The contender : the story of Marlon Brando

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Title:

The contender : the story of Marlon Brando

Author:

Mann, William J., author.

ISBN:

9780062427649

Edition:

1st ed.

Physical Description:

718 pages, 16 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations (some color) ; 24 cm.

Contents:

Prologue: The man on the witness stand -- An imaginative young man -- The hoodlum aristocrat -- The American Hamlet -- The rabble-rouser -- A family man -- Epilogue: The bard of the Hollywood Hills.

Personal Subject:

Brando, Marlon.

Subject Term:

Motion picture actors and actresses -- United States -- Biography.

Genre:

Biographies

Summary:

When Marlon Brando burst onto stage and screen in the late 1940s, he fundamentally changed the way other actors perceived their craft. The charismatic, enigmatic Brando was immediately heralded as the 'American Hamlet'--the one Yank who could surpass Olivier, Gielgud, and Richardson as the standard of acting greatness. His approach was natural, honest, and deeply personal, resulting in performances--A Streetcar Named Desire, On the Waterfront, Julius Caesar, The Godfather, and others--that are still today without parallel. But Brando's impact on American culture extends far beyond his professional significance. He both codified and challenged midcentury American ideas about masculinity. He was also a whistleblower on American politics--a Cassandra warning us of the challenges to come. Brando predicted and feared the ubiquity of celebrity culture. His advocacy for social justice and against racism, often dismissed at the time as dilettantism, now appears to have been the least a person of his influence could have done (he was arrested more than once) during that period of widespread inequity. Brando believed that to conduct business as usual during national moral crises--the civil rights movement, the Vietnam War, constitutional threats under Richard Nixon--would make him complicit in the problem. What mattered to this son of abusive, alcoholic parents was not winning Academy Awards but aiding others who, like him, felt powerless. Yet closer to home, the wounded Brando's great empathy often failed the women in his life and his own children. Psychologically astute, masterfully researched, and based on new and revelatory material from Brando's own private archives, [this book] explores the star in full, revealing his extraordinarily complex life to be remarkably relevant to today. --

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Library	Call Number	Status
Searching... Hardwood Creek Library (Forest Lake)	921 BRANDO	Searching... Unknown
Searching... R.H. Stafford Library (Woodbury)	921 BRANDO	Searching... Unknown
Searching... R.H. Stafford Library (Woodbury)	921 BRANDO	Searching... Unknown

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Summary

Entertainment Weekly's BIG FALL BOOKS PREVIEW Selection

Best Book of 2019 -- Publisher's Weekly

Based on new and revelatory material from Brando's own private archives, an award-winning film biographer presents a deeply-textured, ambitious, and definitive portrait of the greatest movie actor of the twentieth century, the elusive Marlon Brando, bringing his extraordinarily complex life into view as never before.

The most influential movie actor of his era, Marlon Brando changed the way other actors perceived their craft. His approach was natural, honest, and deeply personal, resulting in performances--most notably in A Streetcar Named Desire and On the Waterfront--that are without parallel. Brando was heralded as the American Hamlet--the Yank who surpassed British stage royalty Laurence Olivier, John Gielgud, and Ralph Richardson as the standard of greatness in the mid-twentieth century.

Brando's impact on American culture matches his professional significance; he both challenged and codified our ideas of masculinity and sexuality. Brando was also one of the first stars to use his fame as a platform to address social, political, and moral issues, courageously calling out America's deeply rooted racism.

William Mann's brilliant biography of the Hollywood legend illuminates this culture icon for a new age. Mann astutely argues that Brando was not only a great actor but also a cultural soothsayer, a Cassandra warning us about the challenges to come. Brando's admonitions against the monetization of nearly every aspect of the culture were prescient. His public protests against racial segregation and discrimination at the height of the Civil Rights movement--getting himself arrested at least once--were criticized as being needlessly provocative. Yet those actions of fifty years ago have become a model many actors follow today.

Psychologically astute and masterfully researched, based on new and revelatory material, The Contender explores the star and the man in full, including the childhood traumas that reverberated through his professional and personal life. It is a dazzling biography of our nation's greatest actor that is sure to become an instant classic.

The Contender includes sixteen pages of photographs.

Author Notes

William J. Mann is an American novelist, biographer, and Hollywood historian best known for his studies of Hollywood and the American film industry, especially his 2006 biography of Katharine Hepburn, Kate: The Woman Who Was Hepburn. Kate was named one of the 100 Notable Books of 2006 by the New York Times. Mann was born in Connecticut and received his Master's degree at Wesleyan University. His first novel, The Men From the Boys, was published by Dutton in 1997. His other biographies include How to Be a Movie Star: Elizabeth Taylor in Hollywood, and 2014's New York Times bestseller: Hello Gorgeous: Becoming Barbra Streisand.

(Bowker Author Biography)

Reviews (4)

Publisher's Weekly Review

Biographer Mann (The Wars of the Roosevelts) presents an insightful and well-researched portrait of Marlon Brando. As Mann shows, Brando transformed acting with the "raw power" and vulnerability of his performances, yet he resented the fame he won and felt little passion for a skill that came naturally to him. Taking a cinematic approach, Mann swoops in on pivotal moments in Brando's life. He explores in depth Brando's traumatic childhood with two alcoholic parents, his 1943 arrival in New York City to study at the New School's Dramatic Workshop, his formative work with drama teacher Stella Adler and director Elia Kazan, his late 1950s and '60s period as a perceived Hollywood "sellout," his 1972 comeback with The Godfather and Last Tango in Paris, the refuge he found on an atoll near Tahiti, his struggles with anger and depression, and his complicated family life. Deeply drawn to social advocacy, Brando campaigned for the civil rights movement and refused his Godfather Oscar to protest Hollywood's depiction of Native Americans. Though sympathetic to Brando, Mann doesn't shy away from his flaws, such as his often callous treatment of women. The result is a thoughtfully considered study of a supremely talented, observant, and imaginative man who became a reluctant cultural icon. Agent: Malaga Baldi, Malaga Baldi Literary. (Oct.)

Kirkus Review

A new biography of a legendary actor who "used his fame to draw attention to racism and injustice."It has been 25 years since Peter Manso's 1,000-page Brando: The Biography, and award-winning biographer Mann (The Wars of the Roosevelts: The Ruthless Rise of America's Greatest Political Family, 2016, etc.) believes Manso (and "conventional wisdom") incorrectly portrays Brando (1924-2004) as "eccentric, erratic, narcissistic and hypocritical." In this meticulously researched book, bolstered by access to the Brando estate, Mann "attempts to see Brando's life, career, choices, and actions in a new light." The author describes him as a "thinker, an observer, an examiner of himself and the world, with the goal of figuring out both." He sympathetically portrays Brando as a survivor of childhood trauma, the only son of alcoholic parents: an abusive father and a distant, neglectful mother Brando loved dearly. Mann begins in 1943 in New York City, where the impoverished high school dropout studied at the New School's Dramatic Workshop. He was insecure about many things but not sex, and his womanizing would always be a problem. The gifted teacher, Stella Adler, took "her young student under her wing." She wanted to make him great, but for Brando, acting would always be a "lark, a game of pretense." Although he was in a dark place, Brando did A Streetcar Named Desire on Broadway primarily because of director Elia Kazan, whom Brando greatly admired. After its success, Mann writes, he "knew his life was no longer his own." In 1963, he walked with the Congress on Racial Equalityhe believed that "if more people knew about the reality of racial discrimination, they wouldn't stand for it"and he was furious over what the studio did to his directorial debut, One-Eyed Jacks. Throughout, Mann balances Brando's reluctance to act with excellent insights into his finest performances. Brando enjoyed the improvisation he brought to The Godfather and Last Tango in Paris; it made acting seem "fun and creative." For Mann, Brando was always a "searcher" who "spent his life trying to become ever more conscious."A complex, intimate, and illuminating inquiry into and defense of Brando. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Booklist Review

Perhaps more than any other film star, Marlon Brando was alternately idolized and reviled, his reputation yo-yoing from one extreme to another throughout his career. In this extensively researched, consistently insightful reassessment of the man and the artist, Mann argues that it's time we throw the yo-yo away and ""respect what Brando had to say, and not refute it, or doubt it, or read ulterior motives into it."" Structuring his biography like a film, Mann jumps from one key moment in Brando's life to another the dysfunctional family life, the great movie roles, the tempestuous and often callous relationships with lovers, the tragedies that befell his children and, while the book brings something new and often revelatory to all of these familiar aspects of the Brando saga (the backstory on the ""Contender"" speech from On the Waterfront is especially fascinating), Mann is at his best when he digs into Brando's tortured relationship with acting itself. Jack Kerouac said Brando was a ""free soul,"" but Brando himself ""didn't feel like a free soul at all. He felt like a prisoner."" Social activism (especially the civil rights movement) was Brando's passion, not acting, and, while his efforts as an activist were consistently decried as inauthentic, Mann argues convincingly that Brando's work from the 1940s onward in support of a variety of issues (he was among the first public figures to call attention to climate change) produced the moments in his life he most cherished. And, yet, Mann reminds us, Brando's ambivalence about acting ""cannot dislodge his genius."" A compelling biography, rich in complexity and irony.--Bill Ott Copyright 2010 Booklist

Library Journal Review

Despite the magnitude of Marlon Brando's influence as an actor and activist, there have been few biographies of him since his death in 2004, and only Stefan Kanfer's Somebody presented a full and balanced portrait. This contribution from Mann (How To Be a Movie Star) is a deeply engaging and perceptive from page one. Neither hagiography nor scandal sheet, it's a clear reckoning of a complex man. The author explores the films, of course, but mostly Brando himself: his difficulties with his father, his exponential growth as an actor, his awakened activism concerning racism in America, and his endlessly complicated relationships with women. The curious twist, and possibly the most compelling aspect, is Mann's decision to conclude with a quiet moment in 1974--leaving the final 25 years of Brando's life for a brief epilog. The madness of Apocalypse Now, his sporadic retirement, and his increasingly public family issues are thus given the briefest of consideration. While the narrative is bookended by descriptions of son Christian Brando's 1991 trial for manslaughter, Mann has crafted a fitting end to the story he wanted to tell, and this account may be the richer for it. VERDICT A thoroughly enjoyable, illuminating read, and a must for all libraries. [See Prepub Alert, 4/8/19.]--Peter Thornell, Hingham P.L., MA

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Bound With These Titles

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Summary

Summary

Author Notes

Reviews (4)

Publisher's Weekly Review

Kirkus Review

Booklist Review

Library Journal Review

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