On paper, Marlon Brando and Billy Dee Williams had a lot in common.
They could both rock a pencil mustache without looking like John Waters, which is a rare gift. Brando was born in Omaha, Nebraska, while Williams was born in New York City, which is very much to the state of New York what Omaha is to Nebraska. They both decided not to be in Superman III – Brando because they couldn’t afford him, Williams because he wasn’t invited.
With so much for the pair to talk about and connect on, it seems crazy that they never got together. You have to assume that they just never crossed paths. Then along comes Billy Dee Williams and an interview with People during the press tour for his memoir, What Do We Have Here?, and he throws a wrench in the whole dialogue. Not only did he and Brando meet, but Brando – so Williams claims – hit on Williams. Is it true? Is it not?
Did Lando and Brando almost go commando? (They didn’t, for reasons you’ll soon understand-o.)
The first thing you have to keep in mind when asking yourself “Did Marlon Brando hit on Billy Dee Williams like Billy Dee Williams said he did?” is that this is a story being told by an actor, about an actor. What’s more, it’s an actor telling a story about the special private time of Marlon Brando, the Mount Everest of mid-20th century celebrity sex story subjects. To a certain generation of performers, having a story about Marlon Brando hitting on you is a singularly impressive thing. It would be like being a celebrity today and not having a story where you get hit on by Andy Dick: Unique.
Billy Dee, meanwhile, has enjoyed a long and storied career in being the smoothest attention-getter in Cloud City. He’s repped psychic hotlines, and made waves in 2019 when he announced that he used masculine and feminine pronouns, before walking it back as a Jungian thought experiment instead of gender fluidity. On the other hand, he’s also Billy Dee Williams, a man so famously attractive that Han Solo had to get defensive about his girl around him. There are harder things to believe than “Marlon Brando wanted to kiss him.”
Whether it’s a true story or not, one person who would have loved to hear about it was Brando himself. Openly open to new experiences and unashamed of having had intimate relationships with men, he expressed delight at the prospect of the media speculating on whether or not he’d slept with other Hollywood actors. “I have never paid much attention to what people think about me,” he lied in a 1976 interview. “But if there is someone who is convinced that Jack Nicholson and I are lovers, may they continue to do so. I find it amusing.”
Whatever the case, the fact that Williams shot Brando down (he recalled telling the Hollywood legend that he “preferred women”) robbed the world of a way better story about Lando and Doctor Moreau’s contentious celebrity breakup. We’ll never forgive you for that, Billy.