Marlon Brando and Charlie Chaplin began working together in 1967 on A Countess From Hong Kong, and within days the relationship blew apart. Brando later called Chaplin a sadistic and egotistical tyrant, while Chaplin said Brando was impossible to direct.
The clash came to a head when Brando was lambasted in front of the crew for being 15 minutes late. The film, a star-studded project that featured Sophia Loren and Tippi Hedren, went on to become a substantial flop, with calling it an embarrassment.
Their feud matters because it sits at the center of a strange Oscar-era overlap between two giants of film. Chaplin wrote and directed A Countess From Hong Kong, his only film made in color, after he had already become a silent-era legend who continued working well into the modern era. Brando, meanwhile, was already an eight-time Oscar nominated star before the two collaborated.
Their bad blood did not end with the film. In 1972, Chaplin was honored by the Oscars for Limelight after a 12-minute standing ovation, though he did not attend because he was in his 80s. The following year, Brando refused to attend the Oscars to accept his Best Actor statue for The Godfather and sent Sacheen Littlefeather in his place with a 15-page speech; she rejected the award outright on his behalf.
That rejected statue later became part of Chaplin’s own Oscar story. After Chaplin’s original award was damaged in transit, his family asked for a replacement, and the statue that was sent to him was the same one Roger Moore had handed back after Littlefeather turned it away. Brando said he still looked up to Chaplin, but described him as a mixed bag, and that is the closest thing this feud has to a resolution: two difficult men briefly shared a set, and neither left it unchanged.
