How Paul Newman Handled Being Mistaken For Marlon Brando

Whenever he was approached by a fan who mistook him for the famous method acting genius Marlon Brando, Paul Newman never let on that anything was amiss, according to Mental Floss. He wouldn’t even offer a correction. Instead, he would calmly take out his pen and write an autograph, signed: “Best wishes, Marlon Brando.” According to Newman, he probably signed at least 500 autographs as “Marlon Brando” (via Men’s Journal). Personality-wise, however, Newman thought he couldn’t be more different from the iconoclastic Brando, who had a “rebellious attitude, which I don’t believe I had.”

But Brando wasn’t the only actor — and rebel — he was mistaken for. Commenting on the matter, Newman once told a reporter: “Two years ago they thought I was Jimmy Dean [James Dean, the star of “Rebel Without a Cause”].” These were the struggles of being a handsome, talented and, above all, cool movie star in the ’50s and ’60s.

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