Do You Know Marlon Brando’s Faribault Connection?
The late actor Marlon Brando had a Faribault connection. I had no idea that the Godfather spent some time here, however short it was. Brando was a handful when he was younger and his father ended up sending him to Shattuck Military Academy. That's cool in and of itself, but he apparently pulled an awesome prank while here.
After being expelled from his local high school for reportedly riding a motorcycle through the halls, Marlon Brando was sent to Shattuck Military Academy in 1941. Brando’s father, Marlon Brando Sr. attended Shattuck in the early 1910s and hoped the rigid program would sort his son out.
In Marlon Brando's autobiography “Brando: Songs My Mother Taught Me,” he recalled the bell that rang every fifteen minutes to remind students to attend drills, meals, classes, and other duties. In the book one night, Brando claimed to have climbed the bell tower, removed the 150-pound clapper and carried it about 200 yards away and buried it. When school authorities found it missing the next morning, Brando cunningly organized a student committee to find out who committed the crime.
Brando's exit from the school is somewhat of a mystery as some accounts claim he was expelled for truancy or heading into town without permission, others accounts claim he was asked to leave after racking up several minor demerits.
Either way, after Brando left in May of 1943 he headed to New York City to attend acting school. And we, of course, know how that ended up for him.