This iconic actor’s break-up letter to girlfriend will be auctioned

Marlon Brando, Oscar winning star of ‘The Godfather’, wrote this note in the 1940s. (Image credit: RR Auctions)

The stars are just like us. In the 1940s, Marlon Brando, the legendary Oscar-winning actor of The Godfather, told his then girlfriend why he wanted to call it quits, reminding her, though not in those exact words, "it's not you, it's me".

The letter that he wrote at the time of his rising Broadway stardom is now up for auction.

It was listed by the Boston-based RR Auctions. The three-page note written with a pencil, replete with spelling errors, could fetch as much as $15,000 at the auction that will close next week.

Brando wrote the letter to French actress Solange Podell. The couple had met backstage during the production of A Streetcar Named Desire in New York. They quickly got into a romantic relationship but ended up going their separate ways. Brando rose to Hollywood stardom while Podell became a photographer.

"Please accept this letter with an open heart as it is written with fourthright sincerity," Brando told Podell in the letter (the original spellings are retained). “In order that you won’t think me a complete boor, I am writing you this letter to explain that because of an erratic, flighty, fly-by-night, temperament I wish not to humiliate and degrade your sentiments by seeing you only at my mood’s conveinence."

Marlon Brando as Vito Corleone in 'The Godfather'. (Image credit: Paramount Pictures)

Brando went on to apologise to her for not being "less self indulgent".

He said his intentions were good but emotions "unfortunately, unstable".

The actor signed off by telling Podell he would always remember her with "fondness, regard, and appreciation" and expressed hope they would cross paths again.

In the postscript, Brando sent his regards to Podell's mother

“Please give my kind acknowledgements to your mother, if she’ll accept them," he wrote.

Brando, who died in 2004, was counted among the most influential stars of the 20th century. In a career lasting six decades, he won two Oscars, two Golden Globes and three British Academy Film Awards.

His acting credits include The Last Tango in Paris, Apocalypse Now and Superman (1978). 

In 1973, he had famously refused an Oscar for The Godfather in protest against the treatment of Native American artistes. Iconic Native American activist and actor Sacheen Littlefeather had declined the award at the ceremony on his behalf.