LOS ANGELES, Oct. 6 - A few days after Marlon Brando's death in July, at a gathering of his friends and some of his 10 surviving children, a fellow actor, Ed Begley Jr., stood up to speak.

Clenching his jaw and mumbling his lines in the style of the man who practically defined acting in the last half-century, Mr. Begley recalled being summoned to Brando's home a few years ago to talk about an urgent project.

Assuming that he wanted to collaborate on a film, Mr. Begley eagerly made his way to the Brando estate on Mulholland Drive here. The veteran actor revealed his idea: to acquire thousands of electric eels, from which he would harness energy to power the needs of his daily life.

"'We're going to run the house on the eels,"' Brando said, the pitch-perfect younger actor recalled. When Mr. Begley, slightly stunned, responded that he did not think it could be done, Mr. Brando murmured, "'Everything's no with you."'