A few days after Marlon Brando’s death in July, at a gathering of his friends and some of his 10 surviving children, a fellow actor, Ed Begley Jr., stood up to speak.
Clenching his jaw and mumbling his lines in the style of the man who practically defined acting in the last half-century, Mr. Begley recalled being summoned to Brando’s home a few years ago to talk about an urgent project.
Assuming that he wanted to collaborate on a film, Mr. Begley eagerly made his way to the Brando estate on Mulholland Drive here. The veteran actor revealed his idea: to acquire thousands of electric eels, from which he would harness energy to power the needs of his daily life.
” ‘We’re going to run the house on the eels,’ ” Brando said, the pitch-perfect younger actor recalled. When Mr. Begley, slightly stunned, responded that he did not think it could be done, Mr. Brando murmured, ” ‘Everything’s no with you.’ “
