Brando's Smile: His Life, Thought, and Work

A groundbreaking work that reveals how Marlon Brando shaped his legacy in art and life.

When people think about Marlon Brando, they think of the film star, the hunk and the scandals. Susan L. Mizruchi finds 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 used his fame to foster American Indian and civil rights. From Brando's letters, audiotapes and annotated screenplays and books-many never before available-Mizruchi gives us a complex person whose intelligence belies the school dropout. She shows how Brando's embrace of foreign cultures and outsiders led to brilliant performances in unusual roles, fostering empathy on a global scale. In portraying a fuller Brando, Mizruchi portrays a more fascinating man than the one we thought we knew.