JOHN PRESCOTT, not usually associated with Hollywood glamour, has revealed that he would have liked Marlon Brando to play him in his life story. The Deputy Prime Minister said yesterday that he identified with the late actor’s early role as a former boxer-turned-longshoreman in the film On the Waterfront.

At a glance there would seem to be few similarities between Mr Prescott and the man who last year was voted (in a younger incarnation) “the most beautiful man in the world”.

Despite the differences, Mr Prescott told Radio 19 in Bristol that Brando would have been his choice to play him in a film version of his life. “I’ll take Marlon Brando in On the Waterfront,” he said. “I was always involved in strikes and seafaring and docks and so I’ll take him.”

In the film, Brando’s character, Terry Malloy, took on corrupt union bosses — echoing Mr Prescott’s struggles as a young left-wing union activist with the National Union of Seamen. Malloy also held ambitions to be a boxer.

Mr Prescott laughed off the alternative suggestion of Hugh Grant. “It’s not me,” he said. “He is New Labour, not old Labour.”

Times Recommends

• The real-life adventures of Tintin the spy
• Our universities face a radical upheaval
• Doctor Who