Brando died of lung failure at the UCLA Medical Centre, according to a hospital spokeswoman. His agents, citing Brando's long-held desire for privacy, declined to give further details.
With his broken nose and rebellious nature, Brando established a raw, naturalistic style of acting and defined American macho for a generation with such classic roles as the swaggering brute Stanley Kowalski in A Streetcar Named Desire (1951), a biker gang leader in The Wild One (1953) and the washed-up prize fighter in On the Waterfront (1954).
Francis Ford Coppola, who directed Brando in 1979's Apocalypse Now, said: "Marlon would hate the idea of people chiming in to give their comments about his death. All I'll say is that it makes me sad he's gone."
To many, Brando remained the iconic rebel he played in The Wild One. Asked what he was rebelling against, Brando replied: "Whaddya got?"
Brando won an Academy Award for On the Waterfront and another for his brooding, at times mumbling, portrayal of the patriarch of a Mafia family in The Godfather (1972).
Brando inspired a generation of screen rebels, including James Dean.
"There was a sense of excitement, of danger in his presence but perhaps his special appeal was in a kind of simple conceit, the conceit of tough kids," wrote critic Pauline Kael of the New Yorker. "Brando represented a contemporary version of the free American."
With his broken nose and rebellious nature, Brando established a raw, naturalistic style of acting and defined American macho for a generation with such classic roles as the swaggering brute Stanley Kowalski in A Streetcar Named Desire (1951), a biker gang leader in The Wild One (1953) and the washed-up prize fighter in On the Waterfront (1954).
Francis Ford Coppola, who directed Brando in 1979's Apocalypse Now, said: "Marlon would hate the idea of people chiming in to give their comments about his death. All I'll say is that it makes me sad he's gone."
To many, Brando remained the iconic rebel he played in The Wild One. Asked what he was rebelling against, Brando replied: "Whaddya got?"
Brando won an Academy Award for On the Waterfront and another for his brooding, at times mumbling, portrayal of the patriarch of a Mafia family in The Godfather (1972).
Brando inspired a generation of screen rebels, including James Dean.
"There was a sense of excitement, of danger in his presence but perhaps his special appeal was in a kind of simple conceit, the conceit of tough kids," wrote critic Pauline Kael of the New Yorker. "Brando represented a contemporary version of the free American."
