Marlon Brando grew up in Evanston, Illinois during the Great Depression. At age 9, he met a boy his same age who had just moved to town. They became fast friends.
His pal was named Wally Cox.
Wally’s sister recounted how the boys became inseparable. Once, she said, Marlon tied Wally to a tree… and left him there. She was surprised their friendship endured after that, but it did.
Though they went separate ways throughout the years, their friendship would last a lifetime.
Cox’s family moved to New York City, and years later the Brando family moved there, too.
Brando enlisted in the military during WWII, but he was considered unfit to serve because of an old knee injury. Wally Cox served four months in the Army but was honorably discharged to care for his invalid mother.
The two friends reconnected in New York City where they eventually shared an apartment.
Cox made and sold jewelry. Brando studied acting.
To most people, they appeared to be an odd couple. Brando was intense and brawny; Cox often portrayed milquetoasts. Yet both men were smart and funny. Though only 5’6”, wiry thin, and bespectacled, Cox was surprisingly athletic and could hold his own against Brando.
He performed stand-up comedy, first at private parties and then in public. Cox broke into show biz as a comedian.
Brando had a pet raccoon named Russell - in a NYC apartment. It was a gift from his crazy mother. In her autobiography, actress Shelley Winters wrote about the wild raccoon and how she wouldn’t enter the apartment until Brando locked the animal in the bathroom.
Wally Cox couldn’t bear the raccoon’s stench and nocturnal behavior, so he eventually moved out.
Brando convinced his friend Wally to take up acting lessons with his teacher Stella Adler. He did so, and Cox went on to have an active acting career.
While Brando became a film star, Cox gravitated toward TV. He appeared on numerous programs in the early days of television. They both became famous during the early 1950s.
The role that shot Cox to fame was as the title character in the series Mr. Peepers. The show was broadcast live, which was a daring feat. It lasted 3 years.
Brando became famous during that same time with the films A Streetcar Named Desire, Viva Zapata, and On the Waterfront.
Cox then voiced the TV cartoon character Underdog, appeared on the pilot episode of Mission: Impossible (but wasn’t signed on as a series regular), and starred in a classic episode of The Twilight Zone. He also became a regular on the game show Hollywood Squares.
Wally Cox worked all the time. That might have contributed to his multiple divorces. He was married three times.
Brando and Cox both lived in California and frequently hung out at one another’s homes. Sometimes the two men would go hiking in Death Valley.
Some of Cox’s wives supposedly didn’t care for Brando with his angry moods and odd behaviors. Wally didn’t like that side of his old pal, either, but he tolerated Brando better than most.
1973: Just as Brando’s career was making a comeback with The Godfather, Cox died suddenly of heart failure at age 48. Brando flew to Los Angeles from his home in Tahiti. He was heartbroken.
At the memorial service, Brando snuck in the back to grieve in private and wouldn’t join the other mourners, many of whom were TV personalities.
Cox was cremated, and his widow asked Brando to scatter the ashes in a special location. But instead he kept his friend’s remains for years. He even publicly claimed to talk to Wally’s ashes.
Cox’s widow considered suing Brando but decided against it.
After Brando died, his family scattered both men’s ashes in Death Valley where they used to hike.
In a Time magazine interview, Brando said he thought of Wally Cox as a brother. “I can’t tell you how much I miss and love that man.”
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