Jocelyn Brando

Jocelyn Brando
Jocelyn Brando
	File:Jocelyn Brando.JPG Jocelyn Brando in The Big Heat (1953)
Born	November 18, 1919; San Francisco, California, U.S.
Died	November 27, 2005 (aged 86); Santa Monica, California, U.S.
Years active	1942-1983
Spouse(s)	Don Hanmer (?-?) (divorced) 1 child; Eliot Asinof (1950-1955) (divorced) 1 child
Relatives	Marlon Brando (brother)

Jocelyn Brando (November 18, 1919 – November 27, 2005) was an American film, stage, and television actress.

Her film debut came in the war movie China Venture (1953) with Edmond O'Brien and Barry Sullivan. Her best-known movie role was as detective Glenn Ford's wife in the film noir The Big Heat (1953).

Biography

Brando, the older sister of Marlon Brando, was born in San Francisco, California, to Marlon Brando Sr. and Dorothy Julia Pennebaker. She and her brother and their sister, Frances, grew up mostly in the Midwest - Omaha, Nebraska, Evanston, Illinois, and Libertyville, Illinois, although the family also spent time in California.^{[citation needed]}

The bane of the children's existence was the alcoholism of both parents, which was particularly acute with their mother, who later became a leader in Alcoholics Anonymous.^{[citation needed]} Although Jocelyn, a talented actress, was blacklisted for having signed a peace petition, she managed a career that spanned five decades in the theater, film and television.^{[citation needed]}

Brando came to the stage naturally, first appearing in a theatrical production under the direction of her mother, who was a principal in an Omaha community theater group. Her mother, Dorothy Brando, had given Henry Fonda his start in theater in this same group. She made her Broadway debut soon after her 22nd birthday, appearing in The First Crocus at the Longacre Theatre on January 2, 1942; the play closed after five performances. Her next appearance on Broadway came two months after her younger brother began his role as Stanley Kowalski in Tennessee Williams' A Streetcar Named Desire.^{[citation needed]}

Even before that, however, in the fall of 1947, both Jocelyn and Marlon would become two of the first fifty or so members of New York's newly formed Actors Studio, Jocelyn studying with Elia Kazan, Marlon with Robert Lewis.^[1]

On February 18, 1948, she appeared in her second role on Broadway. She played Navy nurse Lieutenant Ann Girard in Mister Roberts, which starred family friend Henry Fonda in the eponymous title role. The play was a smash hit, running about three years (1157 performances).^{[citation needed]}

She did not complete the run of the play, appearing in the comedy The Golden State in the 1950-51 season, a flop that lasted but 25 performances, followed by a critically acclaimed, but commercially unsuccessful 1952 revival of Eugene O'Neill's Desire Under the Elms, which ran for only 46 performances. Brando would later appear in a Broadway revival of O'Neill's Mourning Becomes Electra.^{[citation needed]}

Back in uniform as a military officer, she made her film debut in Don Siegel's war drama, China Venture (1953). When she first arrived in Hollywood, she gave an interview with The New York Times in which she commented on her brother's advice - or lack of it - to the tyro film actress: "Marlon is a sweet fellow, and he works very hard. I asked him for a tip about pictures, and he answered, 'Oh, I just say the words. That's all I know about picture acting.' He probably was smart at that to let me find my own way."^{[citation needed]}

It was her second film that was her best-known movie role: detective Glenn Ford's wife in Fritz Lang's The Big Heat (1953). She also appeared in supporting roles in two of her brother's films, The Ugly American (1963) and The Chase (1965).

In the late 1960s, Jocelyn joined the cast of the CBS soap opera, Love of Life, where she created the role of Mrs. Krakauer, mother of Tess (Toni Bull Bua) and Mickey (Alan Feinstein). On primetime television, she played the recurring role of Mrs. Reeves on Dallas. Other television series that featured her work include Richard Diamond, Private Detective, Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Wagon Train, Riverboat, The Virginian, Kojak and Little House on the Prairie.^{[citation needed]}

Her final film role was in Mommie Dearest." ^[2]

In later life, Brando ran her own bookstore in Santa Monica, California, known as The Book Bin. She wrote poetry and conducted workshops at her home in the Intensive Journal method, a self-therapy technique developed by Ira Progoff.^{[citation needed]}

Personal life/death

Brando had two sons, Gahan Hanmer (by husband Don Hanmer) and Martin Asinof (by writer Eliot Asinof). She died at her Santa Monica home, shortly after her 86th birthday, from undisclosed causes.^{[citation needed]}

Filmography

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1953	China Venture	Lt. Ellen Wilkins
1953	The Big Heat	Katie Bannion
1955	Ten Wanted Men	Corinne Michaels
1956	Nightfall	Laura Fraser
1957	Official Detective	Thelma	TV Series, 1 episode
1958	Step Down to Terror	Lily Kirby
1961	The Explosive Generation	Mrs. Ryker	Uncredited
1963	The Ugly American	Emma Atkins
1965	Bus Riley's Back in Town	Mrs. Riley
1966	The Chase	Mrs. Briggs
1978	Movie Movie	Mama Popchik Mrs. Updike	(segment "Dynamite Hands") (segment "Baxter's Beauties of 1933")
1979	Good Luck, Miss Wyckoff	Mrs. Hemmings
1980	Why Would I Lie?	Mrs. Crumpe
1980	Mommie Dearest	Barbara Bennett
1981	Dark Night of the Scarecrow	Mrs. Ritter	TV movie
1983	Starflight: The Plane That Couldn't Land	Mrs. Harvey	TV movie, (final film role)

References

^ Robert Lewis (1996) [1984]. "Actors Studio, 1947". Slings and Arrows: Theater in My Life. New York: Applause Books. p. 183. ISBN 1-55783-244-7. At the end of the summer, on Gadget's return from Hollywood, we settled the roster of actors for our two classes in what we called the Actors Studio - using the word 'studio' as we had when we named our workshop in the Group, the Group Theatre Studio. Kazan's people met twice a week and included, among others, Julie Harris, Jocelyn Brando, Cloris Leachman, James Whitmore, Joan Copeland, Steven Hill, Lou Gilbert, Rudy Bond, Anne Hegira, Peg Hillias, Lenka Peterson, Edward Binns, and Tom Avera. My group, meeting three times a week, consisted of Marlon Brando, Montgomery Clift, Maureen Stapleton, Eli Wallach, Mildred Dunnock, Jerome Robbins, Herbert Berghof, Tom Ewell, John Forsythe, Anne Jackson, Sidney Lumet, Kevin McCarthy, Karl Malden, E.G. Marshall, Patricia Neal, Beatrice Straight, David Wayne, and - well, I don't want to drop names, so I'll stop there. In all, there were about fifty.
^ https://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/30/arts/jocelyn-brando-actress-is-dead-at-86.html

External links

Jocelyn Brando at IMDb
Jocelyn Brando at the Internet Broadway Database
Jocelyn Brando at AllMovie
Jocelyn Brando at Find a Grave

[1] Robert Lewis (1996) [1984]. "Actors Studio, 1947". Slings and Arrows: Theater in My Life. New York: Applause Books. p. 183. ISBN 1-55783-244-7. At the end of the summer, on Gadget's return from Hollywood, we settled the roster of actors for our two classes in what we called the Actors Studio - using the word 'studio' as we had when we named our workshop in the Group, the Group Theatre Studio. Kazan's people met twice a week and included, among others, Julie Harris, Jocelyn Brando, Cloris Leachman, James Whitmore, Joan Copeland, Steven Hill, Lou Gilbert, Rudy Bond, Anne Hegira, Peg Hillias, Lenka Peterson, Edward Binns, and Tom Avera. My group, meeting three times a week, consisted of Marlon Brando, Montgomery Clift, Maureen Stapleton, Eli Wallach, Mildred Dunnock, Jerome Robbins, Herbert Berghof, Tom Ewell, John Forsythe, Anne Jackson, Sidney Lumet, Kevin McCarthy, Karl Malden, E.G. Marshall, Patricia Neal, Beatrice Straight, David Wayne, and - well, I don't want to drop names, so I'll stop there. In all, there were about fifty.

[2] ttps://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/30/arts/jocelyn-brando-actress-is-dead-at-86.html

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