A few years back I had in interest in the origins of Method acting. I started my education with Brando because he's supposed to be the great and powerful Oz of it. I came away from the experience not just disappointed, but utterly repulsed. This caused me to have many heated arguments with Brando fanboys who treat his 'greatest actor ever' marketing image like it's gospel.
I won't get into my low opinion of his actual acting here because that's subjective. Talent is only a small part of an artist's success (in quality of work not popularity. The rest is all work ethics, passion for the art and a drive for self-improvement.
Brando lacked all those entirely. He could not possibly get any less professional and spent his entire career whining about how he hates acting and howa it's apparently not art. He never lifted a finger to improve his skills once he became big. He was never grateful for his extraordinary luck for turning up in the right place at the right to become the face of the method movement. On top of this he was a sociopath in his personal life. All in all:he's truly the worst rolemodel an actor can have.
So why is he so venerated? I now realize that all this nastiness is part and parcel of the male genius job description. Fanboys and society at large seem to lap it up. I see it again and again with 'artistic geniuses' (always dudes)