Marlon Brando “So Furious At Being Dubbed For Italian ‘Waterfront’ He Stormed Out Of Premiere,” New Book Reveals

Marlon Brando was so enraged at the Italian premiere of his film On The Waterfront, he walked out of the cinema where he was the star guest.

The insight into the fury of cinema’s legendary angry young man has come from a book about the 1950’s Italian film industry by an American couple living in Rome at the time and mixing in glamorous movie industry circles.

The Guardian reports that Hank Kaufman and Gene Lerner moved to the Italian capital in 1953 and soon befriended visiting stars. Their memoir Hollywood on the Tiber was published in Italian in 1982, and an English translation is now due for release.

The newspaper includes the story of how Brando was enraged to discover his voice had been dubbed by an Italian actor for the local version. His agent recalled him “staggering up from his seat as if from a heart attack, whispering: Get me out of here! I’m an actor, not a ventriloquist’s dummy… You feel like a goddam freak in a sideshow. Why didn’t somebody prepare me?”

According to the book, Brando went to a nearby bar and was persuaded to return to the cinema in time for the end of the film, whereupon he stood up acknowledging the shouts of wild applause that greeted his performance.

The memoir will be published next week in English for the first time by Paul Cronin, publisher with Sticking Place Books, told The Guardian that the memoir, to be published next week, reads like “La Dolce Vita meets Call My Agent!’”