Brando's Smile
His Life, Thought, and Work
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- $15.99
Publisher Description
A Financial Times Best Book of the Year
"Brando’s Smile returns us to the power of his greatest performances." —Dan Chiasson, New York Review of Books
When people think about Marlon Brando they think of the movie star, the hunk, the scandals. Here, Susan L. Mizruchi—who gained unprecedented access to Brando’s letters, audiotapes, revised screenplays, and books—reveals the complex man whose intelligence belies the high-school dropout. She shows how Brando’s embrace of foreign cultures and social outsiders led to his brilliant performances in unusual roles to test himself and to foster empathy in his audience.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Mizruchi, a professor of English at Boston University, leaves no stone unturned in this cohesive biography of Marlon Brando. Brimming with colorful anecdotes and details, the biography dissects Brando's life and creative process, from his Omaha, Neb., roots and his acting schooling with Stella Adler and fellow student Elia Kazan, to stage roles such as Stanley Kowalski in Streetcar Named Desire and star turns in canonical films such as The Godfather, Last Tango in Paris, and Apocalypse Now. Mizruchi's academic portrait of the great actor who "slept every day until noon" and "buried himself in books" is at once microscopic and sweeping, intimately focused on unpacking his work role by role. A major part of her project is to overturn the "dismissal" of Brando's work in the 1960s, especially One-Eyed Jacks. Mizruchi also explores the actor's devotion to the cause of Native American rights, which "had roots in the history of his family in the state of Nebraska." This is a wonderfully cohesive work about Brando, both as an actor and a man.
