The Freshman" (1990) and played a thoughtful therapist in "Don Juan DeMarco" (1995). But he also rented himself out for performances in "Christopher Columbus: The Discovery" (1992) and the widely panned "The Island of Dr. Moreau" (1996).

Brando was married three times, to Anna Kashfi in 1957, the Mexican actress Movita in 1960 and a Tahitian named Tahita. He had nine children.

"He gave us our freedom," said an admiring Jack Nicholson, the noted actor.