Was he the best actor ever?

what about Tom Cruise, he has been in more successful movies than any other actor and has been acting non-stop since the 80's.

Jimmy Stewart always played the same character.

On the Waterfront
Streetcar Named Desire
The Freshman

Brando was important, I think, in two ways:

ONE: Upon his arrival "on screen" in 1950, and over a series of films, he rather reinvented movie acting. With his mumbling style, sometimes searching for his words, sometimes just staring, he upended the more theater-based line reading style, in which words had to be enunciated and often said too fast (as in the rat-a-tat tat style of fortries gangster movies.) Suddenly, actors could be more "real." Cary Grant, for one, said he wished that style had been available to him in the 30's and 40s. Grant also said "my generation has its Marlon Brando, and it is James Stewart." Grant elaborated that Stewart, too, was emotional and raw and had a stumbling voice.

TWO: "The baby boomers rule." A whole bunch of seventies actors -- including Nicholson, Pacino and...Richard Dreyfuss...talked of going nuts as young filmgoers in the FIFTIES when they saw Brando films. Dreyfuss pointed out that however much Brando had failed in the 60's and late 70s...."that run of movies he made in the fifties was incredible."
Irony: the 70's star who most looked like Brando -- Burt Reynolds -- spoofed him in an Alfred Hitchcock Hour show in the 60s and drew Brando's eternal hatred. Reynolds elected to grow a moustache for most roles and to be more Cary Grant than Brando but...he was another "son of Brando." You can add DeNiro as well.

Who else might be the greatest film actor of all time?

Indeed, as noted above, the American Film Institute chose Bogart (and then Cary Grant, and then James Stewart, I think.) Robert Mitchum landed high on the charts...but he made a lot of programmers to go with his best work.

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Always thought it was supposed to belong to two 1950s actors be the greatest of all--James Dean with acclaimed approach to method acting like Marlon used and Richard Burton. Sheesh!

Cagney is definitely a contender for the title! Very versatile.

Perhaps if (Brando) stopped acting then.... in fact, if he got into a fatal accident after doing all those (50s) films, there would be no question. But ending his career with a crapload of bombs and bouts of horrific acting.... you don't get a crown for that.

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Understood. The movie actor who perhaps best fits that model("make great films and die") was Humphrey Bogart.

Bogart died in 1957 of lung cancer from smoking, AT age 57. His final film --"The Harder They Fall" (1956)was a hard-hitting boxing movie co-starring Rod Steiger(which allowed Bogart to go out versus a "Method Man," and they joshed each other about that on set).

Unlike Brando, Bogart's FIRST movies weren't all that great -- he had a lot of second leads and programmers. But by the forties, he had his "run" (HIgh Sierra, The Maltese Falcon, Casablanca, The Big Sleep, Sierra Madres, and more) and in the 50's, he appeared in quality films like The African Queen(his only Oscar), In a Lonely Place(oddly, this seems to be his "important movie" these days), The Caine Mutiny(truly an iconic role), etc.

So Bogart simply never had to take inferior movies or cameo roles or to prostitute his talent.

Cary Grant purposely ended his career "young" -- at 62. Unlike Bogart, his final films weren't all that serious or major, but they WERE all A list hits(including That Touch of Mink with Doris Day, Charade with Audrey Hepburn and his final film "Walk Don't Run"), and again Grant didn't have to do cameos. Or a TV series. (See: James Stewart, Henry Fonda.)

So I guess you could say that Bogart and Grant were "the greatest actors of all time" because there was NO Brando-like period of waste and mental illness on screen.

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