Seventy years ago, this day, December 3 1947, 23-year-old Marlon Brando’s famous cry of “STELLA!” first boomed across a Broadway
stage, electrifying the audience at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre during
the first-ever performance of Tennessee Williams’ play A Streetcar Named Desire.
Marlon Brando and Jessica Tandy in the original production of the play
Brando on Stanley Kowalski, the character he played in the play:
“Kowalski was always right,
and never afraid. He never wondered, he never doubted . . . And he had the kind
of brutal aggressiveness I hate. I’m afraid of it. I detest the character.”
Marlon Brando and Jessica Tandy in the original production of the play