Marlon Brando successful film, he won his second Academy Award for playing Vito Corleone in Francis Ford Coppola's "The Godfather", a role critics consider among his greatest. "The Godfather" was then one of the most commercially successful films of all time. With that and his Oscar-nominated performance in "Last Tango in Paris", Brando re-established himself in the ranks of top box-office stars, placing sixth and tenth in the Money Making Stars poll in 1972 and 1973, respectively. Brando took a four-year hiatus before appearing in "The Missouri Breaks" (1976). After this, he was content with being a highly paid character actor in
Marlon Brando work as Malloy, but eventually producer Sam Spiegel wooed Brando to the part, signing him for $100,000. "Kazan made no protest because, he subsequently confessed, 'I always preferred Brando to anybody.'" Brando won the Oscar for his role as Irish-American stevedore Terry Malloy in "On the Waterfront". His performance, spurred on by his rapport with Eva Marie Saint and Kazan's direction, was praised as a "tour de force". For the famous "I coulda been a contender" scene, he convinced Kazan that the scripted scene was unrealistic. Schulberg's script had Brando acting the entire scene with his character being held at