Brando Unzipped: Bad Boy, Megastar, Sexual Outlaw

by Darwin Porter

Overview

That ongoing, barely under control drama known as Marlon Brando--Hollywood's Ultimate Bad Boy, Megastar, and Sexual Outlaw--with a special focus on his early rise to fame and his social and sexual associations with the A-list legends of the 40s, 50s, and 60s. Brando Unzipped is the definitive gossip guide to the late, great actor's life --New York Daily News. Lurid, raunchy, perceptive, and certainly worth reading, it's one of the best show-biz biographies of the year. --London's Sunday Times. Brando Unzipped received an Honorable Mention from Foreword Magazine in its Book of the Year competition, and it won a Silver Ippy award for Best Biography from the Independent Publisher's Association.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780978646530
Publisher:	Blood Moon Productions
Publication date:	01/02/2006
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	625
File size:	12 MB
Note:	This product may take a few minutes to download.

About the Author

Darwin Porter has been a noted entertainment columnist with The MIAMI HERALD, and is the author of at least four major biographies of movie stars of the film community's Golden Age. They include well-received biographies of Humphrey Bogart, Katharine Hepburn, and Howard Hughes, with special emphasis on the aviator's involvement in the film industry. He is also a creative force and the chief writer for many of THE FROMMER GUIDES, America's leading travel guidebook series. When not traveling, which is rare, he lives in New York, with frequent excursions to London and Los Angeles.

Preface

The same animalistic intensity that Marlon Brando brought to the role of Stanley Kowalski in "A Streetcar Named Desire" lives again within these pages, based on unpublished material gathered over a lifetime of research. The blue jeans made famous by Brando in "Streetcar" are unzipped in this richly anecdotal "warts-and-all" biography of the greatest film actor of the 20th century. Within its pages, veteran Hollywood reporter Darwin Porter paints an extraordinarily detailed portrait of Brando, particularly about his early years, that is as blunt, uncompromising, and X-rated as the man himself.

From the male sex symbol of the 1950s to an overweight slob and tabloid scandal at his century's end, Brando was filmdom's most original star.

A self-admitted bisexual, he seduced more women and the occasional man than any other actor in the history of Hollywood.

His secret meetings with Hollywood legends such as Greta Garbo and Cary Grant are told with frankness, as are his so-called "mercy f***s" with such stellar lights as Joan Crawford, Bette Davis, and John Gielgud. To Brando's bedroom came not just the famous, but the unknown pickups, including "almost every Japanese woman associated with the film 'Sayonara.'"

Revealed for the first time are the intimate details of his troubled but enduring love affair with the doomed Marilyn Monroe. One of the most poignant episodes revolves around his brief but evocative affair with the mentally disturbed Vivien Leigh, the Blanche DuBois to his Stanley in "A Streetcar Named Desire."

An aging Marlene Dietrich seduced him when he was just emerging into manhood. Brando bedded Grace Kelly on the night both of them won Oscars. He also impressed a widowed Jacqueline Kennedy with his charms. At Brando's peak, his list of lovers read like a "Who's Who" of the cultural elite: Rita Hayworth, Leonard Bernstein, Noel Coward, (Sir) Laurence Olivier, Shelley Winters, Gloria Vanderbilt, Tyrone Power, Hedy Lamarr, Anna Magnani, Tallulah Bankhead, Rock Hudson, Ingrid Bergman, and Doris Duke (at the time, the world's richest woman).

The decade-long passion Tennessee Williams maintained for Brando is exposed, beginning one night on a lonely beach in Provincetown during World War II. Also revealed for the first time are his tortured relationships and love affairs with his two chief rivals, Montgomery Clift and James Dean.

Personal family tragedy is also documented with pictures, including Brando's incestuous relationship with his teenage daughter, Cheyenne, who committed suicide in 1995. Also explored is Christian Brando's murder of Cheyenne's boyfriend, Dag Drollet.

If Marlon had not existed, no novelist could have created such a towering, larger-than-life creature.

Editorial Reviews

"Brando Unzipped, from Blood Moon, contains major revelations about the tumultuous love affairs of the American actor who died in July of 2004. Its author, Darwin Porter, spent 50 years assembling meticulously documented source material. Amazingly, revealed for the first time are details about the involvement of Brando with Edith Piaf in the early 1950s. Three days of lovemaking and carnal excess began with a misunderstanding..."

Le Journal du Dimanche (Paris)

"The tempestuous affair with James Dean is just one of dozens of homosexual relationships, flings, and one-night stands in which Brando indulged during a lifetime of sexual voraciousness, according to a shocking new book that is sparking a major reassessment of Brando's legacy as one of Hollywood's most macho lotharios."

Daily Express (London)

"Astonishing...Veteran reporter Darwin Porter paints a portrait of Brando that's as blunt, uncompromising, and X-rated as the man himself."

Women's Weekly (Australia)

"Original and at times amazing, BRANDO UNZIPPED documents a life of gargantuan excess that only Hollywood could have produced."

The Georgia Literary Association

"Entertainingly Outrageous."

Frontiers Magazine

"The contents of this biography are for the most part compelling, reflecting the underground quality of much of the information, and there is an astounding revelation on almost every page. If you enjoy gossip and are not too precious about presentation, this book is certainly worth reading. Of course, if you enjoy salacious gossip and tales of sexual abandon, you will find yourself in hog heaven."

The Sunday Times (London)

"He was considered one of the most dynamic and imposing actors of his generation, but as author Darwin Porter finds, it was just the acting world that Marlon Brando conquered. It was the actors, too. "

Gay Times (London)

"Yummy! That sums up Porter's titillatingly tabloidish account of Marlon Brando's eccentric, sex-centric years. The author barely pauses to take a deep breath as he dishes-drawing on 50 years of conversations with dozens of Brando's intimates-about the late, great actor's personal life.

But there's way more to this biography than sex: Porter writes with an insider's astuteness about the actor's movie career, critical passages that provide welcome depth. But it's no exaggeration to report that practically every page discloses a fascinating tidbit-about Liberace successfully seducing Dean, for example, but failing to seduce Brando. This is an irresistibly flamboyant romp of a read."

Bookmarks

"Brando Unzipped is the definitive gossip guide to the late, great actor's life."

The New York Daily News