Marlon Brando

For the 101st CooperToons caricature, the selection had to be with someone who would not invoke the response, "And who the heck is this?" At least it's hoped it doesn't.

With that said, modern critical opinion is Marlon Brando was one of the greatest actors of the 20th Century. His first big hit was the cinema version of Tennessee Williams' A Street Car Named Desire in 1951, and he really hit it big with The Wild One in 1953. The latter is a good enough movie, we suppose, although now it has a tendency to come off a bit unintentionally comical.

Despite his cantankerous "bad-boy" reputation (the story was on the Superman set, he deliberately flubbed his lines until the producers agreed to give him the trailer he was using), official honors to Marlon came early, albeit a bit sporadically. Strictly speaking he only received an Oscar in 1954 for On the Waterfront and in Sayonara (1957), it was his co-star Red Buttons - yes, Red Buttons - who won the Award, not Marlon.

Surprisingly, even the epic Mutiny on the Bounty (1962) didn't land him the statue that - as Dustin Hoffman put it - has no genitalia and is carrying a sword. And although he was given the award ten years later for The Godfather, Marlon turned it down for the controversial (but not necessarily bad) reason for the way Hollywood had stereotyped the American Indians. A CooperToons personal opinion is that in turning down the award Marlon demonstrated an astute, but perhaps unintentional artistic judgment. Yes, Marlon did OK as Vito Corleone, but still the portrayal was practically a self-satire of his much vaunted method acting. Certainly other nominees (either Michael Caine or Laurence Olivier in Sleuth come to mind) would have been more worthy. But Hollywood must have been thinking, well, the Godfather was a big hit, and it's about time for Marlon to get something again. As one writer reported that Brando's performances had not been very satisfactory for a number of years, the contrast probably helped a lot. Again a personal opinion is if you did want to give Marlon a second Oscar, hand it to him for his portrayal of the increasingly disillusioned and tortured German officer in The Young Lions (1958).

For all his wealth and riches and a home in Tahiti (home, hell, Marlon had a whole island), Marlon's life was not always rosy, and in later years he certainly tubbed up. But somewhere along the line he was granted a US patent (US 6812392), a distinction shared by many other individuals, including a future American president (Abraham Lincoln), a performing stage magician (Harry Houdini), and, we must add, the author and artist of CooperToons.

If you want to view Marlon's patent just click here. (Warning! It's a .pdf file - you need Adober Acrobat Reader at least - and it opens in another window).

Harry's patent (US 1370316) is here. CooperToons will not weary the reader with any of his, not even the one where the experimental apparatus was a frying pan.