Brando did not cross international borders to reach the American stage. He was born at Omaha Maternity Hospital to Marlon Brando Sr., a chemical feeds salesman, and Dorothy Julia Pennebaker, an actress and theater administrator. The Brando family lineage on his father's side traced back to Johann Wilhelm Brandau, a German immigrant who arrived in New York in the early 1700s, alongside French Huguenot forebears who anglicized the surname.
His early youth was spent wandering the American heartland rather than foreign capitals. After Omaha, the family moved to Evanston, Illinois, then to California for a brief stretch, before settling in Libertyville, Illinois. Brando was expelled from Libertyville High School and later sent to Shattuck Military Academy in Faribault, Minnesota, the alma mater of his father. He was expelled from Shattuck in the spring of 1943 after defying school officers and sneaking into town, terminating any prospects of an orthodox military career.
