<em>The Godfather</em> Cast: Where Are They Now?

After bidding adieu to Broadway, Marlon Brando turned to movies, albeit a rocky start, starring in a decade of box office flops before being cast in The Godfather as mafia boss Don Vito Corleone. Brando contributed to many of his character's defining traits and even had a hand in the death scene.

"[Brando] said, 'Here's how I play with kids,' and took an orange peel, cut it into pieces that looked like fangs and slipped them into his mouth," director Francis Ford Coppola told Playboy.

The role revitalized Brando's career, yielding him his second Oscar for Best Actor, though Brando famously refused the award to protest the industry's treatment of Native Americans.

The Hollywood icon was featured in the hits Last Tango in Paris (1972) and Superman (1978) and reunited with Coppola for Apocalypse Now (1979). Brando's career fizzled out in the '80s and '90s amid personal issues, though he parodied his Godfather role for the 1990 comedy The Freshman, costarring Matthew Broderick.

Brando died in 2004 at the age of 80; he had 11 children.