Ever wonder how much of Brando was in Stanley Kowalski? When Brando's alcoholic mother followed him to New York, he would come over and urinate in her kitchen sink to annoy her, as she would complain to anyone who would listen, "why doesn't he stop this shit?" Acclaimed as a great, even magnificent actor after his Broadway debut in Streetcar Named Desire, only to ride a roller-coaster of artistic highs and lows since, Brando embodies all of the glories and contradictions of the American star/artist. Bosworth, author of acclaimed biographies of Diane Arbus and Montgomery Clift, has written an informative biography of Brando that, because of the limited format of the Penguin Lives series, hints at but cannot do justice to the great unruliness of Brando's career and life. She provides a fine, detailed sketch of his New York days when he took acting classes with "Harry Belafonte, Elaine Stritch, Gene Saks, Shelley Winters, Rod Steiger and Kim Stanley," and presents a great portrait of the craziness on the set of Last Tango in Paris
(co-star Maria Schneider announced that they got along "because we're both bisexual"). But in only 228 pages, she can't approach the complexity of her earlier work. Yet even with these limitations, the book offers a vivid reminder of the personal and professional highlights of Brando's life, including his disastrous marriage to Anna Kashfi and its effect on his son, and how he resurrected his career (which had barely survived 10 flops) with Francis Ford Coppola's The Godfather. (Sept.)
Forecast:Given Bosworth's prominence and past critical acclaim—and the intrinsic interest of her subject—this book is unlikely to be ignored.
