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Marlon Brando
Marlon Brando: 'When he goes, the rest of us move up one place'. Photo: AP
Marlon Brando: 'When he goes, the rest of us move up one place'. Photo: AP

Brando's last role: an evil old lady

This article is more than 19 years old

Marlon Brando fulfilled a lifelong ambition in his final film: to play an old lady. True to his Method training, the actor donned a blond wig and full drag for the part, even though the film was animated. He finished work on the project a fortnight before his death last week.

In Big Bug Man, a $20m animated movie produced by Los Angeles-based Studio-Free Studios, Brando provides the voice of Mrs Sour, the matriarch of a crooked candy company. Gabriel Grunfeld, the film's executive producer, describes her as "a funny, acerbic old lady - a sort of mean Willie Wonka".

Brando was initially sent the part of 600lb bad guy Nicholas Dunderbeck but was keener on playing his conflicted wife. "Strange as it sounds, playing an old lady in an animated picture was something Brando wanted to do for years," claims writer and co-director Bob Bendetson.

Grunfeld was bowled over by Brando's professionalism: "Despite being on oxygen for six hours a day, Marlon was still full of energy and invention. There was a real sense he knew this might be his last role and he approached it with real vigour." Brando himself described the part as "the most fun I've had since playing Julius Caesar".

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