RARE Marlon Brando Interview on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson - 05/11/1968

I don't have to give you this gentleman's qualifications as an SL actor I think he is probably considered by other actors and people in the energy entertainment profession as probably the greatest actor of our times I admire for that I also admire Marlon Brando for his conscience as an American and his moral commitment when he believes in something were you welcome please mr. Marlon Brando last time I ever done the show I can hardly remember but I remember they think about it I almost fell down as I came in I feel dead drunk it couldn't fit no you weren't now people ask about that you know you know what they do for people who don't know they don't have to cut them anymore but they used to they have a room back there where everybody sits and had talked before the show and they used to serve drink and the show and not being a habitual tipper right I would listen the first thing you know you're over the abyss and you haven't realized that and they say on the stage you know the first time we started that was when you were on the first time in California when you finish did I think that's right and we said no more and because we served champagne we were in California we thought that would be swell and you walked out I remember you weren't that as bad as you thought you were to come to them and you came out and you saw the lights and the lights hit you and you went all of a sudden you started just like Stanley Kowalski I don't think it was actually it was a great interview one of the highlights of our show so we've given that up Marlon I am you keep we knew you're in town we we got together and we have talked we've known each other for a few years and I'm sure that most people around the country unless they have not read the paper I realized and there was a headline some other papers yesterday that you have stepped out of a motion picture that you were gonna do with delicous on the arrangement for a very important reason and I thought you might like to mention why and then we'll pick up from there yeah I yeah it was a very tough decision to make because I can't think of a director that's better than gadget is there to me is the best director and I've looked forward during the intervening years since I worked with him last working with him and gannets of course the story of of the year after the last two years and I was wanted it more than anything and King got shot and I sat in front of the television set and I wondered what it meant to me he's dead and that he died and his last act was trying to get a 15 cent wage increase for a garbageman and that he was hauled to his grave by two mules on a rickety cart and that on his tombstone was written and free at last free at last thank God Almighty free at last and in his last speech on television as I as I watched the news reports come over they chose his last words the night before and he said that he'd been to the mountain and if he'd seen the promised land and he said I don't know if I'm gonna get there with you but it doesn't matter about me so I know we're gonna get there mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord and he was shot dead the next day and I thought somehow this is that the matter somewhere and if we don't all the citizens do something that is a person-to-person contribution I don't think that that we're really gonna have any place to come home to if we do get a job I felt that it was there was just nothing that I could do in terms of what I know and what I see and what I feel I couldn't think of any other alternative rather than to make my time my energies and my money fully available to do what I can as an individual direct by the situation we're in you think it rather paradoxical that he seemed to accomplish by dying something that he might not have accomplished maybe in time but since his death and you sometimes feel that maybe there's gonna be a period of two or three weeks where everybody is going to say yes it was terrible and it made everybody conscious of it but really maybe things won't change unless you know the timing becomes I don't think they will die I think that there's nothing is really gonna change unless I do it mr. trombone player does it unless the guy sitting and watching the television the beer can does something about it yeah the president appointed a rather conservative group of men to investigate the reasons for a civil disorder and it came out in this book I brought along tonight which might be of interest it's called the report of the National Advisory Commission on civil disorders it's abandoned book you can get it anywhere but it tells in chapter and verse the situation we're in why we're in it and why the black people can't get up off their knees and it points very specifically to the white man and his feeling about the black man it points to racism and discrimination in its most subtle forms and its most cruel and blatant form and that's where it is that's the Bible doesn't Commission these people to find out they did find out and it's before us now I don't think there's one and a hundred thousand Americans that have ever read it but it isn't enough to talk anymore it isn't enough to shake our fingers we have to do something we have to get up our money we have to give our time we have to give our our hearts and we mustn be involved in a person-to-person program fundamentally because now that king is dead many people I think in you certainly felt it too that there is the vacuum form and I think a lot of people are worried that maybe the militants mike rush in and try to fill that vacuum well that's what it's going to go and i think that we've got one chance I was talking with Walter Reuther on on the way to King's funeral in the March and Walter Reuther said that we've got one last chance there's white people to extreme things around in this country and if we don't do it soon and if we don't do it massively then there's going to be it's going to be Armageddon it's going to be done it's gonna be thousands of people killed it will be the tournament camps we will have reduced ourselves as a nation and our stature of the people important day and so the only thing I could think to come up with was trying to get a program where people would contribute no less than 1% of their entire year's earnings to the Southern Christian Leadership Conference which was Kings organization to further his philosophy and to further his works to carry on his good work in the name of non-violence and with the help of his beautiful wife mrs. King I think there is where we have to throw our full support i think the black people are losing heart and believe whatever residual of faith that the white man was going to treat them equally and fairly is now running out and I dread to think what's going to happen but we now have to do it in person to person away I think something that people I don't want to interrupt you talk here I think something that people don't think of the more of the other person benefits economically and socially the more everybody will benefit in the war well I think it has to better everybody not only them that's not part of it it's got to do more for everybody in the long run because they are you up anybody else the more you're going to be up along the way that's right that's what Ruth has said he said that that it costs us an enormous amount of money to keep black people in in a position that they're in you see what will happen if we do nothing people will be angrier and angrier and angrier frustrations will rise and tensions will mount and violence will occur because black people have been promised help that help is not been forthcoming at the same time as that tension and violence rises there will be a white withdrawal so that people will be in fear and anger on both sides it will be forming what we might say is polarization a polarization will be formed and the only people that are going to be in the center are people with guns there's no way this country can exist with two races apart it can't exist but we're not gonna exist the way we'd like to exist that well I said it really can't exist in the long run no I think that we do have one one chance left one shot in the barrel and the time is running out but so I got together with some people and and we decided that we were gonna give up our time and money and and use our time for action rather than non action rather than just jaw action we were going to do something in a very specific way what we hope to do is to try to get the Congress to pass these laws to get the legislators to pass the laws that have to be passed in order for us to come together in peace and unity and productiveness but that's gonna take a certain amount of time but I might I might at this point give you some very encouraging news I know you've talked to a certain number of people all in our business already a lot in the last day and a half actually today and yesterday I've talked to a number of people I got one hesitation and no refusal less crane Rudy Kelly Merv Griffin Joey Bishop Barbra Streisand Joanne Woodward Jeff Harmon Paul Newman Alex Cohen who's the loser of the Emmy Awards and Drew Pearson who I just left on the phone few minutes ago are all willing to give up 1% of their annual salary and send it as a tribute to dr. Martin Luther King and his foundation I am going to give up 10% of my earnings for the year and there's no limit we don't feel that it's right that we should accept anything less than 1% but that isn't enough money isn't enough money we'll get a bias time but programs and and it's ones that you can't legislate hate in the human heart fair but we have to ask ourselves I mean this report clearly indicates that the black people have not been able to pick themselves up by their bootstraps because of quite feelings against them and we all of us have to find out what is that why did we feel that way what are these reason first time you talk to a racist when I say race I'm not talking like a bigot like Wallace or something like that but if you if you talk to someone who is a racist date they don't know it they don't feel it I think all of us if we really mind the deepest areas of our feelings we'll find maybe some places that now we've got to find that we've got to root it out and we've got to we've got to go ahead in terms in terms of action and feeling and primary that's a positive commitment yes the partner will you call me we talked the other day before yesterday us when you explained this and I said at that time I said I didn't want to be wishy-washy and you said I said I don't know I guess I wanted you know to hear more about what was going to happen and as you know me well enough I think I said if I do anything I'd certainly did not want to do it you know for publicity sake at the same time if you don't get the message out I guess and do something in public you are committed but sometimes you're committed to anonymously so when you ask me would I be willing and I told you this afternoon I said I'll tell you tonight I would be very happy to be a part of this because I think truly it is time to be to stand up and be counted in this country where you stand rather than just talking about it because uh there's pretty strange if we cannot learn to live together in this country I don't know how then hell safe we are ever gonna learn to live with anybody else in the world or understand the Asian or anybody else we can't understand the people who are here so I will be very happy to give you tonight and as I say I would prefer not to do this but I'm doing it only as a help that does anything that will get this thing going I would be delighted I would be happy to give you a check and I told you about this before the show for one percent of my income for the year for exactly what you want and I hope it doesn't good [Applause] you

Channel: Johnny Carson

Views: 1,052,413

Rating: 4.8722911 out of 5

Keywords: Marlon Brando

Id: WNWxtr3is6k

Length: 15min 46sec (946 seconds)

Published: Sat Mar 21 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/guerrillastrange]

Marlon Brandon was not nearly as influential as his oft mistaken counterpart, Marlon Brando.

[u/waldfield]

Brandon was great in The Godfathern.

[u/IntoTheMystic1]

Contender for one of the funniest typos this week

[u/-SaC]

His interview where he discusses why he asked a Native American woman to collect his Oscar is very deep, thoughtful and intelligent. He seemed very ahead of his time.

[u/hobbitdude13]

He was awesome in A Streetmobile Named Desirée

[u/Ameisen]

Was Marlon Brandon the head of the North American Marlon Brando Look-Alikes?

[u/timstauder]

He supported a Native American fish-in by showing up in person, supporting their land rights

[u/Nocontactorder]

Apocalypse noun.

[u/ReplacementNo9]

He was close friends with James Baldwin and at one point in time, the two were roommates.