The Contender

Starred review from July 1, 2019
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.

Starred review from June 1, 2019

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

Copyright 2019 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

August 1, 2019
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 Equality--he 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.

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Starred review from September 15, 2019
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.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2019, American Library Association.)