Marlon Brando for Gay Thursday

Hollywood’s Rogue Bisexual

He was a tough guy with a stunningly beautiful face. He got kicked out of high school for riding a motorcycle through the hallways. He once came to the rescue of a skinny kid being taunted and beaten by schoolyard thugs, helped him up, threw his arm around him and said, “I’m your new best friend.”

Thus began a bizarre, intimate relationship with fellow actor Wally Cox that would last a lifetime. After Cox died in 1973, Brando kept the ashes for safekeeping, because he wanted his own ashes to be commingled with Wally’s when the time came. Sure enough, in 2004, Brando’s family honored his request. The Associated Press reported, “The ashes of Brando’s late friend Wally Cox, who died in 1973, were also poured onto the desert landscape of Death Valley as part of the ceremony of scattering Brando’s ashes.” Brando not only kept his friend’s ashes for more than 30 years, but, when lonely, would sometimes dine with the urn, holding conversations in which he would perfectly imitate Cox’s distinctive voice.

Unlike many bisexuals (like Cary Grant), who denied their homosexual activity all their lives, Marlon Brando brazenly admitted it. In a 1976 interview, Brando said, “Homosexuality is now so much in fashion it no longer makes news. Like a large number of men, I, too, have had homosexual experiences, and I am not ashamed. I have never paid much attention to what people think about me.”