"Brando's wearing an eight-panel mariner's cap with leather visor, Bausch and Lomb aviator sunglasses-and sideburns. His hands, gripping the cruiser handlebars, are covered in black leather gloves and he wears a Schott Perfecto-style black leather motorcycle jacket, zipped to the neck, and personalized with a star on each of the epaulets, indicating his status as leader of the pack. The name 'Johnny' is stitched over his heart-the name of his character, Johnny Strabler. This was, in many ways, an unlikely role for an actor of Brando's stature. Already regarded as a transformative figure when he arrived in Hollywood from Broadway in 1949, twice nominated for Academy Awards for Best Actor, and most recently onscreen as Mark Antony in William Shakespeare's Julius Caesar (which would soon lead to his third Best Actor nomination), he was playing what is effect was a grown-up juvenile delinquent. And though the music in The Wild One is jazz and the language is rebop, he would become the archetype for a rock 'n' roll generation just waiting to be unloosed, and more: actors, activists, fashion designers, artists, hipsters, and politicians will all follow because of the image of an actor pretending to ride a motorcycle in front of a rear projection screen. With this role more than any other, Marl on Brando becomes more than a movie star. He is James Dean. He is Steve McQueen. He is Dennis Hopper and Peter Fonda in Easy Rider. He is Jack Nicholson in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. He is Robert De Niro in Taxi Driver, John Travolta in Grease, Johnny Depp in Cry-Baby, Ryan Gosling in Drive. He is John Lennon, Johnny Hallyday, Bruce Springsteen, Lou Reed, Freddie Mercury, Robert Mapplethorpe. He is the Ramones. He is Prince in Purple Rain. He is Austin Butler in Elvis. He is Elvis. Hey, he's Suzi Quatro, Chrissie Hynde, Cherie currie, Madonna, Lady Gaga, and Rihanna, too. Or they are him. Marlon Brando was the rebel before any of them. He is the one they want to be."