When people think about Marlon Brando, they think of the movie star, the hunk, the scandals. In Brando's Smile, Susan L. Mizruchi reveals 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 loved Emily Dickinson's poetry.

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.

About the Author
Susan L. Mizruchi, a professor of English at Boston University, specializes in American literature, cultural history, and film.

Reviews
"Brimming with colorful anecdotes and details... a wonderfully cohesive work about Brando, both as an actor and a man." "[Mizruchi is] the first to have access to Brando's private archives, including his extensive library, film archives and research materials... Fascinating." -- Tom Shone "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." -- Julia M. Klein "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." "The most amazing restoration work on an artist's image that I've ever seen." -- Greg Carpenter



Book Information
ISBN 9780393082869
Author Susan L. Mizruchi
Format Hardback
Page Count 512
Imprint WW Norton & Co
Publisher WW Norton & Co
Weight(grams) 848g
Dimensions(mm) 244mm * 168mm * 41mm