Synopses & Reviews
When people think about Marlon Brando they think of the movie star; the hunk; the scandals. Susan L. Mizruchi finds the Brando others have missed: the man who collected four thousand books; the man who rewrote scripts, trimming his lines to make them sharper; the man who consciously used his body and employed the objects around him to create believable characters; the man who used his fame to foster Indian and civil rights. From Brando's letters, audiotapes, and annotated screenplays and books--many never before available--Mizruchi gives us a complex person whose intelligence belies the high-school dropout. She shows how Brando's embrace of foreign cultures and outsiders led to brilliant performances in unusual roles--a gay man, an Asian, and a German soldier--to foster empathy on a global scale and to test himself. In portraying a fuller Brando, Mizruchi portrays an even more fascinating man.
Review
"Brimming with colorful anecdotes and details... a wonderfully cohesive work about Brando, both as an actor and a man." Publishers Weekly
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"[Mizruchi is] the first to have access to Brando's private archives, including his extensive library, film archives and research materials... Fascinating." Tom Shone
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"To understand the complete Brando...any future biographer will now have to take account of Mizruchi's Brando as well--to somehow square the lover and the sensualist with the critical thinker." Atlantic
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"Renowned cultural scholar Susan L. Mizruchi explores the Brando that was not visible to the world in order to better understand the one that was--a Brando that was independent of the public persona and often at odds with it." Julia M. Klein Boston Globe
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"The most amazing restoration work on an artist's image that I've ever seen." Examiner
Synopsis
Susan Mizruchi presents the Marlon Brando you've never met.
Synopsis
To write this biography, Mizruchi gained unprecedented access to a vast number of annotated books from Brando s library, hand-edited copies of screenplays, private letters, and recorded interviews that have never before been quoted in a biography. Original interviews with some of the still-living players from Brando s life, including Ellen Adler, his one-time girlfriend and the daughter of his acting teacher Stella Adler, provide even deeper insight into the complex person whose intelligence belied the high-school dropout.
Mizruchi shows how Brando s embrace of foreign cultures and social outsiders led to his brilliant performances in unusual roles a gay man, an Asian, a German soldier to test himself and to foster empathy on a global scale. We also meet the political Brando: the civil rights activist, the close friend of James Baldwin, the actor who declined his Oscar to support Indian rights.
More than seventy stunning and many rare photographs of Marlon Brando illuminate this portrait of the man who has left an astounding cultural legacy.
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Synopsis
A groundbreaking work that reveals how Marlon Brando shaped his legacy in art and life.
About the Author
Susan L. Mizruchi, a professor of English at Boston University, specializes in American literature, cultural history, and film.