Legends don't come much larger than Marlon Brando.

He was enormous in every aspect of his life, from his expanding girth, shocking excesses and monumental ego, to his staggering acting talent.

He didn't just live life, but exploited it, thus entertaining us as much with his off-screen antics as his on-screen performances.

With his career-establishing performance in 1951 as the brutish Stanley Kowalski in A Streetcar Named Desire, Brando changed the face of screen acting forever.

He took the artifice out of acting, paving the way for actors such as James Dean, Robert DeNiro, Jack Nicholson, Al Pacino, Meryl Streep, River Phoenix and Johnny Depp.

I saw a rerelease of Streetcar when I was in Grade 8. I was transfixed and went back to see it five times.

I had no idea how Brando was doing it, but I knew he was channeling emotions in ways I'd never seen before.

I can't remember what little junior high school melodrama we were doing that year, but I know I thought I was doing a Brando in it.

I have watched Brando ever since with complete fascination, even when he was mumbling his way through Marc Anthony's speeches in Julius Caesar, wearing some form of western tent dress in The Missouri Breaks and reaching unparalleled heights of self-parody in The Island of Dr. Moreau.

With his soul-bearing performances in Reflections in a Golden Eye, The Godfather and Last Tango in Paris, he devastated me in ways I still find difficult to verbalize.

He showed his lighter side with charming performances in The Teahouse of the August Moon, The Freshman and Don Juan DeMarco, the latter alongside Johnny Depp.

With equal fascination, I devoured stories of his sexual excesses.

He was the Warren Beatty, Liam Neeson, Russell Crowe and Colin Ferrell of his day.

When Brando was considered the most virile and handsome actor in Hollywood, everyone from movie stars and starlets, to film extras, crew members and smitten female fans the world over, were beating a path to his dressing rooms.

Rumours persist that Brando was always obliging juggling paternity suits with child support payments.

He could also be a kind and generous man.

When Montgomery Clift was battling drug addiction, Brando offered to put his own career on hold to help one of his idols straighten out his life. Clift refused and continued on his road to self-destruction.

Ironically, Brando would also refuse intervention when glutton became his sin of choice.

The only time I got to meet Brando was for 1990's The Freshman.

Physically and artistically, he was already in major decline, but he was still a sly ol' devil.

He teased that he was planning to lose at least half his weight through a regime that included yoga and ballet. The image of Brando in a lotus position or doing a pliet dumbfounded the imagination.

There was a glimmer of Brando's legendary genius in 2001's The Score.

Like so many, I hoped more than I believed he would show us one more time why, despite so many epic failures, he is still considered one of the greatest screen actors of all time.

I was saddened at the news of his death because I thought that meant we'd seen the last of his greatness.

That is the most foolish of assumptions.

We have video and DVD, where his genius and charisma is captured for all time.


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