Marlon Brando was a brilliant actor, but his various eccentricities turned him into something of a walking caricature late in life, and his death this year did little to dispel the popular vision of him as a Hollywood joke. But now, “some of the people closest to the actor, who was known for protecting his privacy, have begun to speak publicly about his life, partly to correct the notion, fostered by tabloid stories, that he died a recluse, almost penniless and deeply in debt.”