Brando In Roots (1979)

Just watched Brando in the TV miniseries Root's The Next Generation playing  George Lincoln Rockwell, the 1960s neo-Nazi leader.  Brando's biographers barely mention it, primarily because he did only one scene and its so brief.  

How does G.L. Rockwell get in Roots?  Well, Alex Haley interviewed Rockwell for Playboy magazine in 1965.  So, the TV miniseries duplicates that interview, with James Earl Jones playing Alex Haley.   Its about 7 minutes long, and has the usual 1970s Brando touches:

1)  To hide with obesity, Brando sits behind a desk, is shown in shadow and low light, and wears a deep black Nazi uniform. Per the Cameraman, Brando was over 300 lbs. and worried about his looks.   Brando is never shown below the Chest. 

2) Brando constantly looks around, and up and down.  He's always fidgeting with the phone, an air freshner, or a pipe.  This isn't Brando acting, he's looking for the lines that he's written down. And when Brando airly looks past James Earl Jones with a look of contempt - its Brando reading the cue cards.

3) Much of the scene is done with tight close-ups of Brando suspposedly speaking to James Earl Jones. The close-ups allowed Brando's cue cards to be placed directly in front of him - and off camera.

4) Brando didn't have time to change his lines or have input into the script.

5) The Producers paid another actor $5,000 to standby in case Brando didn't show up. 

As for the scene itself, Brando is good as the Nazi leader.  But there's not much acting involved.  Its just Brando - as Rockwell - verbally jousting with Alex Haley over  race and the "Negro's" place in American society.  Its a filmed interview, not Hamlet.   

 Summary:  Did Brando deserve an Emmy? Probably not. But this is Brando only acting performance on TV.  Why did Brando do?  It was only one day's work,  and he thought  Roots:The Next Generation would be good civil rights propaganda.  Brando certainly didn't do it for the $25,000.