THE 50 YEARS OF GOD FATHER
CREATING CORLEONE
He mumbled, he mooned… and he gave one of Hollywood’s most memorable performances. Here, TheGodfather’s associate producer and casting director remember how MARLON BRANDO brought the Don to life
WORDS ALEX GODFREY
1 THE MAKE-UP
Paramount didn’t want Brando for the film, but Coppola was hellbent on him, and got what he wanted by shooting a test. “Marlon put cotton in his cheeks and did this transformation into kind of what we see in the movie,” remembers associate producer Gray Frederickson. “Then Dick Smith, the make-up guy, was commissioned to make him look like he did in that test. They made little implants for him, to push his cheeks out.” They also needed to make Brando — then 47 — look 20 years older. “Marlon was technically too young for the role of the Don, a man well into his sixties, so he had to be aged,” says casting director Fred Roos. “Dick Smith was the best make-up man in the business for this.”