By Jae-Ha Kim
Chicago Sun-Times
July 3, 2004
Growing up in north suburban Libertyville, Marlon Brando was well-liked by the neighborhood children. A polite teen with a kind heart, he was hardly the misunderstood rebel that he would later portray in “The Wild One” (1953).
But he didn’t mind causing a bit of havoc during his years at Libertyville High School, which he attended as a freshman and sophomore, before his parents shipped him off to a Minnesota military academy.
“He was a considerate, pleasant and mannerly fella,” said childhood friend Bob Hoskins, who turns 80 Tuesday. “But we did do things that young men do. We climbed water towers that were falling apart, put pennies on railroad tracks for trains to run over, hiked in the wintertime with our feet freezing off. We spent a lot of time looking at the pretty high school girls.”
Laughing, Hoskins added, “Some of them looked back, mostly at Marlon.”
Surprisingly, Brando wasn’t a high school thespian. Though he was a member of the drama club, it was Hoskins who wound up with many of the starring roles.
While he did spend his share of time in detention, his acquaintances say the stories about his wild teenage days were more fiction than fact.
“A lot of the tales about him aren’t true,” said Frank Underbrink, a Libertyville teacher whose parents were friends with Brando’s folks, in a Chicago Sun-Times interview in 1991. “One tale is that he rode a motorcycle through the school, and that’s not true. Another is that his name is carved on a wall in the basement, but nobody seems to be able to find it.”
Hoskins added, “He never hurt anyone. He’d do whatever he could to help you.”
When Brando made “Mutiny on the Bounty” (1962), he made sure that Hoskins had a small role.
“I actually ended up on the cutting room floor,” Hoskins said. “I was so self-conscious in the role, and it was obvious. Marlon tried to make me feel better, but I wasn’t too disappointed, really. They ended up crediting me in the film anyhow.”
Long after Brando became famous — and later infamous — he made regular trips back to Libertyville to visit family and friends. Hoskins recalled hanging out with Brando and his sister Francis “Frannie” Loving.
Loving died in 1994. A year later, the Brando family farm just west of Mundelein was sold.
“I remember Marlon always being superior to the rest of the young men I knew,” Hoskins said. “He was a better athlete, better looking and had a better personality. But I outlived him. Who knew that’s how this would all turn out?”
