Marlon Brando was a binge eater. The essential features of binge eating disorder are recurrent out-of-control episodes of consuming abnormally large amounts of food. His eating binges grew to assume legendary proportions. Brando frequently consumed two whole chickens, half a cheesecake and a pint of ice cream in a single sitting. He was also known to don a pair of sunglasses and a large hat before driving to a food stand in the middle of the night to gorge himself on several hot dogs, often six at a time.
He was renowned for eating boxes of Mallomars and cinnamon buns, washing them down with a quart of milk. His second wife, Movita, who had a lock put on their refrigerator to stop what she thought was the household staff stealing food, awoke one morning to find the lock broken and teeth marks – Brando’s – on a round of cheese.
According to Karl Malden, during the shooting of One-Eyed Jacks (1961), he would have “two steaks, potatoes, two apple pies a la mode and a quart of milk” for dinner, necessitating constant altering of his costumes. Mutiny on the Bounty (1962) costumer James Taylor claimed that Brando split the seat on more than fifty pairs of pants during the shooting of the film, requiring stretch fabric to be sewn into Marlon’s replacement trousers . . . which he also split. It was also reported that Brando would row himself out in the middle of a lagoon in his private island, Tetiaroa (a Polynesian atoll 30 miles from Tahiti), and stuff himself with 5-gallon tubs of ice cream.
