Somebody, Stefan Kanfer
Somebody, Stefan Kanfer
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Somebody
The Reckless Life and Remarkable Career of Marlon Brando

Author: Stefan Kanfer

Narrator: Armando Durn

Unabridged: 14 hr 29 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 11/04/2008

Synopsis

Brando is perpetually fascinating, both for the power of the characters he portrayed and for his tumultuous personal life. Bestselling biographer Stefan Kanfer seamlessly intertwines the man and the work to give us the fullest and most illuminating appraisal yet. Kanfer takes us from Brandos troubled childhood to his arrival in New York in the 1940s, where he studied with the legendary Stella Adler and became, at age twentythree, the star of Broadway in A Streetcar Named Desire. He looks at each of Brandos films, offering a detailed analysis of his performances that shows the evolution of Brandos singular genius. He brings into focus Brandos selfdestructiveness, his ambivalence toward his craft, and the tragedies that shadowed his last years. What emerges is a definitive life of an iconic artist whose work forever altered the landscape of his craft.

About Stefan Kanfer

Stefan Kanfer was a journalist, critic, and editor, as well as the author of sixteen books, including the bestselling biographies Groucho and Ball of Fire. Kanfer, the first by-lined cinema critic for the New York Times, was the recipient of many writing awards and was named a Literary Lion of the New York Public Library. He died in 2018.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Paul

In the early years he knew each and every one of his lines but he improvised. He insisted on many takes and each one was different, and, they said, each one brilliant. Later on, he didn’t bother to learn his lines at all, he’d have cue cards stuck all over the place, for instance on the shirt of the......more

Goodreads review by Andrewh

It is hard to justify the blurb's characterisation of this book as a 'definitive' book on Brando (there are dozens of others, of course, including Peter Manso's 1000-page monster), but it is certainly a well-written roadmap through a bizarre and extraordinary life. Brando is probably the most influe......more

Goodreads review by Kim

I thought Kanfer`s Somebody: The Reckless Life and Remarkable Career of Marlon Brando was very articulate and well written. It is obvious that a lot of research went into the writing of this book. However, my problem is that it was way too depressing and centred more around the recklessness than the......more

Goodreads review by Ed

Read two books on Brando. A shitty memoir written by a friend and a very slapdash bio. Since Mark Harris probably doesn’t take requests, I was sure that’s as good as it would get. Luckily, I caught wind of this and this was mostly what I wanted. Not a hardcore Brando fan but like Sinatra he is iconi......more

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