Brando is perpetually fascinating: for his triumphs as an actor (On the Waterfront, The Godfather, Last Tango in Paris), as well as his disasters (Candy and The
Appaloosa, among others); for the power of the characters he portrayed on screen, as well as his powerfully tumultuous personal life. Now Stefan Kanfer gives us the definitive life of
this iconic artist, seamlessly intertwining the man and the work to give us the fullest and most illuminating appraisal we have ever had.
Kanfer takes us through Brando’s childhood, troubled by a brutal father and an alcoholic mother, supplying the background we need to understand the Brando who arrived in New York in the
1940s, studied with the legendary Stella Adler, and at the age of twenty-three became the star of Broadway in A Streetcar Named Desire. The author looks at each of Brando’s films—from
The Men in 1950 to The Score in 2001—providing sometimes scene-by-scene re-creation and analysis of his performances, making clear the evolution of Brando’s singular genius. And
he brings into focus Brando’s self-destructiveness, lifelong dissembling, and ambivalence toward his craft, and the tragedies that shadowed his last years.
What emerges from these pages is a never-before-seen portrait of one of the most extraordinary talents of the twentieth century—an artist who permanently changed the cultural landscape.
