Marlon Brando’s Snakeskin Jacket in The Fugitive Kind

Marlon Brando in The Fugitive Kind (1960) Vitals Marlon Brando as Valentine “Snakeskin” Xavier, guitar-playing drifter seeking redemption Mississippi Delta, January 1959 Film: The Fugitive Kind Release Date: April 14, 1960 Director: Sidney Lumet Costume Designer: Frank L. Thompson WARNING! Spoilers ahead! Background For National Snake Day on July 16th, let’s celebrate the famous snakeskin jacket that Marlon Brando wore as Valentine “Val” Xavier in The Fugitive Kind, adapted from Tennessee Williams’ 1957 play Orpheus Descending—itself a modern retelling of the ancient Greek myth of Orpheus and Eurydice. The Fugitive Kind begins as Val explains his destructive actions at a New Year’s Eve party to a New Orleans court, vowing never to return to the city. With little to his name except a vintage Kay guitar he was given by Leadbelly himself, Val chugs his old Plymouth clunker across the state line into the Mississippi Delta, where his search for a dry place to sleep on his 30th birthday…