EVERYBODY ASKS US THE SAME QUESTION ABOUT Marlon Brando: "What's he like?"

The answer isn't simple. To say what Brando is "like" would be harder than re-winding an unravelled golf ball.

In the first place, we don't know him. We've met him and we've talked to him for awhile. But we don't know him. We'll wager that few people do.

WE ONLY can give our impressions—impressions formed after three comparatively brief meetings. To begin with, he makes you nervous. You get the feeling he may explode and splash all over you without warning.

He suggests violence without committing it. Violence of the table-clearing variety depicted in "Streetcar Named Desire." It's probably this one characteristic that makes him the great actor he is.

BRANDO IS NOT INTERESTED IN SMALL TALK. HE can make polite conversation but obviously doesn't enjoy it. Yet, he becomes very talkative when a subject strikes his fancy.

The camera you're carrying might interest him — and if it does, he'll ask a lot of questions. When he has learned all he wants to know, he settles back in his chair and waits for you to carry the ball.

Marlon never answers a question without giving it a lot of. thought. His answers are long and tedious and he sometimes gets lost in the middle. When this happens, he smiles and starts over again.

OUR MOST recent meeting with Marlon took place in Kyoto, where he is starring in Warner Bros.' "Sayonara."

While we were talking, he summoned a room boy and placed an order for three fried eggs, bacon, toast and coffee. This was a big mistake. Any Japan veteran who has ordered a "piece of pie" and wound up with a "pizza pie" could predict what would happen next.

Counting three of us in the room (a Stripes photographer was the third party), the boy summed it up and came back with three orders of two fried eggs instead of one order of three fried eggs.

MARLON DIDN'T say a word. He fixed the boy with his best "On the Waterfront" stare, signed the tab and said in an almost inaudible voice, "Thank you." The boy bowed out of the room, happy that he had pleased Marlon Brando, .

Marlon was silent for a moment or two before sighing,

"You can't win ... Would you fellows like some eggs?"

WHILE MARLON ATE WE TALKED ABOUT A LOT of things. He repeated that he wasn't happy with his performance in "Teahouse of the August Moon" and dismissed his part in "Sayonara" with, "You can't really tell yet."

He seemed quite enthused over his independent motion picture company (called Pennypacker), When he returns to the States he'll produce, direct and star in a western, tentatively titled, "Beast of Vermillion."

At the end of our talk, Marlon apologized because he didn't feel it had gone too well. "I'm sorry," he said,

"I had something on my mind,"

WE LEARNED later that photographer Hank Simons, who was shooting during the interview, had distracted him. This puzzled us no end, We felt quite sure that the Brando we had heard about would speak up if something was bothering him.

What's Marlon Brando like?

We honestly don't know.