49 Years Ago In TIME

Russell Crowe is hardly the first Hollywood star to gain a reputation for surly, iconoclastic behavior. MARLON BRANDO, the movies' original bad boy, made the first of his two TIME cover appearances prior to the release of his film Desiree.

Brando's closest friends admit that he often needs a shave, and that regardless of the company he is in, he belches or scratches as the need arises. Although he now makes as much as $200,000 a picture, he is often without matching trousers and jacket; until very recently he preferred blue jeans for all social gatherings. The day he arrived in Hollywood, Marlon honored the occasion by dressing up in his only suit, but somehow failed to notice that the trousers had a hole in the knee and a slit in the seat, through which the tail of his shirt was showing. Shirts are a nuisance, anyway; when one gets dirty, he just rolls it up in a ball, stuffs it in a closet and buys another. At table, Marlon often drops his head to plate level and shoves it in, and if ketchup splatters on the tablecloth--let it. Once, so the story runs, he was found holding a piece of bread and dreamily buttering his sleeve. --TIME, Oct. 11, 1954