Career: Brando started making a name for himself on Broadway in the late 1940s, achieving stardom as Stanley Kowalski in Tennessee Williams's 1947 play A Streetcar Named Desire. Warner Brothers came knocking and asked him to do a screen test. His first film role was as a bitter paraplegic veteran in The Men in 1950 and his big break came when he brought Stanley Kowalski to the big screen in A Streetcar Named Desire. This role quickly established Brando as a Hollywood sex symbol. He went on to star in Viva Zapata! (1952), Julius Caesar (1952), On the Waterfront (1954) and The Wild One (1953). Other highlights in a highly distinguished career include The Godfather (1972), Last Tango in Paris (1972), Superman (1978) and Apocalypse Now (1979). Despite announcing his retirement from acting in 1980, he continued to act and appeared in A Dry White Season (1989), The Freshman (1990) and The Score (2001). He died on July 1, 2004 at the age of 80.