Marlon Brando

Marlon Brando as Don Vito Corleone. The Godfather. 1972.

This guy is the reason I wanted to become an actor.

Anybody who's seen The Godfather will not deny that Marlon Brando delivered one mind-blowing performance. He truly the deserved the Academy Award given to him for that year, but in true Marlon Brando-fashion, he boycotted the Oscar ceremony, and sent Native American activist Sacheen Lttlefeather to do the explaining.

But anyway, Brando as Vito Corleone was a turning point not just in Brando's career, but in the gangster genre as well. In the old days, a gangster had to be menacing and tough, like Edward G. Robinson in Little Caesar. But Brando took the mobster to a whole new level, showing us a frail old man, with a barely audible speaking voice, capable of sending chills through your spine and making you wet your pants. Talk about power.

Brando has improved on the Vito Corleone in The Godfather novel by Mario Puzo, breathing life into the character by adding some of his own tricks. For example, that raspy, gravelly voice was not really in the book, but hearing Marlon Brando deliver it, you wouldn't doubt that Vito Corleone really talked like that. Brando even put the extra mile on his already-excellent make-up by adding cotton balls in his mouth to give his cheeks that puffy look.

The testament to Brando's performance can be felt even to this day. Stand-up comics consider their acts incomplete if they don't have Vito Corleone in their arsenal of celebrity impersonations. Almost all the gangster films after 1972 pay homage one way or another to The Godfather, and as I said, Brando has single-handedly managed to get rid of the tough-guy gangster stereotype.

Again, one of the criteria for getting into the Acting Hall of Fame is that the actor must become the character. And in this movie, Marlon Brando was Vito Corleone. No one else could have played the part better. Rest in peace, Don Corleone.