The Bad Boy Tradition

The twentieth century loved to celebrate the bad boys like Humphrey Bogart.

After the gangster movies and hard ridin' westerns, the reign of the misfit was imminent. Marlon Brando was the first to play the outsider with searing masculinity, becoming a major male sex symbol. Yet he was able to inject a sensitive, gentle touch to his tough guy persona. Wikipedia says he rode his own motorcycle in his role as a gang leader in the 1953 film, The Wild One.

Brando

set the stage for the confused, haunted James Dean and the feral Elvis, and the future sale of wife beater undershirts, leather jackets, and teen rebellion.