Somebody

Stefan Kanfer, acclaimed biographer of Lucille Ball and Groucho Marx, now gives us the definitive life of Marlon Brando, seamlessly intertwining the man and the work to give us a stunning and illuminating appraisal. Beginning with Brando's turbulent childhood, Kanfer follows him to New York where he made his star-making Broadway debut as Stanley Kowalski in A Streetcar Named Desire at age twenty-three. Brando then decamped for Hollywood, and Kanfer looks at each of Brando's films over the years--from The Men in 1950 to The Score in 2001--offering deft and insightful analysis of his sometimes brilliant, sometimes baffling performances. And, finally, Kanfer brings into focus Brando's self-destructiveness, ambivalence toward his craft, and the tragedies that shadowed his last years.