I’ve heard it said that Marlon Brando got in some trouble of his reprisal of the ‘Godfather’ role in The Freshman, because he acted so much like his othre role, and they even referenced it.
But it’s not like the studio that made Godfather could have the iconic role without Brando anyway…so do they really have a right to tell him he can’t act as it?
Or is the memory of whomever told me this faulty and no such thing ever happened?
On another note, in attempting to google for this, I found that Brando didn’t like The Freshman at all. Pity; I thought it was rather amusing and funny and anything with a giant komodo dragon gets extra points in my book.
Now, I know Brando had gained a lot of weight and gotten kind of weird by the time the Freshman came out, but calling him a giant komodo dragon is a little over the line, isn’t it?
Actors however control their image. The classic example I know of is Gilligan’s Island – for the cartoon series and pinball game, Ginger became a blonde, in order to avoid any legal entanglements with red-headed Tina Louise over using her image.
Going back to Brando, I believe there might have been some grousing in certain quarters, but I doubt very much that it actually came down to any legal action or anything. Granted, I don’t actually know, and I’m having trouble finding out what exactly was the hullaballoo at the time.
If anyone had sued, it would have been a hell of a difficult case to prove. You’d have to split up the portrayal into at least four parts: (1) The simple physical characteristics of Brando, (2) Elements of stock mafia don characters, (3) Elements original to the new screenplay, and then (4) original, protectable elements of Don Corleone that had been copied.
Not an impossible case, perhaps, but when you shave it down that far, how much left is really Don Corleone? On top of that the fact that elements of The Godfather itself can legitimately be parodied.
John Fogerty found himself in a similar situation when Fantasy Records sued him for infringing works that had been composed and originally recorded by … John Fogerty.
Thank you guys for the information. I think what I heard of was the grousing, and yes, if there had been real legal trouble I would have been able to find it. And of course I had forgotten about the parody thing; of course in some ways it was a parody of the Godfather.
Usually a character is owned by…Well it depends. Usually it’s the creator, sometimes it is someone else, like the studio
For instance on “I Love Lucy,” Jess Oppenheimer owned that character. Even though it was largely shaped by Luicille Ball and her writers. Oppenheimer wrote but also did other things like produce.
He later sued DesiLu over Lucy’s other show, where he said, Lucy Carmichael was simply a reworking of Lucy Ricardo. He won. Even though DesiLu had bought rights to a book “Life Without George,” and loosely based Lucy Carmichael on that. The court said, “No the characters were essentially the same”
Whoever owns the character, and remember people can sell or assign rights they have, would want to see that the character is used to the best money making ability. That means they might make decisions that seem off to us
A great example is the Back to the Future trilogy. George McFly was originally played by Crispen Glover, but when they changed actors in the sequel, he filed a lawsuit.
This is, as I understand it, why Voyager didn’t feature Ro Laren and Nick Locarno. They’d have had to pay royalties to the writers who created the characters for Next Generation.
I remember seeing an interview with Dick Van Dyke. Van Dyke had met Stan Laurel (Oliver Hardy was dead by then) and told Laurel how much he loved his work, and how he’d love to do a Laurel and Hardy skit on the *Dick Van Dyke Show * as a tribute.
Laurel told Van Dyke it was fine with him, but Van Dyke would have to get permission from (someone) because Stan Laurel the actor didn’t own the rights to Stan Laurel the character.
Another famous example of an actor getting into trouble for continuing to appear as his most famous character is Clayton_Moore, a.k.a. The Lone Ranger. But that one actually turned out well, IMO.
Yes, the studio owns the character, but it is the actor that makes that character his own. By doing so, it is, in the case of possible sequels, a form of job security, in that no one else would dare play the role because of possible comparisons, something not wanted by either the actor or the studio.
Steve Martin as Inspector Clouseau? Sorry, doesn’t work for me and I’m staying far away. Net result: no franchise created, unlike when Peter Sellers played the same role.
No, what happened was they wanted to use Ro Laren on Deep Space Nine. But Michel Forbes didn’t want to be on the show. So they created a new character, Kira, to take the place of Ro.
That case is a little more complicated. BTTF 2 used footage (from BTTF 1) of Crispin Glover as the young George McFly in a few backgrounds, and they didn’t pay him anything for it. Glover did not have any cause of action for simply having the character recast.
I’d amend your last sentence to “the actor has a right to how he looked and acted when he portrayed the character.” If they had used an actor who looked nothing like Glover, he wouldn’t have had a case. From your cite:
The case of Nick Locarno is more interesting, though. He and Tom Paris were both played by Robert Duncan McNeill and have nearly identical backgrounds. The character royalties issue is a common rumor, but I have no idea if it’s true. Voyager’s writers have said the reason they invented a new character for McNeill is that they originally wanted to use Locarno, but felt that he was so maladjusted as to be irredeemable.
The Simpsons actors do not own their characters’ voices. So they can’t do product endorsements or even plug a radio station without Groening’s permission.
You’re correct (Nancy Cartwright got into trouble recently for using Bart’s voice in something Scientology-related). But that’s not so surprising because the animated part of the character was created independently and isn’t based on the actors.
That must get really interesting when the character’s voice is very close (or identical to) the “natural” speaking voice of the actor. So Prof. Farnsworth couldn’t endorse something, but Fry and Leela could. (As in the voices, not saying “Hi, this is Fry from Futurama”)